At the conclusion of the ceremony, the new officers were in, the old officers were out, and most us returned to whatever we were doing before we were so rudely interrupted.
The arrival of Commander Harris was a different matter entirely. As our new captain, he was important to us because he would set the stage for the quality of our lives and play a major role in accomplishing the mission of the Viperfish. We had been told of his extensive background. He had served on board the USS Trigger (SS 564), Sea Wolf (SSN 575), and Trinose (SSN 606), and he was executive officer of the Polaris submarine, USS Woodrow Wilson (SSBN 624). We also knew that he had completed Admiral Rickover's "charm school" for the preparation of nuclear submarine commanding officers. There was a rumor that at the last moment, he had been diverted from going to sea on board the Thresher on her fatal voyage and that, as a result, he had recognized a higher calling. We had not yet seen the man, however; as far as we were concerned, Captain Harris was still an unknown factor.
When this change-of-command ceremony was announced, therefore, we paid close attention to the details. We moved the boat across the submarine base as usual and formed our rows in front of the same pier holding the same chairs. After listening to the same kind of speeches, we looked at the brow spanning from the pier to our boat and attentively watched Captain Harris come aboard.
He was a solid-looking man with a square jaw and bright blue eyes burning with the same kind of intensity that I had seen in Captain Gillon's. His manner appeared authoritative, yet reserved. In his brief conversation with us at the end of the ceremony, he spoke in a strong and deep voice. Although he gave away no secrets and revealed nothing about our future, he demonstrated a solid, intelligent style that reassured us. His final grade was still to be determined, but Captain Harris passed the crew's initial inspection.
His first action on board the Viperfish was to order replacement of all flickering or dim neon lights throughout the boat. Second, he established a higher level of cleanliness, underscoring the philosophy that morale and pride of serving on the Viperfish would improve. Third, he increased security for all of the secret documents on board. This action was the best clue that no word of our mission would ever leave the boat except under specific extraordinary circumstances, reserved only for information classified as "compartmentalized top secret." Because no information was provided to the crew, we assumed that everything relating to our mission was within this classification and continued to remain mystified about what lay ahead of us.
For the next several months, the men assigned to the Special Project team worked to refine the Fish and bring it up to operational capabilities. This required a series of trips from Pearl Harbor into the waters surrounding the Hawaiian Islands. Over and over again, our huge spool holding thousands of feet of cable was unreeled into the water. Far below us, the Fish was towed a few feet above the bottom of the ocean, and technical information acquired in this manner was evaluated and delivered back to the Viperfish.
Each trip lasted from a few days to several weeks, depending on where the Viperfish traveled and what activities were necessary. On some of the trips, we fired torpedoes and engaged in other actions that repeatedly went amazingly well. Our torpedoes were accurate, and our efficiency was high. As a result, the Viperfish earned the coveted Battle Efficiency "E" and the Fire Control Excellence Award for overall performance, reactor operations, torpedo firing capability, and operational capabilities. Captain Harris was off to a very good start.
In the traditional manner of Navy crews that earn their Battle Efficiency "E," we returned to port and proudly painted a large white "E" on the side of our sail. Although it occurred to many of us that the "E" was underwater and entirely out of sight most of the time, it provided us with a sense of camaraderie that was important to the morale of our crew and, hopefully, to our future success.
After each of our numerous patrols back and forth to the deeper waters east of Honolulu, Waikiki continued to beckon with the usual incentives to blow off steam. I became tired of paying the hefty fees for taxi rides between Pearl Harbor and Waikiki, so I finally purchased a blue 1955 Chevy from one of the many car lots in the Honolulu area. Although its metallic blue paint was scratched and slightly rusted, its front window had a small crack, and its carburetor leaked gasoline when the float repeatedly sank, it did have a sterling high-speed gearbox, definitely an outstanding feature of the car.
The first time I drove it off the base, Marc Birken challenged me on Kamehameha Highway as he revved his TR-3 engine and grinned like a fool. From his perspective, if it wasn't a sports car, it wasn't a real car. Meeting his challenge, I speed-shifted my new car up through the gears until the carburetor float sank and gasoline drowned the engine. Worried about fire and explosion from the reeking fumes, I quickly pulled over, ripped the carburetor apart, and listened to Marc contribute a long string of obscene and irreverent thoughts about my vehicle. I finally jammed a toothpick into the carburetor float hole to plug the leak forever, I hoped.
My qualifications efforts on the Viperfish continued, whether we were at sea or alongside the pier, as I struggled to learn every system on board the boat. Because I was finished with the nuclear qualifications work, the pressure in the engine room eased and my existence marginally improved. Also, because I was now standing watches at the reactor panel, I felt that I was finally carrying my own weight and contributing to the operations of the Viperfish. I visited Waikiki regularly, however, and surfed the waves at Sunset Beach on the island's north shore at every opportunity. Although I did not fully appreciate it at the time, being in the Navy and stationed in Hawaii probably constituted the best duty that any man could hope for.
On one of my trips to a dancing area in the Hilton Hawaiian Village, I asked a beautiful young lady to dance to the sweet Hawaiian music. She was a teacher, she said, at the Kamehameha Schools on the side of the hill behind Honolulu, and her name was Keiko. An hour later, she said she would certainly enjoy a midnight tour on a genuine nuclear submarine at Pearl Harbor. Her girlfriend and her date asked if they could come too, and soon all four of us piled into my Chevy for the run up to the submarine base.
After a few scans through the control-room periscope to look at the distant lights of Pearl City and a stroll through the remainder of the Viperfish's control center, we took another tour of Makaha Beach under the moonlight at two o'clock in the morning. After that remarkable evening, Keiko and I dated every night that I was in port. We found ourselves aware of an emerging intensity and a new fulfillment that strongly attracted us to each other. As we spent more time together, I found it increasingly difficult to break away from the sweet time on liberty with her, to drive back to Pearl Harbor, and to climb down the engine-room hatch as the Viperfish prepared to go to sea.
Keiko flew back to Los Angeles to continue working on her master's degree at the University of Southern California, while her girlfriend stayed behind and married the young man she had met that night. That was when Keiko informed her parents, both working full time to finance her USC tuition, about the sailor in Hawaii who had asked for her hand in marriage.