Around the World Submerged: The Voyage of the Triton

The question caught me by surprise, as no doubt it was intended to do. What I knew about naval aiding a President was not impressive. I remember wondering whether it would be anything like working for General Bradley, and, in virtually the same thought, whether he might have had anything to do with suggesting me. And I remember also thinking quickly that coming ashore meant I would no longer be “attached to and serving on board a submarine.” This would automatically result in a pay cut amounting to $180.00 a month.

But that is about all I recall of the interview, for the next thing I found myself saying was that I would like the job, if Mr. Eisenhower wanted me. A friendly Army colonel by the name of Pete Carroll introduced me to a few more people and then showed me out. “When do I start?” I asked him.

“You’ve started,” he replied.

The four years I served as Naval Aide to the President are, of course, among the most precious recollections my wife and I have. To be associated in any capacity with the President of the United States and to have had the opportunity to earn his regard is a piece of good fortune which cannot fall to many.

I soon found that a tremendous amount of official paper flows every day between the White House and the Pentagon. About ninety-five percent of this paper is routine—and the Navy’s portion of this reaches the President through the Naval Aide. Naturally, there were other duties, too.

One of the more pleasant tasks which fell to me was that of making the arrangements for Mrs. Eisenhower’s christening of the Nautilus. The affair burgeoned from a rather simple expedition to an elaborate operation, involving special trains, special protocol arrangements, and all sorts of intricate details in New London.

During a moment of leisure after the 1956 campaign, I communicated to the President my feeling that as a career naval officer I should not remain longer than four years in the position I then held. His ready understanding has been one of my warm memories of him.

The Navy Department concurred in my desire for sea duty, and since I had recently attained the rank of Captain, I was assigned to command one of the fast fleet oilers serving our forces in the Mediterranean. Salamonie, or “Old Sal” as we dubbed her, had been built for the Standard Oil Company as a so-called “super-tanker” just before the war. Taken over by the Navy before completion, she had been a part of the fleet ever since, and when I saw her, she bore the scars of many years of strenuous operations.

Almost all my time on board was spent at sea in the Mediterranean, fueling ships and fighting rust, and as we prepared to leave that strategic area, I was amazed at the tabulated number of ships we had refueled and the quantity of fuel oil, gasoline, and jet fuel we had pumped through our tanks. We had serviced an average of four ships per day, and on some days we counted as many as twenty-four ships alongside during a twenty-four-hour period.

During the Salamonie’s return trip to the United States, in December of 1957, she had a brief moment of distinction when three destroyers, caught in a lengthy period of bad weather at sea, began to run perilously low on fuel. We were the only ship in the vicinity, and after three days of struggle at the tail end of a North Atlantic hurricane, we managed to get fuel to the three ships and save the situation. It was a strenuous operation from the heaving, pitching deck of the Salamonie, and it must have been even more so from the destroyers’ point of view.

During the first day, a heavy sea swept a man overboard from one of them; snatched him, in fact, from the boat deck, a full deck higher than the ship’s main deck. To launch a lifeboat was impossible; we were all pitching too violently, and even “Old Sal” was rolling her decks under. By good fortune, I happened to be looking at the Gearing through my binoculars at the very moment her signal searchlight began to spell out the words, “MAN OVERBOARD,” and read the electrifying message direct. In this situation Salamonie, being the biggest ship present, had the advantage; and we were able to maneuver into position to pick the man up by sending a strong swimmer with a line fastened to his waist into the fifty-foot seas after him. The volunteer who thus risked his life to save another was Lawrence W. Beckhaus, then a Gunner’s Mate Second Class.

“Old Sal” reached the United States on December 22, 1957. On arrival, Beckhaus received a medal for heroism; and I was home for Christmas. In the mail were orders detaching me from command of Salamonie and directing me to report to the “Director of Naval Reactors, Atomic Energy Commission, Washington, D.C., for duty under instruction in nuclear power.”

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