Even if they got the equipment onto the ice, what would they anchor the Launch and Recovery System to? The hydraulic lift system was normally bolted to supports welded to the deck of the surface ship, holding the A-frame in place as it lifted the twenty-ton PRM and lowered it into the water. Without being secured to something, the A-frame would topple over when it tried to lift the PRM.
“We’ve got our challenges,” Steel replied, “but the Navy has an even bigger problem.”
“What’s that?” Tarbottom asked.
“How are they going to find North Dakota?”
18
The conversation had been short, and Director Bobby Pleasant hung up the phone with a single thought.
It was an impossible task.
Pleasant was the director of the U.S. Navy’s Arctic Submarine Laboratory. Located in warm San Diego, California, the Arctic Submarine Lab was responsible for developing and maintaining the skills, equipment, and procedures enabling the United States Submarine Force to operate safely and effectively in the Marginal Ice Zone and under the polar ice cap.
Before North Dakota departed for its northern run, Arctic Submarine Lab personnel had trained the crew to operate safely in the unique Arctic environment. Had Pleasant known the submarine was headed under the polar ice cap, he would have recommended they take an ice pilot, which was the normal protocol. However, North Dakota wasn’t supposed to head under the ice; whatever the crew was trailing must have taken her there.
In addition to training and assigning ice pilots to submarine crews during under-ice missions, the Arctic Submarine Lab was responsible for planning and executing periodic ice exercises, or ICEXs, which included the establishment of Arctic ice camps, especially when submarines were shooting exercise torpedoes under the ice. Exercise torpedoes floated to the surface after completing their run, where the multimillion-dollar weapons were retrieved and sent back to a maintenance facility for refurbishment. However, under the ice cap, the torpedoes didn’t float to the surface; they bumped up against the ice. So Arctic ice camps were established with the personnel and equipment to locate the exercise torpedoes and retrieve them.
It was the Arctic Submarine Lab’s experience in establishing ice camps, as well as locating torpedoes under the ice, that resulted in the phone call Pleasant had just received. However, locating a sunken submarine was a far different task than finding a torpedo. Exercise torpedoes had end-of-run pingers that were detected by a sonar array laid on top of the ice, plus the ice camp personnel already knew the area in which the torpedoes would be fired; typically only a few square miles. North Dakota’s location was unknown. At this time of year, the polar ice cap was at its maximum extent, and the submarine could be anywhere beneath six million square miles of ice.
Pleasant picked up his phone and called two men. A moment later, Vance Verbeck, the Arctic Submarine Lab’s Technical Director, and Paul Leone, the Lab’s most experienced ice pilot and a retired submarine commanding officer, entered his office.
“What’s up?” Verbeck asked.
“There’s a SUBMISS on the broadcast. North Dakota is twelve hours overdue.”
Verbeck was silent for a moment, then said, “Since you called us in here, I take it North Dakota went down under the ice cap.”
Pleasant nodded.
“Do we know where she sank?”
“I’m afraid not,” Pleasant replied.
“What do we know?”
Pleasant located the SUBMISS message on his computer, then read aloud the pertinent details. North Dakota was last located eighty-five hours ago in the Marginal Ice Zone in the Barents Sea, headed north. Pleasant read off the latitude and longitude, and the three men turned to a laminated map of the Arctic on Pleasant’s far wall.
Paul Leone pulled the cap off a dry-erase marker and put an X on the LAT/LONG position. Directly north was the gap between Svalbard and Franz Josef Land. He sketched a narrow wedge, widening out from North Dakota’s last known position, constrained by the shores of Svalbard to the west and Franz Josef Land to the East. Once past the two archipelagos, he drew a larger wedge expanding outward at forty-five degrees.
“Let’s assume an average speed of ten knots,” Leone said. “If she was trailing a ballistic missile submarine, it’s unlikely they were traveling any faster. Assuming she went down somewhere between her last position and seventy-two hours later when she missed her reporting deadline, that gives us a maximum distance traveled of seven hundred and twenty nautical miles.”
He drew a straight line north from North Dakota’s last known position, then marked off the distance in one-hundred-nautical-mile increments. When he reached 720, he drew a curved top to the wedge and then cut off the bottom, marking the maximum extent of the ice cap at this time of year, then stepped back.
Leone had drawn an area resembling a slice of pie with the crust at the top, and a bite taken off the bottom. It was approximately six hundred miles long with an average width of two hundred miles.
“She’s somewhere in here,” Leone said.
Pleasant did the math. Assuming Leone was correct, they had narrowed the search area from six million to 120,000 square miles. However, the sonar array they laid over the ice covered only four square miles. It would take at least a day to transport, set up, and listen in each of the four square miles. That meant it would take thirty thousand days — more than eighty years — to cover the 120,000 square mile area.
“Well,” Pleasant said, “it’s a start.”
He looked up at his technical director. “We need to expand the area we can search with the tracking array. Let’s combine the two arrays we have and add our spare hydrophones. Find a spot for the ice camp as close to the center of the search area as possible, and we’ll start from there. We’ll need multi-year ice, the thickest we can find.”
Verbeck examined the map. “Let’s stage out of Svalbard. We can fly everything into the airport at Longyearbyen, then transport it to the ice camp from there.”
“Sounds good,” Pleasant replied.
He turned to Leone. “Find out what aircraft the submarine rescue equipment is transported in, and what the aircraft weighs fully loaded, so we can figure out if it can land on the ice, or we’ll have to get the equipment there another way. Also, if we locate North Dakota, we’ll need to lower the rescue vehicle through the ice. This won’t be as easy as cutting a three-foot hole for torpedo retrieval. Coordinate with the Undersea Rescue Command and NAVSEA and come up with a way to cut a hole in the ice, large enough for the submersible.”
Pleasant turned back to Verbeck. “This ice camp will be different than a normal one. For starters, we’re going to need more berthing hooches for the submarine rescue personnel, and who knows who else will be up there. More food, more fuel, more heating oil, more cold-weather gear, more transportation — you get the picture. Get everyone moving and start figuring things out.”
“Got it,” Verbeck said.
He headed out the door, but Leone didn’t move. He was contemplating something.