Dr. Wolters is an associate professor of history at Io- wa State University, where he teaches the history of technology and military history, and as a Captain in the
U.S. Navy Reserve. He qualified in submarines on USS GROTON (SSN-694) and has had three reserve CO tours, two within the Submarine Force Reserve Component.
In February 1935, Commander Scott Umsted assumed duty as officer-in-charge of the U.S. Navy’s Submarine School in New London, Connecticut. A native of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Umsted graduated from the Naval Academy in 1915 and served in European waters on two L-class submarines during World War I. After the war, he commanded three different boats (N-2, R-10, and S-17), as well as a flush-deck destroyer.1 During that era, the Submarine School’s curriculum included instruction on diesel engines, electric batteries, radio communications, tactics, and torpedoes, but the veteran submariner wanted to broaden further the mental horizons of his officer students. He therefore decided to require each prospective submariner to read and report on at least six books about submarines. According to one student, Ignatius J. Galantin, the dearth of books on submarine-related subjects made
Umsted’s assignment a challenge.2
Some eight decades later, there is no shortage of books on submarines. A recent article by Lieutenant Commander Joel Holwitt in The Submarine Review (August 2016 Issue, Page 98) attests to this truism. Holwitt, one of a very small number of nuclear submariners to hold a Ph.D. in history, recounts how the crews of his modern, twenty-first century submarines embraced lectures on American submarine history. The popularity of such lectures inspired him to compile a submarine history reading list for submariners. To facilitate reading by all ranks, rates, and backgrounds, Holwitt divides his list into three categories: basic, intermediate, and advanced.3
As one of the Navy’s few other dolphin-wearing historians, I applaud Holwitt’s choices, which range from the memoirs of legendary submariners like Dick O’Kane to analytical works such as Anthony Newpower’s Iron Men and Tin Fish. I was especially delighted to see Holwitt include the recent books of Alfred McLaren, whose Unknown Waters and Silent and Unseen provide arguably the best available window into the world of Cold War submarining.4 Yet, Holwitt limited himself to books available on e-readers. Given the confined spaces of a submarine this choice is perhaps understandable; however, it has the unfortunate consequence of weeding out a number of fascinating books. For those individuals looking to add titles to their personal book- shelves, or possibly to the professional libraries kept by submarine shore commands, the following additions to Holwitt’s reading list are suggested.5
Basic Level
Mark K. Ragan, Submarine Warfare in the Civil War (Da Capo Press, 2002)
Most submariners are familiar with the story of H. L. HUNLEY, the Confederate submarine that sank steam-sloop USS HOUSATONIC with a spar torpedo during the American Civil War. Regrettably for HUNLEY’s crew, the vessel then sank in Charleston Harbor with the loss of all hands. Underwater archeologists eventually found and raised HUNLEY, and today she can be toured at a conservation center in North Charleston.6
Mark Ragan was one of the divers involved with HUNLEY’s excavation and recovery, but most of his book is devoted to other vessels, including a steam-powered submarine developed in Mobile, a three-man submarine built by gauge manufacturers in New Orleans, and famous Union submarine ALLIGATOR. Ragan shows that the Confederacy and the Union combined to design and construct as many as two-dozen underwater boats, some of which experimented with advanced features ranging from air purification systems to periscopes to lockout chambers. In addition to chronicling the birth of the modern submarine, Ragan’s book challenges heroic theories of invention by demonstrating that technological innovations are products of their time as much if not more than the products of genius.
Peter Maas, The Terrible Hours: The Greatest Submarine Rescue in History (Perennial Press, 2001)
Holwitt’s reading list includes A. J. Hill’s book Under Pres- sure, which recounts the incredible actions taken by the officers and crew of submarine S-5 after she careened into the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in the summer of 1920. Nearly twenty years later the officers and crew of another boat, USS SQUALUS (SS- 192), would also find themselves trapped on the bottom of the Atlantic. The Terrible Hours offers an engaging account of the Navy’s dramatic rescue of these men. The story’s most prominent hero is Charles Swede Momsen, who supervised a team of divers that made four tension-filled dives to rescue thirty-three submariners.7 If one reason we learn about naval heritage is to “inspire future and current generations of U.S. sailors,”8 then The Terrible Hours offers a good place to find such inspiration.
Paul R. Schratz, Submarine Commander: A Story of World War II and Korea (University Press of Kentucky, 1988)
While naval heritage can inspire, naval history often has a more practical purpose: to enhance the learning/decision cycle of naval personnel.9 For leaders especially, one good way to draw lessons from history is to understand better the thought-processes of those who have had to execute policies, manage personnel, and make tough decisions. One book that offers a superb window into the mindset of an able submariner is Submarine Commander.
Paul Schratz’s memoir covers his experiences in both the Atlantic and the Pacific during World War II, in occupied Japan after the war, and as a submarine skipper under United Nations command during the Korean War. A 1939 graduate of the Naval Academy, Schratz’s tours in the Pacific included war patrols on USS SCORPION (SS-278), USS STERLET (SS-392), and USS
ATULE (SS-403). Schratz’s analysis of the commanding officers under which he served is insightful, and one of the more entertaining parts of the book is Schratz’s recounting of his tour in occupied Japan, where he was responsible for both demilitarizing and collecting intelligence on Japanese submarines. This experience led the Navy to give Schratz his first command, which involved sailing the former Japanese submarine I-203 from Sasebo to Pearl Harbor. If there is one element that makes Submarine Commander unique within the genre of submariner memoirs, though, it is that Schratz devotes considerable space to his experiences as CO of USS PICKEREL (SS-524) before and during the Korean War. In public memory the U.S. Navy is generally absent from the conflict in Korea, and the one book that thoroughly examines the service’s contributions barely mentions submarines.10 For those interested in what the Submarine Force was doing to aid the war effort in Korea, Submarine Commander provides an informative glimpse into these activities.
I. J. Galantin, Submarine Admiral: From Battlewagons to Ballistic Missiles (University of Illinois Press, 1995)
Another book that captures the zeitgeist of the mid-twentieth century U.S. Submarine Force is I. J. Galantin’s Submarine Admiral. Six years senior to Schratz, Galantin attended Sub School in 1936. After graduation, he served four years on USS ARGONAUT (SM-1), the U.S. Navy’s first dedicated submarine minelayer. During the war Galantin commanded R-11, which was assigned scouting duties off the Panama Canal Zone, and USS HALIBUT (SS-232), a boat nearly lost at sea in November 1944 when she had to endure what Clay Blair would later describe as “one of the most devastating depth-charge attacks of the war.”11 Beginning in 1949, Galantin served three separate sub-desk tours in OPNAV, the latter two in the submarine/antisubmarine warfare division (Op-31), and he eventually relieved William Red Raborn as director of the Special Projects Office. Galantin’s assignments at Op-31 and with Special Projects gave him a front-row seat to the internal deliberations and policy decisions that took place during one of the most innovative times in the history of submarining, including the rapid emergence of the submarine as an antisubmarine warfare platform, the adoption of nuclear power, the creation of a deep submergence program, and the development of the fleet ballistic missile submarine.
Intermediate Level
Gary E. Weir, Building American Submarines, 1914-1940 (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1991)
Admiral Hyman G. Rickover once said, “Throughout naval history there have been two important groups of men: the ones who fought ships, and the ones who designed and constructed them.”12 Because stories about the former can make for dramatic reading, stories about the latter are often neglected. To be sure, details about diesel engine castings and prefabrication techniques can be dry, but such does not have to be the case. In Building American Submarines, Gary Weir, a former director of the contemporary history branch at the Naval Historical Center,13 provides an engaging account of the design and construction of American submarines from the outbreak of World War I to the eve of World War II.
Building American Submarines examines the Navy’s efforts to replace the relatively primitive submersibles of the early twentieth century with the fleet boats that performed so well in World War
II. Weir argues that there was a fundamental shift in the relation- ship between the Navy and its submarine suppliers during these years, with the service taking greater control of the design and construction process. In analyzing these developments, Weir investigates the aims and goals of American naval leaders, emphasizes the influence of German undersea technologies, traces the evolution of the submarine industry in the United States, and shows how naval planners incorporated evolving strategic assumptions into each new class of submarine.
Gary E. Weir, Forged in War: The Naval-Industrial Complex and American Submarine Construction, 1940-1961 (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993)
Weir followed Building American Submarines with an in- formative and equally readable sequel, Forged in War. According to Weir, by the middle of World War II an important new player, the scientist, had joined the industrialist and the naval engineer in efforts to build superior submarines. Weir shows how the desire to go faster, submerge deeper, and run quieter generated a new focus on the ocean environment, an arena in which acousticians, hydrodynamicists, and oceanographers all had key contributions to make. Forged in War examines the critical innovations in submarine design and construction adopted during the immediate postwar period, including the GUPPY program, nuclear power, the teardrop hull, sound quieting, and the Polaris project. Weir argues that the triple alliance of the submarine industrial base, the Navy Department, and the scientific community conquered numerous complex challenges because leaders in each realm had close personal and working relationships, ties formed during World War II and cemented by early Cold War tensions. Weir’s book tells an important but neglected historical story and offers food for thought to today’s submariners as the Navy pursues an OHIO replacement program.14
Montgomery C. Meigs, Slide Rules and Submarines: American Scientists and Subsurface Warfare in World War II (National Defense University Press, 1990)
Another book that emphasizes the scientific community’s crucial role in tackling the challenges of undersea warfare is Montgomery Meigs’s Slide Rules and Submarines. Meigs explores the ways in which World War II naval officers worked with scientists to develop new operational capabilities for combating the German U-boat menace, as well as how the Navy used these insights to bolster the deadly work of American submarines in the Pacific. Like historian Michael Gannon, whose book Operation Drumbeat came out contemporaneously with Slide Rules and Submarines, Meigs is critical of Admiral Ernest J. King, who was slow to recognize the danger posed by Germany’s U-boat campaign.15 There are many heroes in Meigs’s story, though, including dedicated physicist John Tate and renowned submariner Charles Lockwood. The most prominent figure in the book is Francis S. Low, who ran the Tenth Fleet from its inception in the spring of 1943 until early 1945. Meigs’s monograph holds lessons for those who coordinate the work of scientists, engineers, and operators striving to gain new capabilities via technological advances.
Advanced Level
Rodney P. Carlisle, Sovereignty at Sea: U.S. Merchant Ships and American Entry into World War I (University Press of Florida, 2009)
One of the books Holwitt places in the advanced category of his reading list is his own “Execute Against Japan”. The title derives from a message sent by CNO Harold Stark less than five hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, one that authorized American naval forces to conduct unrestricted attacks against Japanese shipping. Holwitt calls attention to the historical irony of this order given the fact that just a generation earlier the United States had gone to war with Imperial Germany over the very issue of unrestricted submarine warfare.16 To explore fully this irony, however, in conjunction with Holwitt’s book one should also read Rodney Carlisle’s Sovereignty at Sea, the only study to analyze the specific U-boat attacks and merchant ship losses that led President Woodrow Wilson to seek a declaration of war against Germany.
Carlisle’s book begins with the sinking of unarmed U.S. merchant ship VIGILANCIA on 16 March 1917 by German submarine U-70, commanded by Otto Wünsche. Without knowledge of VIGILANCIA’s cargo and with complete disregard for the crew’s safety, U-70 clandestinely fired two torpedoes, the second of which struck a fatal blow. Fifteen merchant mariners were killed, six of whom were American citizens. Wünsche regarded U-70’s attack as acceptable under Germany’s recently reinstated policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. Wilson and his cabinet did not. In fact, U-70’s attack was different from those of other U-boats operating under the new policy, such as the sinking of U.S. merchantman LYMAN M. LAW. In that case, U- 35 captain Lothar Von Arnauld dispatched an officer to inspect LAW’s papers, ascertained that the ship’s cargo was contraband, and made sure the crew was safely aboard lifeboats before sending LAW to the bottom. Carlisle’s book not only adds to our understanding of why Wilson and Congress took the nation to war in 1917, it also speaks to contemporary issues surrounding justifications for recent American conflicts and reveals how seemingly obscure events sometimes become the turning points of history.
Francis Duncan, Rickover: The Struggle for Excellence (Naval Institute Press, 2001)
No individual dominated the Cold War Submarine Force more than the father of the nuclear navy, Hyman Rickover. The first biography of Rickover, an adulatory account penned by Clay Blair in the 1950s, was timed to coincide with the launch of the world’s first nuclear submarine, USS NAUTILUS (SSN-571).17 Three decades later, Norman Polmar and Thomas Allen published a critical biography, one characterized by veteran defense correspondent John Finney as a work verging “on the snide” and possessing “a certain petty strain.”18 Between these rhetorical extremes is Rickover, written by former Atomic Energy Commis- sion/Department of Energy historian Francis Duncan.
Duncan’s book chronicles the astonishing career of a man who would spend sixty-three years on active duty. A Polish immigrant, Rickover arrived in America at the age of six, graduated in the top quintile of the Naval Academy class of 1922, and volunteered for submarine duty in 1929. He served three years on S-48, two of them as executive officer, but a passion for engineering ultimately led him to request a lateral transfer to the engineering duty officer community. Promoted to captain during World War II, Rickover probably would have remained at that rank had he not been selected to serve as the head of a new section in the Bureau of Ships, the Nuclear Power Branch, after the war. From that bureaucratic perch Rickover spearheaded design and construction of the nuclear navy, implementing rigorous safety protocols, overseeing the selection and training of personnel, and instilling a legacy of integrity and technical excellence that survives to the present day.19 Rickover’s personality was both unpredictable and complex, but if people and organizations can learn something about where they are going by studying where they have been, then Rickover offers valuable insights for members of today’s submarine community.
William M. Leary, Under Ice: Waldo Lyon and the Develop- ment of the Arctic Submarine (Texas A&M University Press, 1999)
While all submariners have heard of Hyman Rickover, only a handful are likely to recognize the name Waldo Lyon. Like Rickover, though, Lyon devoted nearly his entire adult life to the
U.S. Navy. Starting in the late 1940s and for a half-century thereafter, Lyon was a key and consistent figure in under-ice submarine development. His legacy thus endures in every submariner who earns his or her Blue Nose and in every sub that ventures into the Arctic Ocean, a part of the globe that continues to hold substantial geopolitical importance.20
A native Californian, Lyon completed his Ph.D. in physics at UCLA just months before Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. Concerned about what the draft might hold in store, he gratefully accepted an offer to join the U.S. Navy’s Radio and Sound Laboratory in San Diego as a civilian employee. After the war, Lyon became head of the Lab’s Surface and Subsurface Research Division and helped to arrange the Navy’s first coordinated under- ice exercises in 1947. Institutional support for such operations waxed and waned, but throughout the Cold War Lyon served as chief scientist, engineer, and advocate for the arctic submarine. Lyon was heavily involved in the historic polar voyages conducted by NAUTILUS and other submarines in the aftermath of the Soviet launch of Sputnik, and he was instrumental in improving the under-ice capabilities of the STURGEON-class submarine. Ultimately, Under Ice illuminates the important contributions of a dedicated civil servant and lays bare the intrinsic challenge of incorporating laboratory research into operations at sea.
Concluding Thoughts
CNO John Richardson recently called upon U.S. Navy per- sonnel to develop “sound and long-term habits for reading and writing,” which, he argues, will “sharpen our thinking, learn the lessons from history, and expand our minds.”21 That Richardson – a member of the last Naval Academy class to interview with Rickover for acceptance into the nuclear power program – should make such an argument is fitting, since Rickover himself believed reading was an invaluable way to situate one’s work and to understand the meaning of responsibility.22 Hopefully the books recommended here, along with those previously suggested by Lieutenant Commander Holwitt, will serve both to reveal the rich history and heritage of the U.S. submarine force and to provide a rewarding means for pursuing the CNO’s goals.
ENDNOTES
1. Transcript of Naval Service, n.d., Umsted Folder, Modern Biography Files, U.S. Navy Operational Archives, Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington, D.C.
2. Galantin wryly noted that those who could read German had a somewhat easier time completing Umsted’s assignment. I. J. Galantin, Submarine Admiral: From Battlewagons to Ballistic Missiles (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 34.
3. Joel Holwitt, “The Submarine History Reading List for Submariners,” The Submarine Review 44, no. 2 (August 2016): 98-108. Holwitt’s list contains thirteen books and mentions several others.
4. McClaren’s Unknown Waters received an extensive, front-page review in the “Science Times” section of The New York Times, unusual for a book published by an academic press. William J. Broad, “Queenfish: A Cold War Tale,” New York Times, 18 March 2008, pp. D1, D4. For an analysis of Silent and Unseen, see Naval Historical Foundation Book Reviews, vol. 59, 14 December 2016, http://www.navyhistory.org/2016/12/book-review-silent-and-unseen-
on-patrol-in-three-cold-war-attack-submarines/ (accessed 20 January 2017).
5. Of the titles discussed here, only Submarine Warfare in the Civil War and Submarine Commander are available as e-books.
6. “Friends of the Hunley,” http://www.hunley.org/ (accessed 20 January 2017).
7. Sadly, twenty-six submariners also perished in the SQUALUS disaster.
8. “The Importance of Naval History,” OPNAV Newsletter, Winter 2016, 16 December 2016,
p. 5.
9. Ibid.
10. Edward J. Marolda, ed., The U.S. Navy in the Korean War (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2007).
11. Clay Blair, Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War against Japan (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1975), 771.
12. Admiral H. G. Rickover, “The Role of Engineering in the Navy,” speech delivered to the National Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, 30 August 1974, http://gmapalumni.org/chapomatic/extras/Rickover.htm (accessed 20 January 2017).
13. The Naval Historical Center was renamed the Naval History and Heritage Command in December 2008. U.S. Navy Press Release, “Naval Historical Center Renamed, Elevated to Command Status,” 5 December 2008,
http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=41201 (accessed 20 January 2017).
14. The OHIO replacement program is now also known as the COLUMBIA-class program after the Navy announced in July 2016 that the lead ship of the class would be named USS COLUMBIA. Because there remains in commission a LOS ANGLELES-class fast attack submarine (SSN-771) holding that name, the Congressional Research Service says both “OHIO replacement program” and “SSBN(X) program” are still appropriate nomenclature.
U.S. Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, Navy Columbia Class (Ohio Replacement) Ballistic Missile Submarine (SSBN[X]) Program: Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O’Rourke, R41129 (25 October 2016).
15. Michael Gannon, Operation Drumbeat: The Dramatic True Story of Germany’s First U- boat Attacks along the American Coast in World War II (New York: Harper & Row, 1990).
16. Joel Ira Holwitt, ”Execute Against Japan”: The U.S. Decision to Conduct Unrestricted Submarine Warfare (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2009), 1-4.
17. Clay Blair, The Atomic Submarine and Admiral Rickover (New York: Henry Holt, 1954).
18. John W. Finney, “The Admiral vs. the Navy,” New York Times Book Review, 31 January 1982, pp. 6, 17.
19. For a take on Rickover’s lasting influence as seen through the eyes of a lieutenant in today’s submarine force, see Ryan Hilger, “Reflections on Admiral Rickover’s Modern Legacy,” The Submarine Review 42, no. 4 (December 2014): 130-135.
20. Kristian Atland, “Interstate Relations in the Arctic: An Emerging Security Dilemma?” Comparative Strategy 33, no. 2 (2014), 145-166. See also James Foggo and Alarik Fritz, “The Fourth Battle of the Atlantic,” United States Naval Institute Proceedings 142, no. 6 (2016), 18- 22.
21. John Richardson and Ashley O’Keefe, “Read. Write. Fight.,” United States Naval Institute Proceedings 142, no. 6 (2016), 10-11.
22. Francis Duncan, Rickover and the Nuclear Navy: The Discipline of Technology
(Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1990), xxii.
