Around the World Submerged: The Voyage of the Triton

Finally, I found those I sought. Ingrid had promised to have our three children out of school for the occasion, and there they were, looking rather unhappy and solemn about the whole thing. Ned, Jr., and Hugh were each dutifully holding one of the large “Welcome Home Triton” signs with which many of those present were provided—no doubt a contribution of Electric Boat’s public-relations outfit.

In a few minutes our visitors were abreast of Triton’s sail, as we warped her slowly in, and I picked up a megaphone and made the shortest speech on record. “Hi!” I bellowed to them.

Not far away the Coast Guard Band played martial music for the occasion, blowing with gusto and not caring, evidently, whether the rain filled their horns with water or not. And as I glanced above me, a gust of wind caught Father’s old flag, flying from the top of our extended periscope, and straightened its ancient folds in reminiscent glory.

Suddenly my eyes smarted, and I deliberately looked down on deck to make sure that number one line had been properly led around a fair-lead cleat to the forward capstan.

A gangway was standing by, ready as soon as our mooring lines were doubled up and secured, and a battery of news cameras was waiting to record the first tender moments of arrival and greeting. Planned for our arrival was a ceremony in which the Secretary of the Navy, having flown from Washington for the purpose, was to award the Presidential Unit Citation to the ship and thereby authorize the entire crew to wear the Citation ribbon on their uniforms. We had designated the Chief of the Ship, Chief Torpedoman’s Mate Chester R. Fitzjarrald, to receive the award in the name of crew and officers. Then the Secretary was to award Allen Steele the Navy Commendation Ribbon for his inspired action in combating the hydraulic oil leak, which had so nearly caused loss of depth control two-and-a-half weeks before.

But here a contretemps developed—one of those things which make gray hairs grow on the heads of aides and public-relations men. As soon as the ship was secured topside and below, Will ordered the in-port watch to be set and summoned all hands topside to fall in at quarters. They were counted off, sized off, told off by rating—officers in one group, chief petty officers in another, “white hats” in a third—and in a short time Adams reported that we were ready for the ceremony to begin. But there was a strange uneasiness on the canopied presentation platform down on the dock opposite our bridge. So far as I could tell everything was ready there—they, at least, could have very little excuse for not having had the public-address systems and all the other details thoroughly checked out—but instead of going forward with the presentation, there seemed to be some sort of a conference being held instead. There was a certain eagerness on the part of the crew to have the program over with as soon as possible, and the officers and petty officers, for understandable reasons, were impatient, too.

After a short time, the explanation came: the Secretary of the Navy was nowhere to be found!

I had directed that no one was to be allowed aboard or off the ship until the ceremony had been completed; we couldn’t take a chance on lousing things up for the Secretary, I had thought, and this seemed little enough sacrifice at the time. But now Triton’s crew stood eagerly and uncomfortably on deck; our wives and families equally uncomfortably—and no less eager—on the dock. No one knew how long the Secretary would be delayed. Apparently, the plane bringing him had been diverted to the Naval Air Station at Quonset Point because of the bad weather, and he was driving to New London. If so, he should arrive at any moment; but the moments came and the moments went, and the Secretary of the Navy remained absent. As we later found out, fate was not quite through with us even yet. The driver of the lead car of the group assigned to bring the Secretary of the Navy and his party to New London, with Mr. Franke himself riding in the back seat, did not know the way!

I don’t remember anyone putting the idea into my head, but a single wave of thought must have been going full blast that day. When the word arrived that no one knew where the Secretary was, and that for some reason he had entirely missed the police guard waiting for him at the Rhode Island border, I asked Admiral Daspit whether it would be permissible to dismiss the men from their quarters.