The Ice Diaries: The Untold Story of the USS Nautilus and the Cold War's Most Daring Mission

by William R. Anderson, Don Keith (Contributor)

The greatest undersea adventure of the 20th century.

The Ice Diaries tells the incredible true story of Captain William R. Anderson and his crew's harrowing top-secret mission aboard the USS Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine. Bristling with newly classified, never-before-published information and photos from the captain's personal collection, The Ice Diaries takes readers on a dangerous journey beneath the vast, unexplored Arctic ice cap during the height of the Cold War.

"Captain Anderson and the crew of the USS Nautilus exemplified daring and boldness in taking their boat beneath the Arctic ice to the North Pole. This expertly told story captures the drama, danger, and importance of that monumental achievement." ―Capt. Stanley D. M. Carpenter, Professor of Strategy and Policy, United States Naval War College

"Few maritime exploits in history have so startled the world as the silent, secret transpolar voyage of the U.S. Navy's nuclear submarine Nautilus, and none since the age of Columbus and Vasco da Gama has opened, in one bold stroke, so vast and forbidding an area of the seas." ―Paul O'Neil, Life magazine

 

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Military Fiction, Biography, Audiobook, War, Military History

466 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 29, 2008

About the author

Librarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

On August 3, 1958. the USS Nautilus became the first submarine to make the underwater journey to the geographical North Pole. USS Nautilus was the first nuclear-powered submarine. She was commissioned on 30 September 1954 and The Ice Diaries is the story of her second Captain, Commander William R. Anderson, and the crew that made this historic trip. Her orders were to transit from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic, in the process passing under the North Pole. The search for a Northwest Passage has been a centuries-old dream of mariners everywhere and the crew of Nautilus was certainly no exception. In addition, this trip occurred at the point in history where it appeared that the United States was definitely losing its pre-eminent place in technological development. Russia had recently launched Sputnik and quickly followed it with another.

Captain Anderson had proposed this type of underwater exploration shortly after taking command and was given permission to do a short test run under the Atlantic ice shelf which he hoped would let him get to the Pole although he had no definite orders to go that far. It was not to be on that trip but the amount of information the boat compiled made Captain Anderson and the Navy eager to try again.

This is a wonderful account of a gripping trip and a great accomplishment. Nautilus essentially explored unknown territory and came close to being stranded under the ice on several occasions. The second try had to be aborted and they were finally successful on the third attempt. The successful route approached from the Pacific side through the Bering Sea and Across. On all three attempts, they had to fight equipment failures, leaks, compass failures and, at on time, a fire onboard. They also had to accomplish it in secrecy. President Eisenhower wanted to announce a victory as a surprise and certainly did not want to publicize a failure. In the end, they triumphed. This story of the Captain and crew and the remarkable ways they coped in a new and hostile environment is fascinating.

[Jon Larson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book!

Story about the Nautilis, not the Jules Verne Nautilis, but the first nuclear-powered sub and its first (well really second), commander. The story encompasses the trials and perseverance the crew went through in their secret ambitious goal of trying to be the first ship to reach the north pole and find an elusive underwater Northwest passage.

Since the ship was new, the crew faced many issues on the ship that had to be rectified in order to reach their goal. Two stories stick out; The first was in regards to a fire on board. The crew did not have an adequate fresh air supply to those fighting through the smoke. After the fire was extinguished, an engineer devised a solution to the problem that is still used on all submarines today. Pretty impressive.

The second was using the brand new gyrocompass invented by Sperry that would help them directionally as they approached the North Pole. Since compasses would be wildly erratic, this gyrocompass was crucial for proper navigation at the pole. They made a couple of attempts at reaching the pole and worked out issues with the compass at that time.

Truly a great story about our modern-day explorers. The USS Natilus was designated a National Historic Landmark and is currently a museum open to the public in Groton, CT.

I would highly recommend this book.

[Aaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

I want to like this more, I really do. It's heartfelt and the story is interesting enough, and there's plenty of fun tidbits.

Unfortunately, there's a few issues which really hurt the book, for me:
1. I am too young to have heard of this happening at all until I read this book, and so I don't have most of the (mostly assumed until the very end) context. He tries to derive some relevance to the expedition compared to Sputnik, but given I've heard of the latter and not the former, that's really all I can base the impact on. I lived reasonably close to the naval base, actually, so the fact I hadn't heard about Nautilus gives me some pause. Will be sure to go there next time I'm in the area though!
2. It reads like a very long press conference: every sailor under his command was absolutely outstanding, he couldn't be prouder, etc etc etc. Despite being literally sailors, nobody ever swears or does anything remotely less than profesional. I have a hard time with this kind of talk because it feels like a time-sink; people who are good at it (football coaches, for example) can pretend to be talking about something important for effectively an indefinite length of time, and journalists feel like they got a scoop without any actual information happening. Besides being annoying, it makes me question the validity of when he does present real information
3. A relatively low number of explanations of tradeoffs and places where he had to deal with others. This was one of the places where I felt like there was relevant information to me, but there are few times that it happens, and those aren't particularly detailed. If anything, his experience in how to deal with bureaucracy actually is very interesting, but it's not discussed much; likewise, how to balance conservativism/safety with getting what you want done is something that's interesting but not talked about much. Mostly a missed opportunity here.
4. It's too long. The story is interesting, it's just not _THAT_ interesting
5. It's just not that well written; the diary format is old-hat and the writing style isn't great. Given that he's not an experienced author, there's some niceness to its rough edges, but that also means that he misses out on describing the interesting parts with more... excitement. Overall, it's more "doing repairs in the dock" and less "Hunt for Red October".

[Henry Le Nav · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book, I loved it. I was 9 years old when Captain Anderson and his crew completed the submerged ice polar transit. I was one of those weird kids that loved WWII submarine movies and books.

Ahoogah Ahoogah. "Dive! Dive!" "Battle stations!"

The USS Nautilus captured my imagination as a kid, a sub that could stay down for weeks at a time. I had a model of it. I well remember the Nautilus going to the north pole and the excitement it generated. It was badly needed after Sputnik.

The book is well written, albeit perhaps a bit innocent and patriotic for modern tastes. It should be noted that it was written prior to the author's death in 2007. It has a detailed account of the under ice missions, the problems they incurred, and the politics involved. It also had adventure.

The book contained many photos but the one thing that struck me that it lacked was a detailed map showing the route of the Nautilus. I found an excellent chart on the Internet:

https://www.navalhistory.org/wp-conte...

I think the innocent sense of adventure is what I enjoyed about this book. It was a return to the joy of reading that I experienced as a child. If nothing else it was a great escape from the headlines of today.

[Bill Subalusky · Rating 2 out of 5]

A heroic tale of nuclear sailers who took a submarine the size of a several story building hundreds of miles beneath the polar ice cap for the first time in history, manuevering with the technology of fiftey years ago, and navigating along an uncharted sea floor with only twenty feet beneath the keel and eight feet above the highest point on the sub. Unfortunately, the story of these heroes is not well told in this book. The writing style resembles that of a high school compostion and the sentences are overloaded with terminology not likely to be clearly understood by the non-submarine qualified reader.

[Tim Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an easy to read and fairly well written account of one of the greatest accomplishments by submarine sailors in the history of the United States Navy, certainly in peacetime; the underwater transit of the Arctic Ocean from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean, passing by the North Pole (first time a ship did so under its own power and in such a way as there was no doubt it had arrived). This book is not just an account of that particular journey but the planning and politics behind the attempt, the two previous attempts (there were three under ice passages in total, a failed one in 1957 in which the ship was damaged, another failed one in 1958, and finally the successful one starting in July of 1958), the history of the Nautilus (the world’s first operational nuclear-powered submarine), and a biography of its captain, William R. Anderson (who wrote the book along with Don Keith, though sadly I learned at the end of the book Captain Anderson died just as the two were finishing the first draft in 2007). There was also coverage of the U.S. submarine program at the time, the development of nuclear power in general for ships and for submarines especially, a good bit about Admiral Hyman G. Rickover (who figured prominently in several sections, a key figure, probably the most important figure, in the origins, development, and use of nuclear powered vessels in the U.S. Navy), and a good illustration of the context of the times (the height of the Cold War, fears of a growing shadow cast by Soviet military and scientific advancements, the Sputnik scare, as well as public and political reception of the success of the mission in 1958).

The book had a number of photographs of the captain, his crew, Rickover, the ship itself, and the parades and ceremonies after completion of the mission. All are in black and white and a few were a bit on the small side but they were interesting to see. At one point a reference is made that crewmen went into a boat to photograph the Nautilus on the surface surrounded by ice; we get the photo of the sailors in the raft but I do not recall a photograph of the submarine in that setting (though I think this is a minor complaint).

I though the two authors did a good job overall, including showing shipboard life on the submarine, the difficulty in keeping things secret (with often the leaks not from those on the vessel or their loved ones but people at high levels of government), the many technical issues that had to be solved for a transit of the Arctic Ocean (most especially with compasses and navigation), and the context of the time, how important this mission was (especially to President Eisenhower), how many times it came close to being shelved, and why it was so important to the public and to the world once success was revealed. I also liked how the authors never forgot that the mission was a technical achievement (resulting in advances in the technology for submarines to travel in the Arctic and under the ice), a scientific achievement (resulting in a vast amount of data of ice and weather conditions of the Arctic and of mapping of the Arctic Ocean floor including the discovery of undersea mountain ranges), and a military advancement (essentially creating a new theater of operations against the Soviet Union, in an area that was prior to the Nautilus’s journey considered a safe backyard of sorts by the Soviets). There was some good tension later on in the book, sometimes around technical issues and damage to the ship, other times with tension over whether or not the mission would be canceled, later with a race with another submarine to the North Pole. Rickover was portrayed as having a very interesting personality and the sections where Anderson worked under Rickover in Washington D.C. were almost novelistic in their portrayal of their interactions and Rickover’s personality.

My only complaint was the writing style took a little getting used to, as it was mostly in short, declarative sentences, not as long a sentences as I was typically used to or with a lot in the way of independent clauses. It was definitely no nonsense and not flowery (though not cold or anything). I don’t know if that was from Anderson’s personality, the time period he grew up in, a military influence, or what. It wasn’t a big problem and I grew used to it (and later on when there was more tension I ceased to notice it) but it was a bit different from either more narrative popular works of history I had read or from more scholarly treatments of historical events.

The book closes with a sailing roster which I thought was really nice and a thorough index. No bibliography but a book written by the captain of this mission to me counts as a primary source material. There is also an epilogue detailing the lives of several in the book after the missions to the Arctic (including the personal life of Anderson) and the eventual fate of the Nautilus (which ended up a museum ship you can visit today).

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Closer to 3 stars for the writing as the pacing and style didn’t agree with me. I found the subject matter fascinating though, and a very cool voyage/mission!

I think I vaguely knew about the Nautilus and the trip under the Arctic ice pack but most if the book was new to me.

[Marianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of the first submarine to cross from the Pacific to the Atlantic under the polar ice cap, this is told in a rather dry manner but is still a fascinating story.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazing and awe-inspiring book! From my earliest moments, I remember how special the Nautilus was. I was born a few months before her historic Arctic voyage. I grew up in the wake of the popularity of her transit. I remember putting together a plastic model of her as a young boy. This book tells the story of a special submarine, its special CO, and the very special voyage. The voyage sparked a nation. We need heroes like this now!

[Morgan McGuire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Begins in clear journeyman prose and builds to a level of excitement and tension I couldn't put down. The voice of a then 37-year old skipper comes through confidently, and the story is told simply and directly. It was like reading a Ernest K. Gann or Alistair MacLain thriller, but 100% true.

[Greg Hutchins · Rating 3 out of 5]

I grew up outside Groton where the sun was made and I’ve done a tour of this sub. It was fun to read about the subs adventures and hear about the significance it played during the Cold War.

[jj Grilliette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good

[Ron Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

A modern day arctic adventure story. Truly one of the last frontiers in exploration, Captain Anderson recounts the story of the first transit across the North Pole, under the ice, aboard submarine Nautilus.
An exciting journey!

[Joanne Fate · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book tells the journey of the USS Nautilis, the first nuclear powered submarine, going under the North Pole in 1958. There are a lot of details about the events leading to the trip under the top of the world. The book is interesting and well written. The narration is solid.

[Kyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A momentous true adventure with a consistent narrative.

Many reviewers have summarized the book, so I won't do so. However, I feel like I have to add some contrast to the reviewers who referred to the late Captain Anderson's narrative as "dry" and/or "unemotional"*. That was not my perception at all, especially the "unemotional" label. For instance, it was obvious that the skipper was wearing his heart on his sleeves while describing the numerous celebrations of the mission in New York and in his hometown. Also, Anderson shared many heartfelt accolades and points of pride about his crew and others who helped the U.S.S. Nautilus circumvent the polar north ice cap. He was obviously very unassuming and redirected any accolades he received towards others he felt were more deserving, namely his crew.

Perhaps it's my background as a military dependent, and having family members in the service, but my observations are that for the U.S. military there is a long tradition and honor in finishing the job and doing so in the most efficient way possible (and sticking to the facts while describing it). Given these phenomena, instead of "dry" and "unemotional", I would describe the narrative as consistent and straight-to-the-point.

I feel Anderson's narrative is symbolic of him running a "tight ship". Thankfully the military chain of command doesn't operate as portrayed in overly dramatic Hollywood movies such as the mutinous infighting in the movie "Crimson Tide" (it's a great edge-of-your-seat movie though). In a broader sense I felt this book greatly symbolized the close-knit nature of a military community and the importance of team, which is a great contrast to contemporary western civilization's overt focus on the individual.

While reading the narrative, I felt that I was alongside Captain Anderson in the presence of Admiral Rickover or President Eisenhower, or on board the Nautilus during its momentous missions. What else would a reader want from this type book?

*I have seen similar descriptors of other books written by Greatest Generation authors, such as "The Great Escape".

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

William R. Anderson, the main author of 'The Ice Diaries', was the captain of the USS Nautilus during the three missions that would ultimately lead to the USS Nautilus' passage from the Pacific Ocean to Atlantic Ocean via the Arctic Ocean while also passing through the North Pole. Anderson and Don Keith help craft a story that is told from Anderson's perspective, that focus on Anderson's responsibility for his craft and his men. The USS Nautilus was the first nuclear powered submarine ever built and Anderson explains the change from the diesel-power submarines to nuclear submarines and how they differ and why the Nautilus was such a technological marvel.
Anderson paints the Nautilus' mission across the oceans and to the North Pole not only as a scientific accomplishment, but also as a national victory as the United States and the USSR faced off during the Cold War. The Soviet's had recently launched Sputnik and Anderson focuses on how this created a crisis of identity. The success of the Nautilus was a counter to the Soviet propaganda success.
At first Anderson's style was a little too informal and too rosy, which I felt was due to his later political career; but as I continued, I grew accustomed to it. As the book progressed this style allows the reader to feel the intense love and pride of the Nautilus, his crew, and what they were able to accomplish. It is an amazing story that is informative, with moments of suspense and humor that flows well.

[Sylvia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Captain Anderson gives us his account of his efforts to find a cross-world passage across the top of the world, under the Arctic ice, in the world’s first nuclear powered submarine. Anderson’s story recalls the days of the Cold War, when the US feared the Soviet Union had surpassed our technical and industrial might with its launch of Sputnik. He takes us back to the 50’s and 60’s, before communication satellites, before side-scanning sonar and LIDAR mapping, and GPS. This book reminds us that the world used to have a lot of unknown space in it. Anderson’s account is easy to follow, and he is quick to praise the men who sailed with him and whose innovative solutions to technical problems later became standard procedures and tools. I found his detailed descriptions of both politics, and technology, very interesting. The book is competently written, but somewhat dry and unemotional. It includes a heartfelt thank you to nearly everyone involved, but in the process, it loses some of the immediacy and intensity of an experience filled with “firsts”. This book is important for the story it conveys, not how it is conveyed.

[SueSue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful combination of arctic exploration and nuclear submarine operation.
Captain Anderson was obviously a man from a different era, and there's a very clear sense of that. It was like listening to a gentlemanly old Southern grandpa tell you about the exploits of his younger days. Enjoyable and an interesting Cold War story.

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was too little in 1958 to be aware of the worry about Russia launching the first satellite, or our first rockets blowing up on the launch pad, or even the existence of the Cold War. In fact we may not even have had a TV yet. So I certainly wasn't aware of the hoopla associated with the first submarine passing from the Pacific to the Atlantic by way of the North Pole. However, being married to someone who came really close to signing up for the submarine service, dissuaded not by claustrophobia but by the mandatory terrifying interview with Admiral Rickover, and being mother to a nuclear engineer, I found all the details about conceiving, building, testing, staffing, and sailing nuclear submarines fascinating. And the politics were interesting, too, as the whole mission was kept in deepest secrecy until Eisenhower could brag about it to the world. The crew got the full hero treatment later given to astronauts. And I was making mud pies, completely unaware.

[Preston Dannelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Land of the free because of the brave

A story every American should read. I often wonder if Captain Anderson had any idea of the repercussions he and his men and the wondrous ship Nautilus would cause in the years following their fantastic voyages. While the russkis were orbiting a metal basketball, the good Captain and his crew were basically cocking a nuclear pistol and holding it to Kruschevs head. I believe that their actions went a LOT way to preventing WWIII. Read the book and think it over.

[Matias Myllyrinne · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good read on what it was like to go under the ice and to be the first to make it to the North Pole on a submarine. The book offers great detail on many technical challenges and the hazards at play. However, the people fail to come to life and they somehow are just names from cities with a rank and a one adjective personality. Still, enjoyed learning more about this action.

[Doug Trani · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Nautilus came very close to not being the first vessel to reach the North Pole underwater. The third nuclear submarine in the United States Navy, the Skate, reached it just over a week later. Had it not been for a collision with it's tender ship that damaged a propeller, Skate would have very likely arrived first. Although Nautilus accomplished a more strategically significant and technically challenging objective (sailing under the polar ice from the Pacific to the Atlantic), it was piercing the pole while on this mission for which it received the greatest notoriety in the public eye. Bill Anderson, the ship's captain, does an outstanding job of describing the technical, political, and emotional challenges that had to be overcome in order to bring this voyage to fruition. The 1958 voyage on which this mission was accomplished was be no means a certainty, as it might seem to have been from our perspective in 2021. This book provides detailed information about the behind-the-scenes political wheeling and dealing that took place while the crew of the Nautilus mastered the engineering and navigational obstacles involved with a mission of this nature. With a lot of luck, and possibly with a little divine intervention, Anderson was the right person in the right place at the right time to make this happen. Well done, sir.

[Rahni · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many books in my life, so many realizations. Lately, my prime realization is that . . . I don't know a lot. Or, more accurately, I know a bunch of random things, but there's just so much more out there to digest. It's overwhelming. But also . . . awesome. How bored would I be if I didn't read books that kept me asking why? or what happened after that? or what would I have done in that situation?

After finishing William R. Anderson's entertaining and informative book of his polar adventures, The Ice Diaries: The True Story of One of Mankind's Greatest Adventures , I've been trolling Google with questions all about the North and South poles, geomagneticism, and nuclear submarines. (I'm also plagued by a hankering to settle down with my heart rate monitor and a slew of submarine flicks.)

I felt like I was sitting with my grandfather listening to him relating the stories of his life in folksy, but thrilling detail. Good times.

[Sandi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Did you know that when the USS Nautilus passed under the North Pole ice cap that Santa Claus emerged from the crew's quarters to "chastise" the men of the nuclear powered submarine? Or that the water beneath the North Pole is over 13,000 feet deep? Or that the operation was planned during the Cold War as our answer to Russia's launch of Sputnik 1? I learned these and many other interesting facts as I read the story of the first atomic powered submarine to travel from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean submerged for days on end under polar ice. The author who was the ship's captain had to make many dicey decisions while navigating with equipment that became less than accurate when approaching the Pole. The captain, throughout the book, gives credit to the men who volunteered for this dangerous mission and who, with their intelligence and diligence at their jobs, kept the expedition from becoming a tragedy. He loved his men, he loved his ship, and he loved his country. He later went on to serve four terms as a Congressman. His tale is a little dry but nevertheless fascinating!

[Karla Twiggs · Rating 5 out of 5]

I of course had to give this a high rating because it was all about my father's experiences. My father was on ALL THREE excursions under the ice (a fact I didn't know before reading the book). I always knew he was on the successful trip in August of 1958, but I didn't know he served on the two unsuccessful ones. This book does a good job of laying out the groundwork and process for accomplishing the feat of an atomic submarine and its capabilities. I so wish my father was still alive so I could ask him about some of the events in the book--like the fire in the engine room after leaving Panama! That is where my father worked and I never heard that story before. It takes a special kind of person to live in such cramped quarters and not be able to gauge time by the rising and setting of the sun; and to never look out a window for months at a time. The men who brought this goal to fruition deserve all the accolades heaped upon them. I will always be proud to be the daughter of a PANOPO crewmember.

[Dimitri Coukos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Other reviews state it best but… an amazing story told by a very likable protagonist but all in all reads like a 6 hour press conference. I think the book does a good job of not self-spoiling. Contrary to other reviews, I think the context and the importance of the mission is pretty clear from early on. I was a little disappointed with the personal side of the story. I think one point that is really excellent in the book is the anti-climactic aspect of finally achieving the goal that they had been aiming at. It was incredibly challenging but once they were there it was gone in an instant. Also, given that it’s a memoir, I would have been curious to know what the life of a sailor in the navy at that time was actually like but his children and wife make sporadic appearances in the book, it really seems like he hardly knows them.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is Captain William Anderson's updated version of a story that was written a while ago, but can now be told without restricting the classified information in the book. It tells the story of the Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine, and her attempts to sail to (and through) the North Pole, under the Arctic ice.

I wanted to like this book more. It's a great story. I had no idea this was such a big deal when it happened (on par with Sputnik), and today you never hear about it. But ultimately it was just dry. They didn't have that many challenges. It's non-fiction. There's no bad guys chasing them. Anderson spends a lot of time praising his crew. There's a lot of technical detail about the problems they had to solve. It wasn't bad. It just wasn't interesting.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

I much enjoyed hearing the captain's story of how he envisioned the polar expedition, and how it played out, especially in terms of the early efforts before succeeding. Definitely a snapshot of how the men (and the secondary role of the women is soooo clearly presumed w/o question) perceived themselves, the Cold War, the role of religion, etc. For all this unexpected cultural material, I found extra value in the read.
Reading this in the wake of Toland's _Infamy_ was a good maneuver at another level. Both books demonstrated the careerism of many naval officers: Toland when it turns to selfishness; this when it's still (mostly) working to the good.

[Newell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting narrative of the second commander of the Nautilus nuclear-powered submarine as he interacted with the command group pursuing the idea of under the ice arctic exploration by the new nuclear power subs. The author included appropriate levels of detail of the political fight to gain approval for the project goals, technical detail related to the challenges met and overcome and the background global political situation during the late 1950s. I enjoyed this book and recommend it to readers interested in the subject matter.

[Shu · Rating 3 out of 5]

I happened to be visiting the Pacific Fleet Submarine Museum in Pearl Harbor when my reading schedule landed on this audiobook. Seeing Nautilus’ position in the history of the US Navy on the full timeline on the museum wall added a lot more weight to my listening experience. Despite the seriousness of the topic, the diary format feels very accessible and personable. As Captain William R. Anderson dishes out credit left and right each time when a challenge is overcome, I can tell just how much his crew members must have loved him back!