>> next on american history tv retired naval captain alfred mclaren details his almost 30 year naval career. following his service, he remained an active submariner and became the president of the explorers club and is currently the president of the american polar society. he discusses his entire career including his deployment in a nuclear submarine during the cuban missile crisis. and several pioneering expeditions under the arctic sea ice. the u.s. naval memorial hosted this event and it is about an hour and a half. >> today, we are pleased to have alfred scott mclaren to discuss his book "silent and unseen: on patrol in three cold war attack submarines." the captain is a graduate of the

u.s. naval academy class of 1955. and a veteran of more than 20 cold war missions and three arctic expeditions. he was awarded to legions of merit as a cold war submarine commander and was the president of the american polar society. he is the author of a firsthand account of historic under ice survey of the siberian continental shelf by the u.s. queenfish. he joins us from his home in nederland, colorado. alfred: i will take you through a variety of things. the very first part i will take

you through, some of the highlights from my first book. the first survey of the siberian continental shelf. when i finish talking about the book, if there is time, i have included, starting in 1999, i started documenting the titanic and total to almost 16,000 feet to see the german battleship bismarck. up to last november, i was chief pilot of a high-speed submersible that could fly like an airplane. you will pick up very quickly that my main model in life is anything to avoid yardwork. you stay around the house, you get put to work. you see the five attack boats i served on. the book covers the first three. to this day, we cannot tell you

how fast we went across with the top speed. i will finish with what will be the subject of my third book, that will be four months on the uss greenling. my whole life was an attack boats. there you see me as skipper of the queenfish. university of alabama press 2008. you can get it on amazon. in these first two books, i have

been asked if i went for the navy for permission. if you have to ask the question, the answer is "no." but my third book, on my command, will be enough of a classified nature where i will have to go the full route. there is the queenfish. i spent two years taking place in the building of her and took

command for four years. the subject of the first book, unusual, we were loaded out for maximum, 180 days. one of the first things we did was take up a 1958 route, something i proposed when i was an instructor at the naval war college to retrace the route exactly. measure the ice thickness at the same time of year and hour, and compare the two for global warming purposes in 1970. the modern digital computer had not been invented so i wrote a program and analyzed this for my phd at the university of colorado-boulder. then we checked the extension of the mid-atlantic ridge for tectonic activity. that is about 1800 kilometers long, the slowest spreading on earth. this is connected to my holy grail, the last operation i want to do before i quit. down to this totally uncharted vast siberian continental shelf.

we probably surveyed 5400 kilometers, totally uncharted waters, no idea what was there. the soviets at that time thought there was a submerged continent. all kinds of strange islands. we expected thick ice but it was shallower than we thought. it was considered too hazardous to be repeated and the russians have never done it, nor did the soviets before. i know some of you do not believe. there is the north pole. it is waiting for us. i took all 50 state flags on this voyage. there you see me holding the hawaiian state flag at the north pole. the u.s. mail was no better than it is now, we left pearl harbor with 32 flags. some of you may know that the seattle world's fair center is surrounded by 50 state flags.

we left the following monday with a missing 18 flags. these flags were presented to the state governors on behalf of the submarine force. here is the vast siberian shelf. we would start with the last major landmass discovered on earth, 1913. to reach as as deep as we

possibly could. we went across the thousand-mile, god-awful new siberian sea which i still have bad dreams about. it is as ominous as it sounds, thick ice, often going right to the ground, so we would have to go under the ice and thread our way. it took a tremendous amount of time to safely do it. this is the way it actually looks. we found a little open water between the islands and ourselves. we did most of the survey entirely under ice running close to the bottom. here you see the siberian sea, covered by thick ice, often going all the way to the bottom. this is the second worst experience i have ever had, ask me what was my first during the question and answer. we were three quarters to the

new siberian sea and getting pretty confident. we were cruising along at about 20 feet above the bottom, clearing the ice by 30. we were constantly maneuvering. we were watching the movie "shane." jack polansky is just about to get his just desserts -- ance is just about to get his just desserts when the messenger of the watch grabs me and shakes me. "captain, come." they are taking pictures and this is what we were surrounded with. ice to starboard, not much further than that door, port the same way, ice to the bottom, dead-ahead of us and we have stopped and were hovering between four and six feet above the bottom, the ice within 10 feet of us. the first thing i said was, "do not anybody move." i got on the phones and our

propeller, 17 feet diameter, those acquainted with vessels know they have a nasty habit of squatting and they back to port. this was not an option, we would have been stuck forever. the main thing we did was to keep everybody calm. we got on the phones and i ordered them to spend the prompt, a stern, two or three revolutions as we gradually eased out. it was a little over an hour but felt like an eternity. the second worst experience of my life, my wife says i keep reliving it and give orders in the middle of my sleep.

i hit her in the back one time because she did not respond in time to the order. the worst experience i will tell you about later. we got clear to the ice. that is the essence of my first book which goes into that -- university of alabama press, 2008. my second book, interestingly, with all the books written on submarines, nobody has used the term "silent and unseen." a few words, i started off a year at regular nrotc at ucla. that was one happy year, i was in a football fraternity, elected social chairman as soon as i became active as a

freshman. i got social probation for three years. thanks to bringing hard liquor in. i played football, water polo, and on the track team. my kids do not know this, but as a freshman i placed third in the ucla decathlon. i could only pole vault eight feet. about two feet higher than i can high jump. i do not know why to this day pole vaulting defies me. the coaches thought i had great potential but had to do something about pole vaulting. they thought i was some kind of retard. in the hereafter, if i get a choice of something to do, before anything i want to learn to pole vault. one of the dumbest things i did with two of the football players, freshman football players, we got bored at the end

of january in 1951. we went to the french counsel general in los angeles and signed up for the foreign legion. we were going to go off with the foreign legion. several of my fraternity brothers ratted on me. my father was stationed in california and was down there less than five hours to pick me up and take me home. a couple weeks at home, i have family counseling to have my head screwed on right. it would have been an alternative lifestyle. then i returned to ucla and realized i was out of control. i have been elected social

chairman of this fraternity, still out of control, so i moved heaven and earth to get into the united states naval academy just so i can learn the self-discipline i did not have. to this day i have mixed emotions, it was like committing myself to sing sing or alcatraz. denny here is my roommate the first year. there is my graduation picture from the naval academy. you could not go into submarines in those days until you have been in the fleet for two years, preferably on a destroyer, qualifying as officer on deck. as soon as i could, i applied for submarines but i'd hedged my bets. i applied for underwater demolition team. i was accepted for both and passed the physicals. i had about three weeks to a month to agonize which i would choose. my grandfather was in coronado and there were teams under him. he was worried i would become a beach bum. as you look back over the years, and this is about 50 years ago. i have to ask myself, "what was the matter with becoming a 23-year-old beach bum on full pay?" nothing. i may have made the wrong decision. the submarine school, new london, everybody who goes to

submarine school remembers more than anything else, the escape training. we had to make a vertical ascent from 50 feet straight up with a hood. you exhale all the way. we could make it like 17 seconds. if you stop saying, "ho, ho, ho" you would get a embolism.it was a great way of screening candidates because you would get in this chamber, eight or 10 of us packed closely, they flooded the water to your neck before you step out. then eyes start getting big and you will you know who cannot go through, and we let them out.

we had to requalify every year on this. my first boat the greenfish, a converted world war ii boat. they put a high-capacity battery on it. we had four diesel engines, high-capacity battery, pretty good speed on the surface. we could get closer to 20 knots submerged but only for a half hour. we had limited range and the endurance of submerge was not more than about two days. she was a submersible, not a submarine. i show you this complicated sketch of greenfish because that is the way it was.

crowded and close. a world war ii boat that did not get to world war ii, launched afterward, constantly putting new equipment. a lot of areas in the submarine were impossible to get to and we were a great breeding ground for cockroaches. they would mate. we would get all kinds of different cockroaches in the philippines. nothing worse than having a cockroach drop into your coffee. when you got out a sandwich, they could smell it and would come from all directions. once i heard a bang in the control room and wild laughter. six to eight minutes, bang, then loud laughter. this went on and i thought, "what is going on?" they had these big cockroaches. somebody would put five white lines labeled one through six. this was sitting there and there were sailors with little boxes

standing around. they were having cockroach races. people would enter the cockroach and the clip would be up and whoever master that and banged it would lower it over the tail of the cockroach and they would place their bets. they would say go, he would hit it and the cockroaches would go running forward. the winner went off or ran the furthest. the captain finally had enough. in the months and years following, when i saw men walking around with small boxes, they were up to no good with small cockroaches. this is a chamber, you see a picture of it, that is combat

tour operations with a decent vote where all the action was. here was the pipe for taking in air when we were at periscope depth. here is the exhaust. what you at my talk last night? i thought so. a bearer for punishment. we had a lot of submarines like these boats, we call these guppy eyes. these were the workhorses from the mid-1950's to the late 1940's, to well into the 1960's and early 1970's. what do i mean by cold war operations -- we went to areas that were forward deployment areas in a war.

our missions were simple, reconnaissance, early warning, then to gather as much intelligence, learn as much as we could about potential adversaries. we did not dare get detected during any of this time. we were caught by the soviets for 7.5 hours. i will not tell you anything else. it is a peak experience in one's life. it is just like in the movies. a combination of sounds of the speeding up of a propeller of something coming toward you. it gets closer and you hear a splash, and another splash, and you hold your breath.

to wait till whatever they drop goes off. we got away, i cannot tell you how and that is probably why they made me take the chapter out. submarine food is the best in the world, we ate extremely well. nobody got fat. like this guy on the left, i remember him very well because he came to my signing less september, he used to eat two or three stakes in a sitting. -- steaks in a sitting. >> what is that? what happened there? let's see if we can get rid of that. thank you. ok like all submarines, never , enough bunks for people but we had a good way of solving it, but bunking -- hot bunking.

as soon as one person got out of the bunk somebody else would get in. sometimes you might share it with two people. we stopped every time to change the sheets. if you believe that. it was pretty nasty but a great incentive to qualify for a watch as soon as possible. on greenfish, we did not have very much water so we took showers every 12 to 14 days. whether we needed it or not. when you move torpedoes there is a lot of scrambling. there am i with my first beard, pretty good-looking. my wife had me shave that often immediately. -- shave that off immediately. we took a full load of war shots.

during that era, the rules of engagement were simple. often you were in certain places where, even though you were in international waters, you knew that your adversary would not adhere to the geneva convention. the other thing is the rules of engagement were very simple when we were on missions. that was, if you heard a door open, on some of the suffering, -- submarine, or you order -- or you heard a torpedo, use that them. that was the usual operating way.

things were a little bit tense on the operations. you have the torpedo man gearing up to fire torpedoes. very well coordinated, well-trained. when the decent votes -- diesel boats, nothing was quite balanced. the city after torpedo room -- you see the after torpedo room. that would have been are forwarded deployment area. the routine was to ram -- run submerged during the day and at the surface at night. these were the same old controls in world war ii. this is a sketch done 12 years before, at the end of world war ii, you see the diving officer, that is the kind of equipment we had. when you went to periscope depth

you needed to check to see if there were contacts proper to servicing so you can make a lot of mileage at night and had as many lookouts as you could. in those days, 1958 and any time, your own forces were as much of a danger to you as potential enemy forces. in the far east, when anybody got closer who could detect you with their radar or visually you made an emergency dial. the worst i remember one for our watch when i had to make six emergency dives and resurface. that is a lot of hustling. i like this because it reminds me of an upperclassman at the naval academy that i knew very well. i was horrified to find he was on the greenfish when i was on there, not very popular. we were heading across the

pacific to the philippines. he has the night watches. he is complaining and beating up on the filipinos because he cannot get a hot cup of coffee for the bridge. we get to the philippines and we get this older filipino steward with gold stars. we are heading north. submerged during the day. this problem magically goes away. nobody is having trouble with any of the steward mates. this friend we both know is praising everybody to high heaven. that is leadership, that is the way to do things. after four days i got curious as

to how this miracle could occur when you are rolling around the surface. the stewards made passes through the control room close to midnight. the lots -- stops and goes up and heads to the bridge. i followed him, he does not know it, i see him lean over and he releases the hot cup of coffee. i never asked anybody to get anything for me ever. that was pretty funny, all this praise and they had him on that. we did not have that much periscope lower than that. this is an action shot of a cold war mission. it gets pretty crowded. you might have eight or 10

people in a small tube. conrad the series in 1958 are the quiz the class -- whiskey class several rains. these were made after the german ones. they built 100 of these. the zulu class made a short patrol off the hawaiian islands. we hated the skoryy class destroyers, loaded with depth chargers. i will not say anything more or i will go off to prison and blame c-span. i got shipped to the worst job on earth, a commissary officer on a submarine and when food is 98% of morale you can imagine that everybody is paying close

attention and they do not hesitate to criticize what is being cooked. i made the mistake of allowing an auxiliary man, he wanted to be a cook. you remember "the untouchables ?" the first dish he was allowed to prepare was a cherry cobbler. his cooking tour ended abruptly when most of the crew said it reminded them of the last red wine hangover they had. from there he became known as the unwatchable -- unwashable. we won the award for the best mess afloat. i got my dolphin in june of

1959. there you see the skipper. he helped us get away in that adverse situation i mentioned earlier. off to nuclear power school for a year. i have a lot to be -- look at the difference. a nuclear power plant, great speeds on the surface and underwater. range and endurance unlimited. basically, we didn't have to refuel every sooner than every 5-10 years. it is the same old story, except that on sea dragon, we are the first submarine to be transferred from the atlantic to the pacific by the north pole. captain george steel, a world war ii veteran, he rolled that no crew would have top bunk. it was the officers.

this was a lot of fun. i share the bunk with two other officers. most times, i slept on three chairs. see dragon on the surface. our mission was to go up, permission to spend a week looking at the underside of icebergs. we did this. it was the first and only time it was ever allowed. i will explain in a minute. we would come in and survey for the first time in history the entire northwest passage. we located a deep route that a summary could safely go from baffin bay with no trouble at all. finally, the bering strait and pearl harbor. you see the captain, navigator we had on board. he was the first to think of these trips and had much to do with the development of the

sonar that was used. dcc dragon on the water. -- uc see dragon on the water. we had a fantastic underwater television. here was a picture taken by one of our scuba divers. in 1960, there were some people who thought the ice was perfectly flat underneath. some may not know about 9031, he bought a surplus world war i u.s. submarine for a dollar. in 1931, he had it equipped with a huge sled runner on top of the summary. the idea was to skate along underneath this wet ice, drill a hole whenever you needed air to

render engine. we were lucky they never got underneath and the crew didn't need it. if they got under this, that will be the last we saw of them. it went to aircraft controls. i took this picture in baffin bay. that iceberg is 308 feet above the surface, over 1000 feet beneath the surface. the profile of teddy roosevelt was actually there. we can go under that. we went underneath another 32 icebergs like this in the disco bay, upper part of baffin bay. some could theoretically reach 2000 feet underneath the surface. they were very unstable. they can roll over on you. icebergs -- ireland or i was on the dive. we increased speed that caused part of the iceberg to come

apart. they fell down astern of us. that was the end of the operation. it was deemed too dangerous. they see me in my salad days. here is the iceberg. at the naval academy, they told us it was one part above, seven parts below. we discovered it was anywhere between one part above two more ominously, 24 parts below where one out in all directions many the service. operating anywhere around and iceberg is very dangerous. here, you see underside of an iceberg is turned upside down. hard blue eyes is just as mean and hard as it looks. we went to the classic northwest passage. the make hang appear -- the big

hangup had been the barrel straight. there were shallow areas that we found after six surveys a deep passage that would take us through there. wanted the leclaire -- we went through the mcclair straight. notice that photograph on the right. i was the photographic officer. i took that picture. the seawater at the north pole. i digress and tell you i have lectured on six russian nuclear ice papers on the north pole. my wife, avery, went on on three of them. in 1999, she swam that 29.5 degree water. in 2003, she outs when all of the russians. -- out swam. she said it just took four glasses of champagne. something funny happened in the following year. there was a british scientist who went up in 2004. he had never been in the arctic region. he was excited.

the first time there was water in the arctic, he was the first to go swimming in the arctic ocean. the new york times called me and said that is not true, is it? you swam in 1996. i wouldn't call that swimming. i plunged out and moved to desperately to get out of the water. i told him about avery. word hit the internet and the papers in response to this british claim -- an article entitled "hell, my wife did that and her bikini." a blue the sky away. -- it blew this guy away. another screwdriver. on the 25th of august, we play the first game of baseball ever played at the north pole. the pict -- pitcher standing at the north pole. if you hit the ball into the

right field, it was across the international date line. the right fielder threw it back into yesterday. sliding took on new meaning. you might think you hit second base safely. we played this game 2.5 hours. by the time we finished, to this day, i don't know what date we did -- and that they. that baseball game is in the baseball hall of fame. the bering strait, pearl harbor, a number of micromet got -- of my crew men got us tattooed on their arm and chest. one, strangely enough, on his back. maybe some of the women may have some insight as to why so many would put a tattoo on the back. if you have an insight, tell me the question and answer period. that to our stomping grounds.

the only thing i will say is we made two missions, both of them very lengthy, one of which we set a very long period of time at sea, 72 days. at that time, god rest his soul, we had a captain who really liked to stay clear of everything. in all of those days, you didn't see anything. a couple of times, we would see 14 -- we would see something 14,000 feet away. that is all. day after day went by, very d ull. the crew is great at nicknaming people. this captain got the name to not, chicken of the sea. -- tuna. that is not the worst. we had a classmate who had a wonderful nautical name, nelson. unfortunately, he acquired the nickname dog breath nelson. two names like that stick together. i saw him sometime last couple years standing with his wife.

id. your said -- i damn near said, and i caught myself, how are you doing, dog breath? worse names that i have in my book. we don't get anywhere close to any of the adversaries. you stay dark, adapted. the blast trip i made as a captain, i was in an area where i had only four hours of daylight. i wore red goggles the rest of the time, sleeping, eating, watching movies. to this day, i hate the color red.

foxtrot diesel boats which we see in the cuban missile crisis. much more advanced submarine warfare vessels that could throw out hedgehogs. i love this one. we saw this as a distance. it roared around the ocean like a demented rhinoceros. before cruise missiles, its purpose was to kill aircraft carriers. if congress started, it might have a lifetime -- if combat started, it had a lifetime expectancy of two hours. you'll see in the book, i left see dragon for a good reason. under the same captain, we almost reached crush depth. you don't want to do that ever again. you can't imagine -- you will read in the book -- what the whole sounds like with squeals and groans and popping. it is not good.

you get all sorts of water leaks . you will see what happened and why. i never wanted to go to see when that person again. i got assigned to the spit jack, the world's fastest summary -- submarine. it was football shaped. so fast that in a high-speed turn, we could heal over 50 degrees. we had to grab a hold to keep your footing. we set one record, a second record across the atlantic, beating the first with the second round. to this day, it has been kept quiet. greater tonnage, a new reactor plant. on the surface, greater than 20 knots. i put here 33 knots, but i don't dare tell any of you what our top speed was.

much more compact, a beautiful summer and, bill for underwater speed. one propeller. the city artist concept of it. visited by lots of famous people. here is the kindly old gentleman , a world war ii ace, the skipper, burns. skipjack on the surface. it didn't make a lot of sense to stay up on the deck when you're running on the surface because you would be on the water. back in those days -- we had a

five way propeller -- you could go up on the surface and rise above the water to where you are planing on it. you see most of the hull. we would raise along the service at 25 knots. it was spectacular. -- along the surface. i was navigator of skipjack for years and i was chief engineer for two years. it was the first of a new reactor. the admiral wanted us to burn out the new core. we were allowed to go top speed anywhere we traveled. we finally enter the shipyard in april 1965. we had not burned out the core. we could still make 22 knots at 17% power. you can't extrapolate to our top

speeds or don't try. that was a fantastic machine. i jointly summering in july of 62. the cuban missile crisis started to develop in late august, september. we were supposed to get out of the shipyard in december, january. we were accelerated. we got out in time to be deployed of ely for the cuban missile crisis. as you know, the soviets had equipped cuba with long-range ballistic missiles that could reach anywhere in the united states. we established a barrier and went clean fish -- skipjack went across. every time we'd stop to copy a radio broadcast, we thought we

might be diverting. they started us toward the majority and. skipjac in the day, even though you could wink -- run externally fast, could out run a torpedo. when you are high-speed, you couldn't hear anything. you had to slow down to low speed and that is when you can hear things passed beyond your summer. needless to say -- beyond your sonar. we had no idea how many said greens they had. every time -- no idea how many submarines they had. we would go to battle stations. we were always expecting slowdowns near a soviet submarine and get attacked. and never happened, thank god. here is one of the four foxtrot diesel separates during the cuban missile crisis to do know that one of them is armed with a nuclear torpedo. this particular one, be 59, was depth charged by u.s. forces continually, trying to get them

to go to the surface. the skipper came close to a nervous breakdown. he wanted to use his torpedo against his adversary. in those days, the soviets required that the captain, the second command, and the political officer had to agree. this man -- we all owe a great debt of gratitude to him -- we found out in recent years that he was a number two on that summary. he also, strangely enough, was the commander of all four. strange subset -- set up. he would not go along with the launching of a torpedo. i have no idea what the rest of his naval crew experience was like. it probably wasn't good. into the mediterranean, then, greece, charged with intercepting anything out of the black sea. we were approaching permission to put them under attack. things slow down in the cuban missile crisis. we backed off to italy. we spent most of the time and liberty ports or out there

patrolling for soviets that may have snuck through. in the mediterranean, that was our forward deployment area. we made two operations. at that time, the first nuclear attack boat had come out, the november class attack mode. i was president of the explorers club from 1986-2000. i had a special dinner for the two cap is ahead into the northport in the arctic ocean. i tried to find the captain of the soviet november class submarine who went to the north bowl in 1962. the one who did it in 63. this is 1997 -- i found out to my horror that both had died. believed to be of radiation november class submarine who went to the north bowl in 1962. the one who did it in 63. this is 1997 -- i found out to my horror that both had died. believed to be of radiation

poisoning. now, we have an idea that most of those crew died because, in the rush to see nine of these, the soviets sacrificed shielding , less weight, more speed. they got much more of a gamma dose than they should have. most of those crew are gone, as well. the first ballistic missile submarines were up there. they diesel one, three ballistic missiles. hotel class, first nuclear missile submarine, three house in the sail. 80 submarine warfare vessels. -- anti-submarine. the nuclear icebreaker. it had fun charging over the ocean, making lots of noise and crunching up ice. of no intelligence value, but we had fun watching it.

they were enthusiastic. at the end of that, i got a special award for reasons i can't tell you. after some schools, i went on to be the second in command of the first of 37 new nuclear separate attack roads, all of whom would have the ability of attacking in the arctic and antarctic year round. they were built to scientific specifications. i was with this boat from the time it was just a keel through the launch in the shipyard. they were responsible for the under ice acoustic equipment we had. this is the configuration. the first thing you notice is there are no torpedo tubes in the bow.

that is just for sonar. the torpedo tubes are moved to the middle of the suffering and you launch them at an angle. that way, you have weapons noises interfering with sonar. here we have clean fish. -- queenfish. top of the sail, we could routinely break through two meters of ice with no damage to the separate. -- submarine. i never liked to break through ice. as you can imagine, that ice going across the hull is several thousand times chalk on a bla ck board. it takes you hours to wind down. here are the codes of narrow frequency sonar that tells us where we were in relation to the ice. the most important was a detector that swept back and forth when we had to navigate around ice.

there you see you are submerged. 17 foot diameter propeller. look at the height of that propeller? 48 feet from top to bottom. we took the boat up in the arctic, tested it out. all the way to pearl harbor. i love to be a student at the war college. rosie first student to be an instructor. they had a four-month long summer vacation. i was appointed to command i have permission to get myself set on the first of a new class, the greenling, a thresher class with an elongated hull.

i went off for four months of the cold war operation. i was really prepared for command. we came back that -- it was so successful that we got navy commendation. you can guess where the area was. i'm not going to say anything about that. after i finished my command, i was lucky enough to be assigned to command the same boat that i knew from the keel. like the back of my knee. the usual patrol area in the pacific. i want say anything about that. my first mission, six months after command, we got a navy unit commendation. you see me on the periscope with one of those missions. up on the bridge, taking it into

japan. we were never popular with the japanese, coming in there. in the late 70's, i got one of the few high awards you could get. a cold war -- the distinguished service medal. five or six have gotten that since world war ii in attack boats. the one thing that is great about it, it entitles me -- a company of marines, a band, my casket can be called by mules and horses -- hauled. i said if i proceed you, go for it. don't let them cheat you out of it. coming back following my last deployment, a change of command picture. you could tell i was dead tired. we were continuously at sea for

four years. the division commands -- this is when we were allowed to wear beards. the division commander, pete lyon, he flew out and said that the admiral would be happy if you came back without a beard. that may be so angry that i got my change of command picture taken with a beard, a came back with a beard, nobody said anything to me. i cap that until i was supposed to go to the east coast. the east coast is very conservative. i knew they were up in arms and would counsel me to remove this beard. the day i reported into the submarine developing group in london, i shaved it off. nobody could think of anything to say. they set up appointments for me, they had all counsel be to take off my beard, and they couldn't thing of anything else to discuss. i had a short day. things i could run -- ruin a submariner's day. this is my favorite. she says, what is a lovely thing

like you doing on a separate like this? her answer is, i'm commanding it. if we have time, i will show you the highlights from the titanic bismarck. you call it. ask we are at 1:00 now. if you want to take some questions, you can go ahead. >> i will quickly show you highlights. you know about titanic. when she collided, went to the bottom of the ice, she broke into kinds of pieces. she is a hundred 82 feet long, only 220 of it of the bow is intact. 1000 meters away, 120 feet of her stern. she is a horrible mess with debris fields everywhere. everything on the bottom that

you could conceivably think of to take to see with you. this is what we made the dimes on -- dives on. we put three full grown adults into a sphere sexy in diameter -- six feet in diameter's. no facilities, the guys are 14 hours long. i made six of these dives. i used to call them four advil dives. you don't dare get seasick. they go down about 18,000--- 18,500 feet. that is a picture i took of the bow of the titanic in 2003. notice she is covered with all

kinds of stuff. i compare that with the teachers i took in 1999 -- with the pictures i took. she goes from about 80% covered with a semiotic relationship of 24 organisms and two fungi to being fully covered. she is infinitely more fragile. people had thought i was nuts. i also noticed there was lots of organic material raining down. titanic was deteriorating rapidly, even though it had been there since 1912. that is a picture i took of an officer's cabin in 1999. same cabin in 2003. what on earth is happening? the overfishing of the grand banks, the pollock were not consuming the final in zoo plankton that is raining down into this and reenergizing the globs consuming at a rate of 1000 pounds of steel a day.

people said i was crazy. i ventured this officially, picked up a new york times. finally, people came around, science and great with me. the great man himself, bob dollard mentioned me in his book. i had the blessing there. the thing that has interested me is that nobody has taken from there. here is a good example of changing the environment conditions in the ocean dramatically. in this case, a reduction of marine populations with a corresponding change of other things. there are lots of other

dangerous racks alter the world -- wrecks, not including the thresher. it is time to start thinking -- how could global warming increase acidity, heat, how was i going to affect things? will there be releases of other things into the ocean? look at that. a captains bathtub. if you take a good look, you can see there is still water in it. if i want to take a closer look -- i gave this talk at a rotary club. people stood up to see there was water in a top-down 30,000 feet. of course there is water in there. you guys are too sophisticated. when she went to see in 1941, the most powerful ship in the world. she carried one of the first radars. her job was to not only sink convoys, but she was powerful enough to sink escorting warships, as well. she only lived 19 days. on the 24th of may, 1941, she sank the pride and joy of the royal navy, the hood, which have been riding around for -- since

the 1920's. she was equally armed, much faster, but one idle flop. her deck armor was not more than an inch thick -- one fatal flaw. when the germans encountered it, they lobbed several solos. the third one went into a magazine, blew up into two pieces, only two survivors out of 1400 men. they try to sink her with aircraft strikes. they didn't succeed with sinking her. she only lived 19 days. she sank. that morning come the captain ordered a scuttle ship.

the british had stopped firing. they did not sink anything. the crew stuttered and she fell to the bottom. all the men on the main deck were killed. the british and their anxiety to close it or firing flat trajectory cells. yet close to 1000 young men who survived. later on in the water come you can see the bismarck. the impact was in a wonderful shape. there is a picture i took. you have beautifully streamlined she was. hour after hour she looks so formidable. it was not until started registering. the men were the water for the

battle is over. the had an hour-long talk with her lined up grow after row. waiting to be picked up. the british only picked up 115, the rest of these and men in her early 20's were left to drowned. they were like small black tombstones. in 2003, i had the opportunity to test drive the super aviator which flew like an airplane down to 1500 feet. i did the test line. i'm the only one that has been formally certified to fly this.

i have many hundreds of hours in it. i was so excited about the test flight and the success of it, i came home and told my wife that if i was not married to her, i would marry this. that was a dumb idea. as you can see, she is extremely quiet. you can make bursts and 11 knots at 12 horsepower thrusters. there is light finger pressure control. it is a wonderful thing. you can really freak out sharks with this thing. she is quiet. she does not alarm anybody. this is what i want to be my swansong. i have half of the money raised to build one that can go to 6000 meters. what i want to do before i quit is to survey this section of the ridge under the arctic ice and prove that there are ecosystems living around the warm water

jets. the hydrothermal jets. there is life along the sea floor. that increases the probability of discovering the same thing on the moon in jupiter. or possibly even tighten or saturn. we did not mention this in the lecturer national geographic, there was a young woman who got excited. she said if i lived be 100 and 3140, i still have not stopped here and forever. i'm getting a lot of dietary information. none of this is good. it is all kinds of vegetables, prime ribs and stakes are not on there. i might say before i got into diving for the titanic, there is a long amount of time before is ready for the sea again. this holds true. i have all of the male bonding i need for the next 100,000 years. i do not need those close quarters. that is my last slide.

if there are any questions you might have, i am always looking. there is no such thing as a stupid question. there are dumb questions. i'm looking for a dumb one that i heard this last october. zodiac we're cruising ransom icebergs. this lady to my right says how far are we above sea level? said about that far. any questions? i got out my distilled do things for myself. [laughter] >> my question is that you have had this of the scientist on

your arctic cruise, but today the russians have interest in emerging as a major power in the arctic again. they said it is because of resource cycle oil. they know they have resources with all of your scientific service, is that correct? >> i do not think we were there at the same time. anyway, i was one out of seven. how's the last one to be introduced. i walk in the office and it is scary. he is a tiny man. he is sitting about where you are, he is blue eyes are right there front of you. he's not particularly welcoming. the first thing he said to me as i walked in was what are you the wrestler? back in those days i was a little thinner, as a little more predominate, the man city cauliflower air. as a teenager i was pretty sensitive about my years, and

the naval academy probably as much. and, he did a wonderful thing about getting my adrenaline up. because the next thing he did was that he waved his hand and said my people of examined you, your stupid we cannot use you. i was dismissed. however, refused to go. and i argued that either i was not stupid or was not lazy. to this day i cannot member which i argued against. i just took one of them, and i would not leave until i had mice a. the secretary was trying to pull me out. i walked down the hall. he said hey, coming here. he had been listening and said that was quite a performance. i said yes come i can tell you this, i was sent in from pearl harbor. you stood from the very top to the very bottom. he said i got back to the hotel.

the rest of these guys were drinking. i found out within five minutes i had been accepted. so, the thing you had to understand your ground. i sat in on 18 interviews. the best ever saw was when he has to confident looking young man you think you can make angry? he is like all senior people covered in books, papers, empty coffee cups. stuff like that. this is due think you can make me angry? that is the first thing he said. the kid things for a few seconds and the kid said yes come the kid gets up and with the right

arm sweeps everything off the floor. the admiral is jumping up and down he is having a hemorrhoid on the secretary comes in to calm him down. they said get this kid out of here. 10 minutes later he was accepted. the second part of your question was a little complicated and i forgotten part of some of it. >> the russians are creasing their work in the arctic. they claim it is because of oil and mineral resources. >> they have several scolded. they posted the third law of the sea treaty for the second time.

they are selling the idea that their continental shelf is similar to what is further out all the way to the north pole. including the bridge. they probably have a good chance of selling it this time. they have quite a bit of territory. as you probably already know, the third law of the sea treaty was started to be sold in the early 90's. we have no place at the table. we also have 10 nuclear icebreakers that can range all over the arctic ocean year round. we do have more experience with arctic capable submarines. but, part of it is showing yourself on the surface at sea. yes, there is petroleum, one year ago in september they sent a titanium nuclear submarine with the capability to drill for oil. not very far. but still capable of searching for the resources. that department is way ahead of us. we are to another form of the cold war. >> what is the hangup with the classification these days? the russians know about it. it has been in a newspaper since the 90's. i do not talking about it.

>> you are exactly right. we have people who were in kindergarten and grade school, we were making his operations, but now we cannot even know are the reports are. the easiest thing to say is no. so, that is an easy way to dismiss them. now, it made me mad. it has been 57 years since we released a depth charge. people say i will pursue that. it will be in the second section of the book. there are lots of things like that that not only the summary should know, but the general public should see just how we're doing. >> there are great stories out there. that is how i lost my hair. >> my question comes after that a little bit, my name is mary and i'm updating the u.k. polar exhibit.

>> i spent to use a cambridge. >> i'm from oxford. so we kind of a rivalry. basically, regards to what i'm doing this moment, i am wondering what kind of information remains to be challenged. i was going to ask you it is a big question, can you maybe think of one or two things that you are allowed to talk about regarding under ride -- under ice exploration or tactics that developed during the cold war. >> the first part will tell you everything. in excruciating detail i have had my reviews of that book everywhere from fantastic and sensational to one guy said it was horribly boring.

he said he could barely get through it without falling asleep. you'll find most of the detail in that. there is not much more to say about arctic operations. the technical director of the arctic submarine lab told me that in the first book of mine was required reading for all of submarine captains going to the arctic. that was nice to hear. he wrote that she did a great job. they increase my retirement pay. you need to give you a nugget? >> if i could pick one thing to put in my exhibit as a case study of what these summaries are capable of -- >> if you get a hold of my book, we might have a copy here, that will be the best. i really explain the class submarines. it was the best.

it was the workhorse of the cold war. it was also capable of going to cold water and made to vietnam patrols. there were wonderfully maneuverable. they were built to a higher standard than anything i have ever served on previously. i will give you my card, then you could contact with. the booklets are a lot of questions. in regards to the education level, in my time, over half of my crew had bachelors degrees. for our five of them had masters degrees. all of my officers had masters degrees and engineering mathematics in hard science. in spite of all that education, the humor in the simmering was truck driver stop, blue-collar humor at the lowest. so, you have to have a sense of humor.

women will define, but i think it is better if they come on board in a few groups where they can hand it back just as quickly as they get it. the submarine crew is almost always testing you. somebody is super aggressive, short tempered, or worse, they don't have a sense of humor. the crew is educated all the time. -- educated. basically, they do not make it with the crew. the whole time you to fit with the team. we go through all kinds of psychological testing. one of the things that amuse me the most, remember those blotch -- inkblot tests? most of us figured out that whether it looked to us like that are not, because we were 23-24 years old. what they expected is that over 50% had to be secs. you had to wreck your brain to make secs out of some of these

shapes. then the 15 to 20% had to be god or country. he had to have the essential things to make sure were normal. then, you did what you want with the rest of what you saw. so, some of her psychological testing. yes? >> with all the travels to the north pole and with the exploration club, and your various collections, have you ever spoken to a russian who was in one of the subs you were chasing? >> who said i was chasing? >> my words not yours. >> let me tell you in 1999, this is my fourth one, i'm giving lectures.

about that time the kgb is there videotaping every lecture give. naturally, the team is headed by a russian named igor. that is a standard name. i get nice notes, anonymous, good lecture. should have said something more about this. i have given several lectures until you get to the north pole. this one has the jaws on it. the plow is the size of the north pole. my wife and i are walking up there, there had to be a group of men around there. they open up and whisk us in. they were all former soviet submariners, very tallman. one of them said i'm going to run to the notes.

it turns out he was a russian ballistic missile submarine captain on the off crew time who decided to take a trip to the north pole. so, he had a delta for class submarine. as edward with your less patrol? said the caribbean. we can no idea they were operating there. so, yes. ways to have fun and drink a lot. we would trade shirts and pictures. but, we were always one step ahead of the kgb because somebody was a here comes igor come here comes some meals. we will scatter. they didn't want us to get together. they're just like us. they are sensitive in the same ways. e-mails? -- anything else? >> what is your worst experience? >> festal have dreams about this. the cold war mission. we had come up and we had just entered and gotten close,

pass-through very dense water. huge temperature change. we got the periscope depth, and i see two torpedo steam boys streaming towards us. one of my crew was white faced. and, if they were were shots, you have a few choices. one is to go all way to the surface and hope they passed beneath you. considering what was around in what i saw, that is not an option. so, in a fraction of a second i detected a right to bearing drift, and so i started moving gently to the left come i had to keep the bow point is that there is a minimum cross-section. make a long story short, these things is screaming down our starboard side. no more than a few meters away. the other one was just a little bit more. very exciting. it turns out we had wandered into an exercise or one

submarine was firing practiced repeaters at another, which is wandered into the middle of it. now, would that have been with the plaster torpedoes yes, if it had a propeller or a rudder, excuse upon, we would have been screwed. -- excuse the pun. >> like to thank you for sharing your wonderful story and your amazing service. hopefully this will not be swept off. >> anything we can do for you. >> to have any books to sign? >> have a few. we will be happy to have you sign them. >> let me encourage you to buy this. >> thank you for joining us. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015]

>> you are watching american history tv. follow us on twitter. and to keep up with the latest history news. >> welcome to monterey, situated on california's central coast. once thriving sardine packing industry was the subject of all thirst on back -- subject of author john steinback's "cannery row." in the next hour, we will explore the history of this coastal city. coming up, we will visit colton hall, the location of california's first constitutional convention. >>-the california constitutional experience serves as an exemplary model of what can

happen when people come together from very diverse backgrounds, a blending of cultures actually took place here. >> here about the fishing industry in monterey and why you came to a halt in the mid-1900s. california was the largest fishery. 235,000k an average of tons of sardines out of that 1950.etween 1915 and big, big fishery. >> first, we take you to the carmel mission, the second spanish mission established in california.