Providence native Al Charette Jr., who now lives in Connecticut, was a sonar supervisor aboard the Nautilus when it made its historic trip to the North Pole. He recalled yesterday that the suspense among the crew members “built and built as we were getting up there.”

>

The Providence Journal / Kris Craig

GROTON, Conn.— Ten months after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik to claim a lead in the race for space, 116 men sealed inside the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine prepared to overcome for America one of the last frontiers on Earth.

Fifty years ago yesterday, Capt. William Robert Anderson gave the crew of the submarine Nautilus a countdown over the intercom as his vessel approached the North Pole, gliding below the polar ice cap.

“For the U.S.A. and the U.S. Navy––the North Pole,” Anderson said, marking the moment the Nautilus became the first ship to pass over the geographic North Pole.

Providence-born Al Charette was a 26-year-old sonar supervisor aboard the Nautilus on that journey in 1958. He recalled yesterday the suspense among the crew, which “built and built as we were getting up there,” traveling beneath a sheet of ice that averaged 12 feet thick.

Charette and a handful of his former shipmates joined a celebration yesterday at the Submarine Force Museum, on the Thames River, to mark the 50th anniversary of the first submarine voyage to the North Pole.

The star of the ceremony was the Nautilus itself. Decommissioned in 1980, the sub is a permanent attraction at the museum. Visitors can tour a portion of its claustrophobia-inducing interior, including the torpedo area, galley and crew quarters.

Launched in 1954, the Nautilus was the most advanced sub of its day. Powered by a nuclear reactor and capable of making its own fresh air and water, it could stay underwater almost indefinitely––limited only by the amount of food it could carry for the crew.

It was the first submarine to complete 20,000 leagues under the sea (about 50,000 miles) as Jules Verne had predicted in his science-fiction story about a submarine named Nautilus. There’s an original-edition copy of the 1870 novel on display behind glass in the submarine.

In its 25 years of service, the Nautilus sailed half a million miles.

Jack Kurrus was a 27-year-old crewman who worked on boat’s nuclear reactor. He recalls listening to the captain give the countdown to the North Pole. “I was in the crew’s mess waiting for the party to start,” he said. The crew cut a cake in celebration, and a man dressed as Santa Claus joked that he didn’t appreciate being bothered during the summer at his North Pole hideout.

Kurrus was not nervous on the trip, he said, despite the ice above the sub and the unlikelihood of rescue should something go wrong. He remembers the anxiety of not knowing what awaited, because they were going where nobody had ever been.

The Nautilus crew had tried twice before to make it to the North Pole, having to turn back once because of a mechanical problem and once because it was blocked by ice. They were successful on the third try, but that was only half the mission, said Kurrus. They had to make it back, too. Navigation under the ice was a concern. At the top of the world, every direction is south. “So which south do you like?” he said. The sub’s navigation was accurate, though, and emerged from under the ice cap close to where the crew had expected, he said.

Charette and Kurrus, both living now in Connecticut, said they are delighted by the fine condition of their old sub, which is moored in the Thames. “It’s just like the day we left it,” said Kurrus.

marsenau@projo.com