Subs

Submarines, naval u-boats, not sandwiches.

In the early 1950's Admiral Rickover convinced the the US Navy to put nuclear propulsion power aboard submarines. He had been for a while at the Oak Ridge Atomic works during the war and saw the possibilities of submarines that were not dependent upon air for propulsion. The diesel electric propulsion required the subs to run on the surface to travel any distance. Submerged and running on battery power they only ran at slow speeds, as the batteries would be exhausted in only two hours running at full power.

So the plans were drawn up and construction started on the USS Nautilus, and the USS Seawolf. This is the Seawolf built in the mid 1950's, there were other subs named the the Seawolf, before this one, and after this one.

Westinghouse supplied the reactors and engine room machinery for the Nautilus, and General Electric supplied the propulsion equipment for the Seawolf.

These submarines were built at the Electric Boat Company in Groton Connecticut, which is just across the river from New London, CT. I was working in the Boston Office of GE, and was sent down to Groton the help with the installation of the GE turbines and gears, and the turbo-generators.

Now, I know not many of you have been aboard a submarine, so a little explanation will be helpful. There are certain requirements to work on a submarine. Number one is PATIENCE. This is a must. Other requirements are not to be claustrophobic, not to be fat, to carry a flashlight, it is awfully dark when the lights go out, and to know your job.

The job that required the utmost patience was to be an electrician working on the electrical gear in the Reactor room. The only passage through the reactor room was on the upper level, The reactor and associated equipment occupied the lower level. The fore and aft passage through this space was three feet wide between two rows of electrical cabinets with sliding drawers that could be pulled out to work on the equipment. So anybody going to or from the engine room had to go through this passage. Now electricians would be working on the equipment in these pulled out drawers, and when somebody came by they had to close the drawer, and turn sideways to let the sideways turned passerby squeeze through. Then he could open the drawer and continue work until the next person came through. Now that required a person with the utmost patience.

The Engine Room was the last compartment going aft. Going from forward to aft, There were the electrical switchboards, the turbo generators, the control station, the propulsion turbines, the reduction gear, an electric propulsion motor on the line shaft, the thrust bearing on the line shaft which then went out the stern tube to the propellor.

The layout of the rest of the sub was, starting from the bow, the torpedo room,
bearthing areas. Control room, messhall, more bearthing underneath, and then tha reactor room and finally the engine room.

As I said at the begining, the hull design was a surface ship that could be closed up to be water tight so it could submerge. And was not operated at full power when submerged. In the new atomic powered subs, they had more power than the diesel boats, and could operate at full power when submerged. The Nautilus realized that this was a problem when they could not pull out of a power dive,
and bounced off the bottom of Long Island Sound. It was back to the drawing boards.