First Patrol: A Cold War Chronicle at the dawn of Polaris missile submarine patrols

by Michael Pastore, Philip Munck

Follow a patrol of one of the earliest ballistic missile submarinesFIRST PATROL chronicles a crew’s experiences during the three month period of duty in a strategic submarine patrol cycle. The events occurred in the early 1960’s. Their submarine is one of the first five boats carrying 16 nuclear-warhead Fleet Ballistic Missiles. The 60-day patrol at sea starts after a month of upkeep in Scotland. The story is told through the eyes of the author, a young naval officer on his first submarine patrol after he had completed lengthy nuclear power and submarine training. He reports to the off-crew offices of his boat on the Submarine Base in Groton, CT, and is anguished to find he will be the Supply Officer instead of being assigned to a job operating the nuclear power plant. He learns that Adm Rickover is replacing the non-nuclear trained officers on submarines with nuclear officers. His concern is that he has no training in overseeing crew meals and spare parts nor does it give him the experience he needs to become a chief engineer. But the job gives him daily access and insight to the crew. This is a true story about a unique way of life where watch-standing mixes with the human conflicts that occur when 125 men are locked in a steel tube for 60-days. Starting with the first midwatch on patrol and continuing until just hours before returning to Holy Loch, it is a voyage filled with equipment malfunctions including a reactor coolant leak. Mission orders forbade radioing for advice and the Captain must choose between performing a complex repair or aborting the patrol. The book is written in a non-technical manner using first person narrative and crew member interactions to explain complex events in human terms. As the author receives engineering and conning officer watch training he shows how the fledgling submariner acquires the skills and knowledge of his trade. At the conclusion of the central story epilogues describing complications in trying to return home from Scotland and some of the experiences of his subsequent four patrols.An extensive set of notes covering some of the technical details of nuclear submarine operations for the reader interested in exploring the subject more deeply and a glossary of terms and expressions. Besides the unprecedented first day of patrol incident that put the entire mission at risk, there were other major equipment failures including a reactor coolant leak, loss of trim and drain pumps, galley fire, flooding, loss of the trash ejection tube, and failure of the navigation star-periscope required for navigation. Isolating the coolant leak required two reactor compartment entries and operating the diesel engine to provide power during the reactor shutdowns. The crew performed at high levels during these crises and drills because of their intelligence and training. During mundane daily routine, human nature caused some to regress to frivolous actions. There were many daily life situations where boredom drove some to seek to escape tension that even the recreations committee’s slot machine doesn’t provideThe goat locker, the senior enlisted men, provided hilarious formal rites for Crossing the Arctic Circle and the Splice the Mainbrace party that involved the whole crew and all officers. But these events only provided brief respites from patrol monotony.Daily life was epitomized in the FBM submariner’s mantra—Patrol is 99% absolute boredom and 1% sheer terror.

402 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 17, 2021

About the author

Michael Pastore, is a novelist, a non-fiction author, and a poet who lives in the counter-cultured city of Ithaca, New York. He has traveled extensively -- always by bicycle, often sleeping under the stars -- in the USA, Europe, Turkey, and Greece. His more than 20 books include Thoreau Bound: a Utopian Romance in the Isles of Greece; Lark's Magic (a funny novel for children); Zen in the Art of Child Maintenance (novel); Zenlightenment; The Zorba Anthology of Love Stories; New Techniques in Child Maintenance; The Ithaca Manual of Style; and Teaching Kindness and Peace. His book of poems is Sappho at the Edge of Love: 100 poems by Michael Pastore.
Pastore's articles, essays, and interviews -- about literature, sustainable living, children and childhood, humanizing technology, and creativity -- have appeared in more than two dozen print publications nationwide. He lives in the small city of Ithaca (New York, USA) with his library of more than 8,000 of the world's best books. About the importance of literature he writes: "Why read? ... The best books give us timeless hours of portable joy, expand our empathy and imagination, remind us of our past, bring hope to our future, caution us to live wisely, empassion us to seize the moment, show us ideals embodied in heroes and heroines, inspire us to be great lovers and rebels, give us courage to dare to be ourselves, corroborate our most sublime feelings, and point the way to deeper meaning in our everyday lives."

Reviews

[Peter Mcdevitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Memories

A great book , historically accurate and a wonderful look back to a wonderful life experience, particularly if you were under the thumb of ‘The Admiral’. Saw the cover and immediately got nostalgic. Saw the boat alongside the Tender, looked like the Proteus, the boat was a GW class but couldn’t identify it exactly but of course that was the plan, completely anonymous probably the Washington or the Patrick Henry.