Submariner

The reason for the existence of this page is nostalgia. The kind that visits a man in his later years, after youth's exhuberance has yielded to the pragmatisms of life. The things that were important are focused and clear. The things that are not, all forgotten...or perhaps suppressed. For me, from the period of 1968 to 1972, I got to ride SSN587. More than ride...the crew allowed me to be a member. The officers, at least from my berth, did not impress me (I was nineteen when I got there). One or two maybe. But the crew was everything. Hard, tough, salty, ready to die for the right reasons. Officers ate from china served up by stewards. The crew blew the tanks. They were all men of their time.

That was over 40 years ago. The boat is scrap metal now, and many of the crew have died. But here she is, nested right in that part of my memory that this man will carry past his old age. The experience makes laughing mockery of "equality", "fairness", "special interest" or all the weak-minded arguments of a current American day.. of comfortable, engine driven prosperity . That time gave perspective only those who have sacrificed the self for God and country can recognize...whether rice paddy, river gunner, or nuclear submersible. The war was both cold and hot. It required spirit in humans America will no doubt require again.

I was not the exemplary submariner. Too young with just the one enlistment....mostly avoiding the Viet Nam jungles. I just showed up one day from rural Oklahoma. I didn't take long to learn who they were. The crew covered my back. It was war. Together, we still sail... if only in the occassional disturbed dream.

SS(G)N 587 - a Regulus shooter turned 'research'

Researching

Sea Trial

A Mate. And a rare interior glimpse.

She was 350 feet. More than 100 crew. 350/100 = , you get the idea.

You probably see Santa. Some see three hydraulic systems and a bilge hatch. (Even rarer interior glimpse)

Note film badges. Only took 13 months aboard to qualify. 'Non-quals' encouraged. 'Dinks' not tolerated.

"Big and Black, and never comes back"

But in my mind, she never leaves.

For more 587 link to http://users.erols.com/marelk/Gangway%20Page%20Frames/framemain.htm

Most of these images were lifted. For the originals, link to http://users.erols.com/marelk/Gangway%20Page%20Frames/

For gangway http://users.erols.com/marelk/Gangway%20Page%20Frames/

Be sure to pick up a copy of 'Spy Sub', written by a shipmate. Link to http://users.erols.com/marelk/Library.htm

Also read Blind Man's Bluff for a surprising level of detail, authored by Sherry Sontag & Christopher Drew. .Harper, 1999

More about Regulus (before my time) link to http://www.wa3key.com/regulus.html

Contact me :jw_collins@comcast.net

Finally, my safe-to-tell story;

I remember first laying eyes on her. She was in the number two dry dock at Mare Island with her stern toward me. She was a monstor. I was not prepared for such a sight as this man made steel demon. I was eighteen years old. Everyone around the place scurried about non-plussed, as if a captured nuclear monstor like this was a common sight. And for them it was. There were giant cranes all around her for her service. The wheels to the cranes were as tall as a boy, and they constantly beeped, warning of their heavy and inevitable approach. Danger was literally everywhere. The screws gave the captured monstor a sense of life. Without those screws, just a beached whale. And the hangar door was opened wide. There was a hole in the top of this submarine through which you could literally drive a truck.....or perhaps a missile. Whatever happened, I figured, I wasn't carrying a rifle with a few bullets in a jungle I never heard of before. In that sense amidst all the danger, I took my psychological safety for the next several years.

Months later she was being fitted with new equipment. Including men. I was a sonarman from the old school in Key West, and not the extended school. That would have cost two more years of my life. At that age, an eternity. I got barely the basics. Barely, just barely enough.

The two new fathometers flanking the rail of the periscope stand made the old one with the orange CRT eye-in-the-middle look like a slow moving dinasaur...which it was. Each of the new, smaller ones used high speed stylii. They could sound out a foot or two under the keel easily. Probably nothing like the sophisticated technology of today, but we were impressed. I leave it to you to recall why there were two.

Anyway, our sea trial found these two screaming ping boxes on all day, on all night. Rolls of paper consumed with depth information. Wasn't long before the stylus in the first one was burned away. The OOD asked for a replacement stylus while continuing to run them both. There were only two spares in a celophane package, and we were at sea for a couple of weeks. Those new parts lasted about six hours each. I found out then whose job it was to lay in spares.

So we started clipping the bristles from one of those wire brushes surface sailors have in their hands for half their enlistment. Each tine about the right diameter, it was made of steel, not tungsten, and as a stylus at least, had the life of a firefly. The captain never said a word but made sure those fathometers hummed for two weeks running, night and day. Ask Peter McGrath (if he's willing to talk about it). This insured of course that we were shaken out of the rack just about every other hour.

Later, we laid in some supplies.

J W Collins

STS2(SS) (68-72)