Friday, November 30, 2012

"Nautilus 90 North"


The title of this article was the signal sent by William Anderson, commanding officer of USS Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, upon completion of Operation Sunshine - the first submerged crossing of the Arctic Ocean beneath the polar ice-cap.  It told his superiors back in the USA that the ship had successfully passed beneath the North Pole.  He later gave his book about the operation the same title.




The operation made history in many ways, as well as being a triumphant demonstration of US naval technological capabilities.  I was fascinated by it as a youngster, reading Cdr. Anderson's book and many others dealing with it.

I recently came across this video clip about Operation Sunshine on YouTube, and thought you might enjoy it as much as I did.





Peter

3 comments:

Old NFO said...

Yep, quite the documentary considering that 'most' of what they were doing with Nautilus was still highly classified!!! Great video too!

Anonymous said...

The Nautilus is still here in New London. She's no longer an operational submarine due to the modifications required to turn her into a museum ship.

I'm surprised that we never saw this documentary in BESS (Basic Enlisted Submarine School) given the amount of submarine history we learn, it would fit right in.


Murphy's Law said...

I toured Nautilus a few years ago. Even though half of the boat is off-limits, it was still impressive and a lot different from the old WW2 boats.