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Sunday, April 23, 2000
Navy marks sub force's 100th year
Submariners recall bonds forged at sea
By Deborah Martínez
Caller-Times
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| Paul Iverson/Caller-Times |
| Bud Ottoson (from left), C.W. 'Whitey' Davidson and Ron Estes show off some of their submarine memorabilia. U.S. submarine veterans and active submariners around the world are celebrating the submarine force's 100th anniversary with the U.S. Navy this year. |
To be locked in a windowless, airtight capsule and deprived of contact with the outside world for up to six months is something that permanently joins everyone who's ever done it.
That's what thousands of men of the U.S. Navy submarine force that has existed for more than 100 years say.
Subvet Ron Estes said the bond between active and retired submarine veterans is one that no one can understand from the outside, not even another Navy sailor.
"After you get on the boat, if you don't like it you immediately ask to leave," said the 60-year-old Padre Island resident who served from 1959 to 1966 on the submarine force. "If you like it, you bond with it. It's just something that gets under you skin. It was exciting. It was a challenge. You bond with the other men, look out after each other when you're an old subvet."
U.S. submarine veterans and _active submariners around the world are celebrating the submarine force's 100th anniversary with the U.S. Navy this year.
Commemorative postage stamps, coins and celebrations are planned.
The stamp collection is available at the U.S. Post Office on Nueces Bay Boulevard, or via a special Web site, www.submarinecentennial.com, where the gold or silver coins and other gifts can be found.
The history of the submarine force, or the "silent force" as it is known within the U.S. Navy, is one that goes back to 1900, when the Navy bought its first submarine from John Holland for $150,000 and named the ship the USS Holland.
It was armed with a single torpedo tube and pneumatic dynamite gun that fired through an opening in the bow and carried three Whitehead torpedoes, each with a pressure-sensitive piston to control the depth of the run.
A pendulum controlled the torpedo's stability, while a gyroscope controlled its direction.
Unlike today's U.S. nuclear-powered submarines, the Holland was fueled by gasoline.
Over the years, the submarine force developed from a fleet of awkward, sluggish gasoline-powered ships that pushed through the water at less than 10 knots an hour, to a diesel-powered force that pulled 14 knots an hour.
Today's nuclear-powered ships cruise at least at 25 knots, or about 29 miles an hour.
Despite their agility, the ships generally weigh 7,000 tons. The early ships' weighed 300 to 500 tons. Today's submarines generate their own water, oxygen and electricity.
And where as once a submariner's only contact with the world above sea level was through military radioing, now, occasional e-mails can be wired in.
The force's premier glory was during World War II, when it was the most independent and effective Navy weapon. Though they made up under just 2 percent of the Navy, U.S. submariners destroyed more than 30 percent of the Japanese Navy's ships and 60 percent of the Japanese merchant fleet.
But those victories came with a harsh price: 375 officers, 3,131 enlisted submariners and 52 submarines were lost.
That was the highest casualty rate for all the U.S. armed forces during World War II, according to the Navy.
"The undersea environment is very unforgiving," said Rear Adm. Malcolm Fages, a subvet and head of the submarine warfare directorate of chief of naval operations. "As a consequence, submarines have developed a strong focus on excellence.
"If you're a submariner once, you're always a submariner," Fages said. "I think that the men in a submarine develop a reliance on one another because of the environment you're forced to live and work in. It's hard work."
It is that hard work that creates the tight-knit community amongst submariners, officers and enlisted men included, said local subvet Bud Ottoson, who served from 1959 to 1974.
Living 18-hour days in shifts, with six hours for personal time, the sailors and the ship are always bustling.
Everyone must know everyone else's job, whether it's the cook knowing how to be a sonar technician or a supply specialist being able to jump into the torpedo technician spot. There is no time to even be claustrophobic, Ottoson said, because everyone is focused on his mission undersea.
"Everybody on that boat is qualified," said Ottoson, whose first child was born while he was under way.
"You know they're also hustling their butt to be there. You can trust them with your life. You'd have to, to be each other's community, away from anything else."
Special training and criteria is required to join the U.S. submarine force, such as psychological evaluations and special schooling on sonar, torpedoes and knowing how to use and be around a nuclear reactor.
Whitey Davidson, a 74-year-old veteran of 14 submarines who served on the force from 1947 to 1964, said the intense training almost does make a submariner feel as if he is in a class by himself.
"The reality is that you are in an elite group," Davidson said. "The pride never dies in a submariner."
Staff writer Deborah Martínez can be reached at 886-3618 or by e-mail at martinezd@caller.com
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