Underway on nuclear power
A submarine that did not need air
Before Nautilus, every submarine had lived with the same limit. Diesel engines needed air, so a submarine had to come up to charge her batteries, then dive and run on battery power until it ran low.
Nuclear power promised to end that, because a reactor needs no air. The Navy's nuclear propulsion program, driven by Hyman G. Rickover, set out to build a submarine around one.
Launch and commissioning
That submarine was Nautilus (SSN-571). She was launched on 21 January 1954 at the Electric Boat yard in Groton, Connecticut, and sponsored by Mrs. Dwight D. Eisenhower. Navy records note that she was the first wife of a president to christen a Navy submarine.
Nautilus was commissioned on 30 September 1954, with Commander Eugene P. Wilkinson in command. She then stayed alongside the pier for further construction and testing, while her crew and the shipyard brought the reactor plant to life.
Four words
At 1100 on 17 January 1955, Nautilus cast off her lines. As she got underway, Commander Wilkinson sent a short signal: "Underway on nuclear power."
NHHC describes that day as the moment she became the first submarine underway on nuclear power. She headed down Long Island Sound into the Atlantic for her sea trials. A submarine no longer had to come up for air to recharge, and the Navy's thinking about what a submarine could do began to change.
Under the ice
Her best-known voyage came in 1958, under the code name Operation Sunshine. The goal was to cross the top of the world submerged, beneath the Arctic ice pack. NHHC notes that the mission was personally authorized by President Eisenhower.
The first attempt that summer was turned back. In the shallow Chukchi Sea, drifting ice reached too deep, and Nautilus withdrew. Her second attempt began on 23 July. She submerged on 1 August and pressed north under the ice. On 3 August 1958, under her new commanding officer, Commander William R. Anderson, she passed beneath the geographic North Pole. She became the first submarine to reach it.
After 96 more hours submerged, Nautilus surfaced off Greenland on 7 August. She had gone from the Pacific side of the Arctic to the Atlantic side by passing directly beneath the top of the world, out of sight of everyone but her own crew. Anderson and his crew were personally congratulated by President Eisenhower, and the ship received the Presidential Unit Citation.
A long career
Nautilus served for a quarter of a century, long enough to see nuclear submarines become the core of the force she had pioneered. She was decommissioned at Mare Island, California, in March 1980.
Why the signal still matters
Most famous naval messages come from battle. This one came from a pier on the Thames River in Connecticut, on a winter morning, at the end of years of engineering work. Its four words were a plain report that the machinery worked.
Behind it were thousands of people: designers, shipyard workers, engineers, and a crew who had trained for a kind of ship no one had sailed before. Every nuclear submarine since has followed the path they opened, and every crew that casts off today is part of the same story.
Our Underway on Nuclear Power collection is made for the crews who serve below, and the families who wait for them.
Harborborne is an independent brand and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. Navy or Department of Defense.
