“Nearly, sir?” said the submarine chief, with exaggerated deference, knowing perfectly well what was coming.
“There is a way out of this…I think we might have to ask Commander Dunning and his team to make a trans-polar run, straight under the North Pole…dive the boat in the Atlantic, and come out in the Pacific.”
The three men were silent for a moment. As exsubmariners they were well acquainted with the complexities of these trans-polar runs. They had been made by nuclear submarines in the past, but rarely. And some had failed, stopped by the ice and shallow water in the northern approaches to the Bering Strait. There is, of course, no land at the North Pole — nothing for a submarine to hit. The Arctic is just a vast floating ice cap. The ocean beneath it is twelve thousand feet deep in some places, but a whole lot less in others.
One of the original explorers likened the picture to a twelve-foot-high room. “The ceiling is the base of the ice cap…the floor, the ocean bed. Now imagine a matchstick suspended six inches from the ceiling…that’s the nuclear submarine running dived right across the top of the world.”
The Arctic Circle is nothing like the Antarctic, which is a continent. Land. Valleys and mountains. The Arctic does not exist except as shifting, floating ice, under which is mostly very deep water.
Admiral Mulligan spoke again. “We’ve done a lot of work up there over the years…much of it still based on the first polar transit underwater by a US nuclear boat more than forty years ago…Nautilus, commanded by Andy Anderson. The trouble is you need time to prepare for these journeys, and Columbia’s got none.”
“What’s the timing factor?” asked Admiral Morgan.
“Lemme see…Boomer makes twenty knots all the way under the ice, across the north of Greenland, Iceland, and Alaska…could arrive Point Barrow in northern Alaska seven and a half days from right now. The Russians cannot make better than ten knots on the surface in those conditions. They should get to the same place in about eleven days. Boomer will be waiting…”
“Brilliant,” rasped Admiral Morgan. “We got ’em.”
“Yes. We got ’em, if Commander Dunning and his team feel they can make a trans-Polar underwater run,” said Admiral Mulligan, grimly. “And, if the conditions are right in the Chukchi Sea. Still, if the Russians can run this little convoy through the ice, I guess we can, too. Does Boomer have anyone on board with any experience?”
“He has some himself,” replied Admiral Dixon. “He’s worked up there under the ice…but more important his XO, Mike Krause, knows a lot about it. I’m not sure if he ever went right through. He may have a few years ago.”
“But, hell, we don’t even know if they have the right charts and books on board, do we?” asked Mulligan.
“Yes, we do,” replied Admiral Dixon. “They haven’t.”
“Beautiful,” said Admiral Morgan. “You got a plan, John?”
“We get our ice skates on,” said Admiral Dixon. “I’ll draft a signal, and we’ll put it on the satellite…we’ll probably have to make an air drop with extra supplies, information, and spares…. Where do you think, sir? Somewhere up by Jan Mayen Island? That way Boomer won’t have to hang around waiting.”
“Right. West of the island, I’d say,” replied the CNO. “You better get moving on this, right now.”
The periscope of USS Columbia broke the surface of the rough, gale-swept North Atlantic just southwest of Tórshavn in the Faeroe Islands at midnight local time, on August 22. Comms accessed the satellite and reported the submarine’s position: 62.00N, 7.00W. They sucked off a message from SUBLANT.
Commander Dunning ordered Columbia down into smoother waters and waited for the printout of the communication. He was not, however, in any way prepared for what he read:
Assess K-9 and K-10 heading EAST along North Siberian coast in company with one Typhoon Class on inter-Fleet transfer, four modern ASW escorts, one Arktika Class icebreaker, and a Fleet replenishment ship. Opportunities for attack by you in N. Siberian waters and Bering Strait considered minimal, and too dangerous.
Proceed forthwith to deep water in Aleutian Basin via Polar route. Report any special requirements for navigational advice, books, charts, spares, equipment ASAP, and in time for air drop west of Jan Mayen by MPA AM 24th. Report position in time for drop.
Latest ice reports Point Barrow area and Beaufort Sea will be passed to you within twenty-four hours, and as they become available.
Boomer gulped. “Under the Pole… holy shit… MIKE!.. get a look at this…”
Lieutenant Commander Krause read the message. “I’ve never been right through, sir,” he said. “But I’ve been halfway and back twice…both times from the other end, up through the Bering Strait. In fact it’s not that bad in the deep water, but there are a few awkward spots north of Point Barrow, where the bottom shelves right up, and you can get ice-pressure ridges coming down a hundred and twenty feet below the surface — a couple of our submarines have been forced back over there…ran out of real estate where the downward ice ridges almost hit the shoals on the bottom.”
“Shit,” said Boomer. “Are you sure we’re ready for this?”
“I guess we better be. That message from SUBLANT was an order.”
“Right. What do we need?”
“A couple more charts, and a couple of books, hopefully Commander Anderson’s account of his journey in 1958, plus a couple of more recent patrol reports. We’ll also want additional upward-looking fathometer spares. Plus spares for the periscopes, which are apt to get knocked around in the overhead ice. Still, it’s the right time of year. We might be all right…I’ll round up our navigator and check out all the gear, then get a signal off to SUBLANT.”
Boomer studied the chart and estimated the distance to the rocky Norwegian island of Jan Mayen as 750 miles. “Tell ’em we’ll be at 72N 10W for the drop point, waiting at periscope depth. Make it a floating package with a dye marker,” he said. “We’ll listen out on UHF channel thirty-one thirty hours from now.”
“Aye, sir.”
With that, the long black hull of Columbia accelerated toward the deep Arctic waters, over the Icelandic Plateau, toward the Eggvin Shoal. There, in difficult shelving water, the icy Maro Bank guards the western approaches to Jan Mayen, on the edge of the winter pack ice.
“Steer course 355 for six hundred and fifty miles,” said Boomer. “Speed twenty-five. Depth six hundred.” He turned to Lieutenant Wingate and added, “Right there we’ll come right to 015 for four hours and make that our pickup spot.”
The Commander then called for a navigation meeting with Lieutenant Commander Krause and Lieutenant Wingate one hour hence. The time passed swiftly—Columbia came to periscope depth to pass their rendezvous signal, and Boomer elected to stay for twenty minutes, pending a reply from SUBLANT. It arrived via the satellite almost immediately:
Drop point confirmed 72N 10W. Floating package dye marker. UHF 31. 0600 local August 24. MPA from US Naval Air Station Keflavik, Iceland, to make rendezvous. Call-sign BLUEBIRD ONE FIVE. Transmit UHF for homing 0550.
Columbia went deep again, and the three officers gathered in the navigation area, where the CO asked Lieutenant Wingate for his preliminary plan.
“I suggest we head north in deep water, sir…up between Greenland and Spitzbergen, and then enter the Arctic Ocean, under the pack ice, through the Lena Trough — that’s right here where the permanent ice shelf begins. We’ll be on course 035 after the drop point, with an adjustment after two hundred miles to course 000. We wanna make that adjustment right at the Greenland Fracture zone…right here, sir…over the Boreas Abyssal Plain…it’s fifteen thousand feet deep there.”