September 30: On This Day in World History … briefly
Toward the end of her service, the hull and sail of Nautilus vibrated sufficiently that sonar became ineffective at more than 4 knots speed. As noise generation is extremely undesirable in submarines, this made the vessel vulnerable to detection. Lessons learned from this problem were applied to later nuclear submarines.
1954: US navy commissions world’s first nuclear-powered sub
USS Nautilus (SSN-571) was the world’s first operational nuclear-powered submarine and the first submarine to complete a submerged transit of the North Pole on August 3, 1958.
Her initial commanding officer was ‘Dennis’ Wilkinson, a widely respected naval officer who set the stage for many of the protocols of today’s Nuclear Navy, and had a storied career during military service and afterwards.
Sharing names with Captain Nemo’s fictional submarine in Jules Verne’s classic 1870 science fiction novel ‘Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea’, and named after another USS Nautilus (SS-168) that served with distinction in World War II, the new nuclear powered Nautilus was authorised in 1951, with laying down for construction in 1952 and launched in January 1954, attended by Mamie Eisenhower, First Lady of the United States, wife of 34th President Dwight D Eisenhower, and commissioned the following September into the United States Navy. Final construction was completed in 1955.
Because her nuclear propulsion allowed her to remain submerged far longer than diesel-electric submarines, she broke many records in her first years of operation, and traveled to locations previously beyond the limits of submarines. In operation, she revealed a number of limitations in her design and construction. This information was used to improve subsequent submarines.
Nautilus was decommissioned in 1980 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1982. The submarine has been preserved as a museum ship at the Submarine Force Library and Museum in Groton, Connecticut, where the vessel receives around 250,000 visitors per year.
Most notable historic snippets or facts extracted from the book ‘On This Day’ first published in 1992 by Octopus Publishing Group Ltd, London, as well as additional supplementary information extracted from Wikipedia.
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