cover image Dark Waters: An Insider's Account of the NR-1, the Cold War's Undercover Nuclear Sub

Dark Waters: An Insider's Account of the NR-1, the Cold War's Undercover Nuclear Sub

Lee Vyborny. New American Library, $24.95 (243pp) ISBN 978-0-451-20777-7

A former crewmember and a journalist join forces to tell the absorbing tale of the deepest secret weapon in the U.S. Navy's submarine force, the deep-diving nuclear submarine NR-1. A brainchild of the brilliant and controlling Admiral Rickover, even her construction involved a host of technical problems. When she finally went to sea in 1970, her crew of 12 (including the senior author) found her slow, almost unnavigable on the surface, and facing previously unsuspected threats, such as undersea tsunamis when she operated at her designed depth of 3,000 feet. They and their successors helped place underwater sonar devices, retrieve lost F-14's with secret Phoenix missiles aboard, and perform many other missions that are only hinted at in the book. They had to survive bad food, accommodations that were anything but ergonomic, a reactor that worked most (but not all) of the time and the persistent curiosity of the Soviet Bloc. The Soviet Bloc is gone, of course, and likewise Admiral Rickover, but the NR-1 sails on, the U. S. Navy's oldest operational submarine. Her career was not declassified in time for Blind Man's Bluff, but fans of the earlier book will devour this one with enthusiasm.