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That night, the Federal sloop-of-war USS Housatonic was sent to the

harbor bottom, and the Confederateship CSS H.L. Hunley passed intohistory as the first submarine to sinkanother vessel.

But it was a Pyrrhic victory: TheHunley, too, was lost that night, withall hands aboard.

The Hunley was by no means thefirst submarine - or even the first sub-

58 MILITARY OFFICER OCTOBER 2008

a shadowy'ssel riding low in thewater slippe~ its moorings and qui-etly made its way through Charles-ton Harbor in South Carolina.In her

cramped interior sat eight strong men,cranking a long driveshaft connectedto a single propeller. Her only weaponwas an explosive package mounted ona forward spar,but it was enough.

mersible warship. In the book Jane'sSubmarines: War Beneath the Waves

from 1776to the Present Day (Harp-erCollins, 2005), Robert Hutchinsonnotes submarines were being designedas far back as the 1500s. The first true

submarine wasn't built until the 1620s,by Cornelius Drebbel. It was followedby the Turtle in 1776as well as severalother ill-fated experiments by Franceand Germany in the 1800s.

The idea of a ship that sank onpurpose must have seemed ludicrousto mariners of the time, and the fateof the Hunley and other early designswas a stark reminder of how manychallenges lay ahead for this newkind of warship. But the evolution ofthe submarine had begun, and fromthose first humble submersibles came

the warships that played a vital rolein the history of maritime combat.

PHOTOS, ABOVE, COURTESY FRIENDS OF THE HUNLEY/DAN DOWDEY; PREVIOUS SPREAD, JUPITER IMAGES

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PHOTOS, ABOVE, ASSOCIATED PRESS, CENTER, COURTESY FRIENDS OF THE HUNLEY; TOP LEFT,COURTESY FRIENDS OF THE HUNLEY/DAN DOWDEY; TOP RIGHT, U.s. NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER

WORLD WARS

BENEATH THE WAVES

The pace of advancement insubmarine technology was incre-mental until the start of World War

I, when it shifted into high gear.

The submarines that emerged from

the conflict were propelled bydiesel engines while on the surfaceand electric motors when sub-

merged. Torpedoes and deckguns became the mainstay ofsubmarine armament.

Between the wars, Germany con-tinued to upgrade and improve itssubmarine fleet. When world War

II broke out, America found itselflagging woefully behind. To answer

the threat looming in Europe, thecountry's war production machine

swung into action, producing theGato class of submarines that would

become the linchpin of America'sunderseas force. The Gato boats,

OCTOBER 2008 MILITARY OFFICER S9

which sent 1.7million tons of Japa-nese shipping to the ocean bottomduring the war, later were joinedby the Balao class of submarines,which featured a fortified pressurehull for deeper diving and a largerfuel capacity for longer patrols.

MAKINGPROGRESSThe success of world War II subs

especially is impressive becausemany of their early standard-issueMark XIV torpedoes either ran toodeep, failed to detonate, explodedprematurely - or worse. In March1944, a torpedo launched by theUSS Tullibee ran a circular course

and returned to destroy the Gato-class boat.

In all, u.S. submarines sank 4.9million tons of shipping and 700,000tons of naval ships during the war- about 60 percent and 30 percent

~NAUTILUS SEAWOLF

.........

SEADRAGON

. ...SCORPION

. ....PERMIT

. ..PATRICK HENRY THEODORE ROOSEVELT

60 MILITARY OFFICER OCTOBER 200B

On that mission, the Spearfish nar-rowly escaped a missile fired by anAmerican fighter pilot, who mis-took the sub for a Japanese boat.

Smalling later was assigned tothe USS Hackleback, a brand-newsub that shadowed the giant Japa-nese battleship Yamato as it madeits way to Okinawa, Japan, to inter-cept the Allied invasion fleet.

"We were within 4,000 yards buthad orders not to attack," herecalls. "Here you've been at warfor several years, looking at the

biggest target there is,and all you can do isnotify [commanders]

\RGO that it's coming."

.. Lessthanadecadeafter the end of world-AMP- War II came a quantum

leap in submarine pro-SHER pulsion, when the first

boat with an atomic

.. powerplant- the USSGEORGEWASHINGTON Nautilus - set sail on her

.. maidenvoyage.Althoughcapable of combat, theIjCOLNNautilus served mostlyas a research platform.

II.CE The advent of nucle-

.. arenginesmeantsubsno longer had to sur-face to recharge their

of the total, respectively - althoughsubs comprised less than 2 percentof the u.s. fleet. The victories came

at a high cost, however. of the 288submarines that went into battle, 52of them - with a total of 3,506 menaboard-never returned.

Jack Smalling is one of the luckyones. Assigned to the USS Spearfish,he participated in a reconnaissancemission to Iwo Jima, Japan. "Whenyou looked through the periscope,you felt like you were right next tothe island," Smalling remembers.

.........

SKATE SWORDFISH

...-.TRITON

.TULLIBEE.. .. .

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

.

.ROBERT E. LEE

.... .....JACK TINOSA

....THOMAS A. EDISON

SARGO

SCAMP

THRESHER

DACE

JOHN MARSHALL

IMAGES, ABOVE, USN PHOTO COURTESY u.s. SUB VETS OF WORLD WAR II;TOP, USN PHOTO/RON TITUS/COURTESY INGERSOLL-RAND CORP.

I ----..SKIPJACK

I ..SCULPIN

IPOLLACK

I I -. ..BARB HADDO.. I ..

ETHAN ALLEN SAM HOUSTON

..HALIBUT

I .. ..SNOOK

I .....

SHARK

I

PLUNGER

batteries, thereby risking exposureto enemy attack. Their operationalrange greatly expanded as well - ifnecessary, they could stay sub-merged for months.

As the Cold War set in and Rus-

sia began its military buildup, twomajor categories of submarinesemerged in the u.S.: fast-attack boats,

.c

also known as hunter/killers, andstrategic ballistic missile subs, orboomers. Hunter/killers, or SSNs,as their name implies, were taskedwith tracking Soviet submarines anddestroying them before they couldlaunch their ballistic missiles should

war break out. The George Wash-ington-class submarines were thefirst ballistic missile subs, or SSBNs,deployed during the Cold War. TheEthan Allen class followed, succeed-ed by the Lafayette/Franklin boats inthe 1960s. The trend toward largersubmarines peaked in the early 1980swhen the Ohio-class boats took to

the seas. At 560 feet long and 42 feetwide, they were the largest Ameri-can subs ever built - so big that twoHunleys could fit side by side in eachOhio missile tube.

AN EVOLVINGROLE

SSNs were evolving aswell, culminating in theLos Angeles class. Firstlaunched in 1976, the LosAngeles class now is the

{~

'-

PHOTOS, ABOVE, YEOMAN 1ST CLASS J. THOMPSON, USN; CENTER, USN PHOTO COURTESY u.s.NAVY ARCTIC SUBMARINE LABORATORY; TOP, USN PHOTO BY PAUL FARLEY

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most numerous type of submarinein the world. Navy retiree MichaelLane served as a lieutenant on the

USS Chicago, a Los Angeles-classfast-attack boat, from 1993-97, ata time when the submarine's role

was changing because of the SovietUnion's collapse.

"When I was at the [u.S.] NavalAcademy [in Annapolis, Md.], wewere very focused on a conventionaladversary:' Lane says. "When theCold War ended while I was serv-

ing in the fleet, our role changed to amore low-intensity conflict against anonconventional adversary. We weredoing a lot more support of specialforces, [including] more strike mis-sions and reconnaissance and a lot

less hunting other subs and largesurface ships."

The end of the Cold War meantfewer SSBNs were needed. Some

were refitted to adapt to the currentasymmetric warfare model, includ-ing the Ohio-class USS Florida, nowdesignated a guided missile subma-rine (SSGN). "We'll be operatingup close to shore in littoral waterswith the ability to do a conventionalmissile strike and to launch SEALs

or other special ops forces:' saysthe Florida's Capt. William Traub,USN. "We can carry 154 Tomahawkmissiles in a full-up strike-loadedconfiguration. Fourteen different

OCTOBER 2008 MILITARY OFFICER 61

submarines shot missiles into Iraqduring Operation Iraqi Freedom. Allthose missiles could be fired todaywith just two SSGNs."

The newest submarines to jointhe Navy's undersea flotilla are theVirginia-class boats, which eventu-ally will replace the Los Angelesclass. The first sub without a peri-scope, the Virginia boats instead

62 MILITARY OFFICER OCTOBER 200B

sport a "photonic mast" with cam-eras that transmit images to com-mand stations. The hull contains a

chamber that can deploy special opsforces and even a mini-submarine.

The latest in the Virginia series,the USS North Carolina (SSN-777),was commissioned in Wilmington,N.C., May 3. The fourth Navy ship tobear the state's name, the submarine

PHOTOS: ABOVE RIGHT, MASS COMMUNICATIONS spc. 3RD CLASS KELVIN EDWARDS, USN;ALL OTHERS, MASS COMMUNICATIONS spc. 2ND CLASS ROADELL HICKMAN, USN

will join the fleetbased at Pearl

Harbor, Hawaii.

ETERNALPATROLBut no matter how

technologicallyad-vanced submarines

become, they all owetheir existence to

the H.L. Hunley and its contempo-raries. Today that storied vessel lieson its side, submerged in a tank ofwater in a warehouse that once was

part of the Charleston Navy Yard inSouth Carolina. The details of its fate

still a mystery, researchers continueto pore carefully over each rivet andseam, removing the concretions thathave built up over time.

When the silt that filled the sub-

marine was removed, the remains ofits eight crewmembers were found,

PHOTOS, RIGHT, USN; ALL OTHERS, COURTESY FRIENDSOF THE HUNLEY

still at their posts. On April 17,2004,they were buried with full militaryhonors at Magnolia Cemeteryin Charleston.

As you stand at the railing,gazing down at the Hunley in itstank, the bravery of those eightmen suddenly hits home. Theywould tell you they simply weredoing their jobs, but it takes a specialkind of fortitude to voluntarily go inharm's way in an underwater tube -and all submariners are volunteers.

From time to time, veterans

wearing the dolphin insignia ofsubmariners appear at the railing,observing the old boat as it under-goes restoration. "We had a networkcrew from CBS here a few years

back, filming a tour group of WorldWar II veterans," says KellenCorreia, a spokesperson for theHunley project. "One of the menbegan to weep a little, and it brokethe camera guy up as well. After all,this is where it all started." MO