Artic submariner honored by Explores Club, Rolex Watch

Sea Technology, Jan 1998

The Explorers Club and Rolex Watch U.S.A. Inc. (New York city) honored five pioneer arctic submarine explorers during the Lowell Thomas Awards dinner November 12 at the New York Athletic Club. Dr. Alfred S. McLaren, president of the Explorers Club, presented the awards in memory of Lowell Thomas (famed war correspondent, radio, and TV newscaster and explorer) to four commanding officers of U.S. nuclear-powered submarines and the chief scientist of the first submarines to reach the North Pole and explore the Arctic Ocean from 1958 through 1960. Back in 1958, it was by no means certain that even a nuclear submarine could travel to the North Pole and return safely, let alone surface through thick ice routinely.

Honorees included four retired U.S. Navy officers: Capt. William R. Anderson, former congressman from Tennessee, who commanded the Nautilus during the first voyage from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean via the North Pole (1958); and VAdm. James F. Calvert, who commanded the Skate during the second and third voyages to the North Pole and Arctic Ocean (1958 and 1959)-Skate was the first submarine to surface through arctic sea ice, and the first to surface at the North Pole-VAdm. John H. Nicholson, who was second in command of Skate during Skate's first polar voyage, commanding officer of Sargo during the fourth voyage to the North Pole, and the first to the Arctic Ocean during the dead of winter ( 1960)-Sargo was the first submarine to operate in the shallow, ice-covered water of the Bering, Beaufort, and Chukchi seas; VAdm. George P. Steele, commanding officer of the Seadragon which made the first voyage from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean via the North Pole-Seadragon was the first submarine to operate under large icebergs in Baffin Bay and to conduct a complete hydrographic survey of the fabled Northwest Passage; and Dr. Waldo K. Lyon of San Diego, who, as a senior civilian scientist of the former Naval Electronics Laboratory, conceived the idea, established the U.S. Navy's famed Arctic Submarine Laboratory, fought the bureaucracy, planned, developed the equipment for, and accompanied each of these polar voyages as senior scientist. The honorees were presented with suitably engraved Rolex "Submariner" watches by Roland Puton, president and CEO of Rolex Watch.