room.
Honeysette’s intelligent face was framed above the circular hatchway as I passed through. “If we have a court martial, Captain, we’ll have to go back!”
“Humph!” was all I could say again. Honeysette had got the best of this interchange. It was also obvious that he had guessed that this cruise might be more than it purported to be.
Directly beneath the conning tower is the control room. Its bulkheads and overhead are painted a soft green, but the color scheme as a whole, with all the instruments, is predominantly instrument gray like the conning tower above. In this area Triton is three decks high—and the control room, occupying the highest compartment, has the basic shape of the attic of a Quonset hut. The curved cylindrical pressure hull of the ship, insulated with an inch of smooth cork glued directly to the steel, sweeps in an unbroken arc from starboard to port.
Covering the entire port half of the forward bulkhead is the diving panel: a large gray metal affair in which a great number of instruments are mounted. Here are depth gauges, gyrocompass repeater, speed indicator, engine-order telegraphs (frequently called “annunciators”) a “combined instrument panel” for the bow planesman and another for the stern planes-man, and controls for our automatic depth-keeping equipment. Two armchairs, upholstered in red plastic, face the diving panel. Directly before each of them is a control column that would make a bomber pilot feel right at home.
Submerged, the control room is one of the most important nerve centers of the ship, but while a submarine is on the surface there is very little going on. The seats in front of the diving stand were at the moment unoccupied; on diving, the two lookouts on the bridge would come down below and take over the two stations. The Officer of the Deck is the last man down; he personally shuts the bridge hatch and then swings below to take his station as Diving Officer. Up to now this would have been Bob Brodie, but as he was being relieved, Jim Hay wouldbe the “Diving Officer of the Watch.” I saw with approval, however, that Tom Thamm, the ship’s official Diving Officer, was still on hand, sitting on the cushioned top of a tool box located just in front of the ship’s fathometer. Apparently, he had finished his compensation calculations, for the circular slide rule he had devised for this purpose was nowhere to be seen.
Thamm rose to his feet, “Afternoon, Captain,” he said. “How is it on the bridge?”
“Cold and windy.”
“How soon do you think we’ll be diving?” he asked.
“A couple of hours,” I said. “It’s a pretty long run out here you know—have you got your trim in yet?”
Tom shook his head. “It’s still going in, sir. We’ll have it in about fifteen minutes more. It takes a while to compensate this big boat.”
“Ship.”
“Sorry, sir. ‘This ship,’ I mean.” Tom grinned at me.
Submarines have been called boats ever since 1900 when our Navy’s first submarine, USS Holland, was indeed a “boat”—only fifty-four feet long, twenty-feet shorter than Triton ’s sail. Since then, the term has been affectionately perpetuated, despite great changes in the craft themselves. Even before World War II, however, submarines were for various purposes officially designated as “major war vessels,” and since that time their significance and importance have increased still further. Triton, with the size and horsepower of a cruiser, with unmatched operational versatility, speed, and endurance, is far more than a boat. With bigger craft sliding down the ways, Rear Admiral Warder, the “Fearless Freddie” of World War II renown and Admiral Daspit’s predecessor as ComSubLant, had directed submariners henceforth to refer to their boats as ships. But old habits die hard, and no one in the Triton was so constant an offender as I. This was the reason for Tom’s grin.
“If we’re not going to dive for two hours, Captain,
Honeysette’s intelligent face was framed above the circular hatchway as I passed through. “If we have a court martial, Captain, we’ll have to go back!”
“Humph!” was all I could say again. Honeysette had got the best of this interchange. It was also obvious that he had guessed that this cruise might be more than it purported to be.
Directly beneath the conning tower is the control room. Its bulkheads and overhead are painted a soft green, but the color scheme as a whole, with all the instruments, is predominantly instrument gray like the conning tower above. In this area Triton is three decks high—and the control room, occupying the highest compartment, has the basic shape of the attic of a Quonset hut. The curved cylindrical pressure hull of the ship, insulated with an inch of smooth cork glued directly to the steel, sweeps in an unbroken arc from starboard to port.
Covering the entire port half of the forward bulkhead is the diving panel: a large gray metal affair in which a great number of instruments are mounted. Here are depth gauges, gyrocompass repeater, speed indicator, engine-order telegraphs (frequently called “annunciators”) a “combined instrument panel” for the bow planesman and another for the stern planes-man, and controls for our automatic depth-keeping equipment. Two armchairs, upholstered in red plastic, face the diving panel. Directly before each of them is a control column that would make a bomber pilot feel right at home.
Submerged, the control room is one of the most important nerve centers of the ship, but while a submarine is on the surface there is very little going on. The seats in front of the diving stand were at the moment unoccupied; on diving, the two lookouts on the bridge would come down below and take over the two stations. The Officer of the Deck is the last man down; he personally shuts the bridge hatch and then swings below to take his station as Diving Officer. Up to now this would have been Bob Brodie, but as he was being relieved, Jim Hay wouldbe the “Diving Officer of the Watch.” I saw with approval, however, that Tom Thamm, the ship’s official Diving Officer, was still on hand, sitting on the cushioned top of a tool box located just in front of the ship’s fathometer. Apparently, he had finished his compensation calculations, for the circular slide rule he had devised for this purpose was nowhere to be seen.
Thamm rose to his feet, “Afternoon, Captain,” he said. “How is it on the bridge?”
“Cold and windy.”
“How soon do you think we’ll be diving?” he asked.
“A couple of hours,” I said. “It’s a pretty long run out here you know—have you got your trim in yet?”
Tom shook his head. “It’s still going in, sir. We’ll have it in about fifteen minutes more. It takes a while to compensate this big boat.”
“Ship.”
“Sorry, sir. ‘This ship,’ I mean.” Tom grinned at me.
Submarines have been called boats ever since 1900 when our Navy’s first submarine, USS Holland, was indeed a “boat”—only fifty-four feet long, twenty-feet shorter than Triton ’s sail. Since then, the term has been affectionately perpetuated, despite great changes in the craft themselves. Even before World War II, however, submarines were for various purposes officially designated as “major war vessels,” and since that time their significance and importance have increased still further. Triton, with the size and horsepower of a cruiser, with unmatched operational versatility, speed, and endurance, is far more than a boat. With bigger craft sliding down the ways, Rear Admiral Warder, the “Fearless Freddie” of World War II renown and Admiral Daspit’s predecessor as ComSubLant, had directed submariners henceforth to refer to their boats as ships. But old habits die hard, and no one in the Triton was so constant an offender as I. This was the reason for Tom’s grin.
“If we’re not going to dive for two hours, Captain,
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