1920 The Sugar Boats – “faulty, sooty, dangerous and repellent engineering”

1920 The newspapers of the day in 1920 were filled with a series of articles called “The Victory at Sea”. These articles went into great detail to outline the role the US Navy had played in the recently ended war. Rear Admiral Sims was one of the key players in providing the facts, figures, and […]

In the beginning, there was darkness. Then Captain Rickover showed up

Having served on board five nuclear submarines and having grown up in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, there has never been a moment of my life that nuclear power wasn’t a fact of life. Since returning to the area after my second career, there are many occasions where I run into people who either worked for […]

The Birth of the Atomic Fleet – When Science Fiction was Dwarfed by Science Fact

The Birth of the Atomic Fleet In 1950, the same year the USS Pickerel conducted a remarkable journey from Hong Kong to Hawaii in just 21 days under snorkel, the President of the United States, President Harry S. Truman, authorized the building of an atomic submarine for the first (August 1950). Pundits and politicians had […]

Forged by the Sea, Tempered by the Steel City – Birth of the Nuclear Navy

Birth of the Nuclear Navy Forged by the Sea, Tempered in the Steel City There are many paths that led to the development of the new power source that would give the American Navy a way to counter any force on earth. The excerpts in this post come from one of the best sources […]

A New Wrinkle on H. G. Rickover – A Real Life Saver

I was doing a little research this morning about the main subject of a book I am writing and I ran across a little gem that while unrelated was certainly an eye catcher. It had to do with a young Lieutenant named Hyman G. Rickover. Okay, to be fair, he wasn’t all that old when […]