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Honolulu Deployment
Marks First First-Flight 688 to Surface at the North Pole
by CDR Chuck Harris, USN
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While
USS Honolulu (SSN-718) is the 24th Los Angeles-class
submarine to surface at the North Pole, she is the first of the
first-flight 688 to perform operations Arctic.
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“Captain, the ship is ready to vertically surface.”
The OOD made the
report from the darkened Control Room while watching the ship’s Control
Party maintain the 7,000-ton submarine completely motionless at 170 feet.
It was dark. The Control Room was rigged for low-level light and the
OOD’s final sweep on the scope to confirm no ice overhead was in the
image intensification mode because of the lack of light. It was early
October and the sun was already three degrees below the horizon. This
gave incredible permanent sunset views but produced little illumination
110 feet down at the level of the periscope head window. Ice keels
dropping down to 40 feet were not visible in the normal image settings of
the scope when they were as close as 90 feet.
A quick check of the
side-scan sonar system to confirm the ship’s position, and all was ready.
After months of work-up and practice, USS Honolulu (SSN-718) was
finally set to carry out an evolution discussed, planned, and practiced
by the crew numerous times. We would be the first first-flight 688 to
surface at the North Pole. Getting to that point and then actually
surfacing hadn’t happened quite the way anyone expected it to. As most
submarines that preceded Honolulu had found, not much of
anything in the Arctic happens quite the way it’s expected to.
After the long
challenging journey to the Pole, the crew had struggled for the last 30
hours simply trying to find a place to surface. We had practiced and
discussed the possibility of hovering under and surfacing vertically in a
small open-water area. We all had expected that finding a suitable place
would be relatively easy. We were mistaken. After a full day of
searching, our hopes of surfacing at the North Pole began to fade. It
didn’t help that the ship had not seen an open area in the ice for almost
a week – the last being just 12 hours after passing under the ice edge at
750N. I began bracing the crew for the eventuality of not being able to
surface. Everyone was disappointed. The schedule gave us less than 24
hours more to find a polynya near the Pole, and in hopes of finding
something, we moved to a new area about four miles away.
12 hours later, the
OOD, LT David Edgerton, informed me he had found a spot – small but with
clear open water and a bit of slush ice. Initially we had little hope,
because the ice was moving, and most of us were convinced the tiny area
would close up long before we had the opportunity to map the region and
prepare the ship. Soon after we began mapping the area, the movement
became apparent, with the polynya plotter reporting almost a half a knot
of current. Persistence paid off though, and six hours later, LT Edgerton
had the ship hovering at 170 feet and stopped dead in the water. At this
point, the next challenge revealed itself.
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Hampton
Crew Tours the North Pole with HMS Tireless in Joint ArCtic Exercise
by JOC Kevin Elliot, USNR
With a burst of air
into the forward ballast tanks, USS Hampton (SSN-767) surfaced
through a thin sheet of ice at the North Pole on 19 April 2004. The
Sailors onboard that day had the chance to experience something few
others have …surfacing at the top of the world.
“Of all the memorable
things I’ve done in a submarine, this was one of the most amazing,” said
CDR Robert Burke, Commanding Officer of Hampton. “I was struck
by the dead silence, the absolute crispness of the air, and the absolute
foreign feeling of the environment. I could have been on the surface of
the moon.”
Hampton had sailed more than 5,000
miles from its homeport of Norfolk, Virginia during ICEX 04, an exercise
to demonstrate a submarine’s ability to operate under the ice of the
Arctic Ocean for an extended period of time.
ICEX is a joint
United States and United Kingdom operation. The Royal Navy’s HMS Tireless
surfaced first and advised Hampton of an open spot in the ice
nearby.
After three weeks
underway, Hampton’s crew was ready for a break. They tossed a
football, hit a few golf balls, and generally played in the snow. They
also capitalized on this rare opportunity to take each other’s picture in
the desolate environment, and to visit HMS Tireless.
“I made some new
friends up at the North Pole,” said Electronics Technician 1st Class Adam
Burchette. “They gave us a tour of the ship, then we sat in the mess and
drank tea. They told us about their country and we told them about ours.”
The blue ice
fascinated LTJG Lawrence W. Thompson of Kansas City. “Being from the
Midwest I’m not a stranger to snow, but you don’t realize how barren it
is here until you walk around,” he said. “It’s just miles and miles of
ice. A lot of the ice formations have a blue look to them because they
have been compacted for years and there is no air left. It’s so compacted
it only reflects the blue light.”
Hampton and her crew spent 16 hours
at the North Pole and then submerged to continue the ICEX exercise. ICEX
04 has been in the planning stages for two years to ensure the Submarine
Force can operate proficiently in every possible environment. Hampton’s
crew made the most of their chance to participate in ICEX and their time
on the ice at the North Pole.
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USS Hampton
sits at the North Pole. In recent years, both the United States’ and the
Royal Navy have focused interest in maintaining and improving their
operational skills and capabilities in the Artic, supporting their common
goal for greater flexibility. Tireless surfaced with USS Hampton
(SSN-767) for ICEX 04. After three weeks underway, Hampton
crewmembers were happy to meet new people. The two crews enjoyed swapping
sea stories and even shared a cup of tea together.
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As the OOD surveyed
the polynya through the scope, it became apparent that the ship was
moving sideways with respect to the opening at an appreciable rate. Since
the polynya was now less than 100 yards wide, and the surfacing would
take about five minutes from 170 feet to the surface, the current
definitely posed a problem. The ship would have to make another try.
Putting the ship on the right edge of the polynya and stopping quickly
set the ship up for the event.
“Officer of the Deck,
vertically surface the ship”
With the precision
that marks the performance of all submarine watch sections, the OOD gave
the order, and the ship’s Control Party smoothly transitioned from
motionless hovering to controlled ascent. Forced out by high-pressure
air, seawater went overboard from the ship’s depth control system. 5,000,
10,000, 15,000 pounds were counted off by the Chief of the Watch. The
Diving Officer of the Watch, ETCS (SS) Neil Davenport – the ship’s
Assistant Navigator, monitored the ascent rate and quietly gave orders to
blow even more ballast. A screen in front of the Helmsman showed the ship
coming up through a strong salinity gradient. The water closer to the ice
was less saline, which made the ship heavier. The Chief of the Boat,
CMDCM (SS) Mike Keck remarked that coming up in the Arctic was certainly
different than the practice sessions in the Hawaiian operating areas.
There, the ship blew only 2,500 pounds from the Depth Control tanks to
get a 35 foot per minute ascent rate. By 120 feet, Senior Chief Davenport
had already blown 25,000 pounds and the ship was still slowing noticeably
with every change of 10 feet.
As the ship passed
100 feet, LT Edgerton took one last sweep and lowered the scope. At this
point, everyone focused their attention on the monitors showing the view
from the overhead camera. The 25 men in the Control Room watched the
surface move closer and closer until finally the sail passed through the
slush ice and into history, making Honolulu the first
first-flight 688 not only to reach the Pole ,but also to surface there.
The trip to the North
Pole was not the main point of the ICEX, just an enjoyable side trip on a
voyage that took Hono around the rim of the Arctic Ocean. For a
crew that had seen more than most submarines in the past year, everyone
reveled in their good fortune to have been chosen to participate in this
lifetime event. Hono was halfway through an eight-month Arabian
Gulf/Seventh Fleet deployment when the word came of the ICEX. “How’d you
like to go to the North Pole in October” read the e-mail from Hono’s
Commodore, CAPT Bill French. The crew was thrilled. Only four-and-a-half
months after returning to Pearl Harbor, Hono was northbound for
28-degree water only 10 months after being in the 97-degree waters of the
Arabian Gulf.
The task? Honolulu
was charged with further evaluating the operation of our under-ice,
forward-looking sonar system in order to improve SSN arctic performance. Hono
was also tasked to evaluate operating and casualty procedures for
deep-Arctic operations of first-flight 688 submarines. Because the ship
carried the latest communications gear in her radio room, and little was
known about using some of this equipment at very high latitudes, the Hono
radiomen established their own objective of testing the limits of these
new capabilities.
Like any extended
operation, the trip had its challenges. Shortly after entering the
shallow water of the Bering Sea, an external power supply for the
forward-looking sonar system failed, threatening the mission and forcing
the ship to scramble to find a nearby location suitable for transferring
a new power supply to the ship. A quick check of the Sailing Directions
suggested that Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians was the ideal place.
COMSUBPAC turned to, assigned additional water south, and arranged for
delivery of a replacement there. A two-day run south and Hono
was off Dutch Harbor with the harbor-master alongside transferring the
part. After only three hours, Hono had the subsystem replaced,
and the mission was back on track.
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Honolulu moored to the ice for almost
25 hours about 280 miles from the North Pole following the surfacing
event there.
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HMS Tireless
sits at the North Pole. Tireless surfaced with USS Hampton
(SSN-767) for ICEX 04. After three weeks underway, the two crews enjoyed
swapping sea stories and even sharing a cup of tea together.
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Heading
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