Sir Hubert at bow of Nautilus in ice pack
specimens of arctic marine life through an opened door," wrote Lake in his memoirs. Wilkins felt Simon Lake used the project like a Christmas tree to hang his inventions on. "Wilkins had no experience whatsoever with submarines so he had no recourse but to defer to Lake and Danenhower. But I believe Lake did look upon the Nautilus as a platform from which he could employ his technological 'wish list' for an under ice submarine. Many were extremely clever, such as the 'snorkel'-type hollow drills for re-charging the batteries, a hydraulicallyactivated ice guide for submerged operation, the diver lock-out chamber, a pressurized compartment and winch for retrieving ocean samples," Nelson says. "However, some of the modifications were mechanically complicated and failed under of technological limits of the time and environmental conditions, such as the failure of the hollow drills and the jack-knife periscope." Nelson says some of Lakes modifications were superfluous, or impractical. "Some were unnecessary-and Wilkins knew it- such as the bow ram, where the bow had been hardened as one of the modifications. Besides the scientific mission, there were two other major considerations: drilling up (man-size drill) at the North Pole to rendezvous with the Graf Zeppelin (that was the publicity draw), and the need to be able to re-charge the batteries when submerged (the two smaller hollow drill). However, in fairness to Lake, he tried to consider every situation in which the Nautilus might find itself-and how best to deal
42 MTR
with it. After all, this was the first time anyone was attempting to take a submarine into the Arctic and go beneath the ice pack." In Nelson's book, we follow the mission's slow and difficult progress, which demonstrates how hard it is to keep a ship going in the best of conditions, and almost impossible in the worst conditions. Was Wilkins naive? Certainly the "qualified" submariners on the boat knew it was in no condition to head into the adverse and uncertain far north. Was Wilkins negligent in continuing to press forward? Nelson believes Wilkins was driven because he feared to fail all those that had believed in him and supported him. "I believe the veteran 'qualified' submariners were true to the Navy tradition and tried mightily to keep the Nautilus in an operational condition. However, I also believe that a point was reached where they realized it was all to no avail and Wilkins was subjecting an old and deteriorating boat to needless danger by pressing on." The expedition finally reached the ice pack when it was discovered that the dive planes had sheared off, making it virtually impossible to proceed beneath the ice. I asked Nelson if he thought the loss of the dive planes was an intentional act of sabotage. "I believe that an attempt was made to structurally weaken them," Nelson says. "The crew had seen the results of metal fatigue when the Nautilus was dry docked in Devonport Royal Dockyard, enroute from the U.S. to the Arctic. It wouldn't take much, such as impact with an ice floe, to cause them to fall off. In my mind, sabotage was the only recourse the crew had to stop Wilkins from pressing forward. Perhaps in the mind of the crew-at least those responsible for the acts of sabotage-it was simply a matter of preserving the Nautilus and their lives." Even with the missing dive planes, Wilkins did not turn back. He maneuvered up and around the ice, trying to get as far north as possible, and attempted to make as many scientific observations as he and his chief scientist, Norwegian Dr. Harald Sverdrup, could conduct. Nelson reports that attempts were made by Wilkins to "drive" Nautilus under the ice by submerging briefly, and then moving slowly ahead. Nautilus could barely say she was submerged beneath the ice, but in fact she was, if only briefly. Nautilus was plagued by insurmountable engineering problems. She was unsafe. Wilkins was determined to make a good show of it, perhaps hopeful that he would earn some public acclaim as well as some of Hearst's sponsorship money. At one point, the sub's wireless set
April 2008
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