Submarine Stories to "enlighten" the non-bubbleheads?

2015-02-08T20:13:43-05:00

One of the things I love about RP is getting to know some of the stories and attitudes of my brothers and sisters who DIDN’T wear a Dixie cup.

OK. So who’s got any good submarine stories? Try to stay on the boat. I know that proper decorum will preclude some of the stories from Subic Bay or Chinhae…

I’ll start:

As many of you are aware, during a summer (I think it’s their third year), the Midshipmen at Annapolis go out to the fleet to see what roles they’d like to play when they graduate and get commissioned. Some choose to take a ride on a submarine…

We’re doing a “jam dive” drill. Suffice it say that we turn off hydraulics to the stern planes, and they drop under their own weight, forcing the sub into a jam dive. Then we go through the steps to recover the hydraulics.

So, in this situation, I’m on watch as Electrical Operator in Maneuvering (little room we run the reactor / steam plant / electric plant from). There’s a midshipman outside, watching what we’re doing, holding on to the chain that acts as a “Permission To Enter” barrier.

JAM DIVE!!!!

The sub starts diving, and we put the main engines in a “Back Full” order to slow the sub’s dive. We run the engines right up to the limit on the reactor plant. But something is wrong back by the hydraulic plant…

We go past 15 degree down angle. 20… 25… 30!!! We’re all looking at each other, doing our best to keep the steam flow up (and the reactor online). The ship’s equipment is not designed to operate at these kinds of angles! Half the electric plant has tripped off line, the alarms are screaming, the Reactor Operator (RO) and the Throttleman are working without words trying to drive every extra rpm out of the engines and power out of the reactor.

Over the 1MC (the ship-wide loudspeaker), the Captain starts yelling, “TERMINATE THE DRILL! ENGINE ROOM UPPER LEVEL, TERMINATE THE DRILL!”

So FINALLY the guys get control of the stern planes, and the boat starts to level out. The Throttleman and the Reactor Operator back down on the power as I’m trying to re-align the electric plant. My hands were shaking. The RO was trying to light a cigarette with trembling hands, the Throttleman is making pathetic chuckling noises under his breath, and the Engineering Officer Of the Watch (EOOW), who’s an O-3 and the “adult supervision” in Maneuvering, hangs his head in his hands.

Then the EOOW says out of the blue… “Mister xxxx. Mister xxxx. Are you OK?”

The midshipman is standing there with his mouth wide open, as white a Marine’s dress gloves, eyes the size of softballs, hands clenched on the entrance chain so tight that his nails have cut into his hands. His bladder has let go, and he’s just standing there.

“Mister xxxx. You’d better go forward” says the LT. The midshipman looks at the EOOW like a kid who’s dad just caught him as he fell off the couch. “OK… Yes… Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Poor kid.

Turns out the officer who was running the drill isolated hydraulics to the planes (locking in the jam dive) and the emergency hydraulics wouldn’t work. We never came close to “test depth” but it was plenty scary. The Control Room said we reached 53 degrees down-angle.

The moral of the story? Two things:

1. Never wonder why a submariner has the sense of humor that he does.
2. THAT is how US Naval Academy Officers choose to become MARINES!!!!!

Response by SGT Jim Z. made Feb 8 at 2015 8:20 PM

2015-02-08T20:20:22-05:00

Thank you for sharing PO2 Steven Erickson I learned something this evening.