The Ice Diaries: The True Story of One of Mankind's Greatest Adventures

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 <b>The Ice Diaries</b> 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.

Great book! <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />I would highly recommend this book.

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.<br /><br />Unfortunately, there's a few issues which really hurt the book, for me:<br />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!<br />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<br />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.<br />4. It's too long. The story is interesting, it's just not _THAT_ interesting<br />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".

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. <br /><br /> Ahoogah Ahoogah. "Dive! Dive!" "Battle stations!" <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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:<br /><br /><a target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow" href="https://www.navalhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Nautilus-2.jpg">https://www.navalhistory.org/wp-conte...</a><br /><br />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.

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.

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). <br /><br />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). <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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). <br />

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.

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!

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.

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.<br />An exciting journey!