Customer Reviews

Big Red: The Three-Month Voyage of a Trident Nuclear Submarine

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

For so many young men, submarines are the things of fancy - objects of awe that create dreams. Many people are members of the Submarine corps, but for those of us that are not, we have to rely on people like Douglas Waller to help us understand all that goes on during a "regular" patrol.

Waller was granted uncommon access to spend a patrol on board the USS Nebraska (SSBN-739), and gives us a wonderful account of those three months.

Starting with the challenging departure from home port (this particular submarine is not based at a shore port like some ships; instead, it is based slightly inland, which requires travel down a lengthy channel before reaching the ocean), Waller engrosses the reader from page one.

I enjoyed the entire book - I felt as though Waller was giving me the opportunity to spend three months on patrol (although I did it in a few days, reading through the 400+ pages that he has written for us). I never once found myself wanting less - I do not think that he included any non-relevant information or extraneous details.

After reading this book, I have a better understanding of how tough the life of a submariner can be, and why these men demand our ultimate respect. Three months sitting underwater with virtually no human contact except for your shipmates must play havoc with a sailors' psyche, but they all perform admirably.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in the United States Naval Submarine Corps.

The USS Nebraska is one of the best submarines out there. It is almost constatly on duty, sailing underwater for months at a time, its crew at the ready to launch a horrific death upon whomever the President of the United States tells them to. This is the story of how they do what they do, and how they cope with life in cramped quarters, no natural sunlight, 18 hour days rather than 24 and the pride these men take in doing their job.

Waller spends little time trying to editorialize what the men of the USS Nebraska do while underway, rather he lets them tell their stories through interviews and stories. By using this no nonsense approach Waller allows the men speak for themselves and let you look into a world very few outsiders have ever been able to peer into. I felt honored just to have read Big Red and I hope I never have to have the crew do their job.

As a former submariner on U.S. fast attack submarines, I was skeptical as to how accurate this book could be.

I was hooked before the end of the first chapter -- in fact, I was blown out of the water, pardon the pun.

The author must have not only gotten immense cooperation from the navy, but also from many of the sailors. The level of candor in this book is unparalleled.

The book started to read like a glowing review of submarines, where no one was less than 100% gung-ho navy. But you soon start to see some of the attitudes of real people -- not everyone is happy in their job, many people become exhausted, lonely, and scared -- it's not all medals and photo opportunities.

I can't wait to have my family and friends read this book -- it discusses the life I had lived in subs in detail and clarity that I could never hope to achieve -- you won't get a more accurate picture without signing on the dotted line.

The modern U.S. nucelar Navy owes its roots to Hyman Rickover, and from what is described in Big Red, he would undoubtedly be proud of what goes on today. This story of a patrol in the USS Nebraska, an Ohio class ballistic missile submarine, is unusual in its level of access that the author was granted to chart the course of a patrol through its sailors and officers.

The U.S. Navy is rare in that its crews, especially on the "boomers," will sail for months underwater and still have few problems while at sea. The book does a credible job at describing the feelings of the men being away froh home and everyday things, as well as noting what goes on back home with their families.

The inevitable drills, maintenance issues and daily life aboard these submarines are described, as are the hopes of the men aboard that their mission never comes to pass. Big Red is a thoughtful account, but could use a little more revision in some of its facts and details. This is not meant to slam the book, since there are very few out there describing the silent service of today so thoroughly, but is just a general criticism.

As an interesting and informative work about the world of many of our young people in an elite, all-volunteer undersea world at work, this book deserves a spot on the submarine fan's library shelf.

We all know they're out there...God help the bad guys if they ever have to launch. The U.S. Navy has 18 ballistic missle submarines, known as "nukes" or "boomers". The Nebraska ( Big Red ) is one of them. Carrying 24 missles, each with five MIRV'ed ( multiple independent re-entry vehicles ) nuclear weapons ranging in yield from approximately 250 to 475 kilotons ( the Hiroshima bomb was about 70 kilotons ). Meet the men ( no gals, thank you ) that crew this sub. Learn what they do on a typical patrol, how they do it, and to a lesser extent why they do it ( it's not just a job, nor really an adventure ). The one weakness of this book is how sterile it is. Like the sub they man, most of the crew are described as well scrubbed, highly capable and about as salty as a junior executive or assistant college professor. I suppose that's to be expected. No rough and ready warriors are to be portrayed. Might scare the public. Still, I recommend this book.

After reading this book I may never be able to read another underwater fiction novel again. The book actually reads like a novel, with many characters contributing to the outcome of the book, with the difference being that this story is ongoing.

The points made in the book for the continuance of these deterrent patrols is a strong one. I am sure there are people who actually believe that the world is a great big happy place now and these submarines are an anachronism at best. And to those people I would say, read this book, see what is going on and sleep well.

However, and you knew there just had to be a "however", I have just one criticism of the book. Or to be precise, the way some of the crew members are described. It is almost a reverse prejudice, a sort of "look how much we entrust to these people" kind of thing. What I mean by this is that when Mr. Waller is describing crew members, he invariably tells of them being tall, dark haired, whatever. But when a Black crewmember is described, Mr. Waller goes out of his way to point out that this is a Black person he is talking about. Almost as if to say, "see, they are here and we do give them important jobs." I have actually noticed this sort of thing in other books, and it just seems to leap off the page at me when I see it.

Aside from this, the book is excellent and I would rate it a "go out and buy" type of book. You will not be dissappointed.

The book was a good read, and is fairly accurate in what it discusses, especially the technical details. The only thing that I noticed was the book (like most of the books/movies about the military) spends a lot of time showing the reader how interesting the officers and senior enlisted are, and glosses over the less pleasant aspects of the Navy.

All in all, it is still a good read.

Big Red by Douglas Waller is one of the best books available on American nuclear submarines. There are a few others, all wonderful reading:

* Blind Man's Bluff by Sherry Sontag

* Red Star Rogue by Kenneth Sewell (creative nonfiction)

* HMS Unseen by Patrick Robinson (fiction)

* Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy (fiction)

* SSN by Tom Clancy

I'm sure there are more and would love if you'd add them to the comments section below. I've read all of the above because I'm including a nuclear sub in my next thriller, so I had to read everything possible about submarines, as well as chat with everyone I could find. I came away with admiration for the machine and the men who make it work.

Douglas Waller is well-credentialed to take on this job. He is a prior defense and foreign policy correspondent for Newsweek and served on the legislative staffs of Senator Proxmire and Congressman Markey. In Big Red, the Navy gave Waller the opportunity to sail with the Trident nuclear submarine USS Nebraska for three months. during that time, the Nebraska was on patrol protecting American shores. This meant it was invisible to both the enemy and friends, going wherever its captain deemed necessary to perform his duty. The Captain of a nuclear submarine is king with all the requisite powers during a sub's deployment.

Some of the topics covered are:

* how they leave port and disappear. Getting a submarine out to the ocean isn't as easy as turning on the engine and heading for the open water. Turns out, they're pretty unwieldy when surfaced, and they can't dive until they're out of the harbor. That takes a while.

* practice diving

* who serves on the boat (they aren't 'ships'--that nomenclature refers to surface vessels)

* practice avoiding the enemy

* practice attacking the enemy

* what about the nuclear weapons on board a sub

* details of the crew's food (they eat well, partial compensation for not seeing family and friends, not breathing fresh air and the very tight quarters they live in for months)

* what happens when someone gets sick

* what does 'cookies and cream' mean

* what does 'angles and dangles' mean (hint: it has to do with diving)

* what happens in an emergency

Some of my favorite parts will give you a good sense of Waller's writing style. It's easy to read, plain, and gets the message across even to lay people. See if you agree:

* This was the room where the giant ship was steered, where the captain peered at the world outside through the periscope, where buttons could be pushed to fire torpedoes or a key could be turned to launch, God forbid, the twenty-four long-range ballistic missiles

* Control (the sub's command and control center) is as large as a roomy bedroom. But with all the instrument panels and stools and chart stands and plotting tables arranged inside it, all the silver tubes and gray pipes and black wires and red phone boxes that hang overhead, not to mention all the crewmen who crowd in to operate its equipment, control becomes cramped. (It didn't sound roomy from the get-go. By the end of this section, it seemed as cramped as a telephone booth with thirty college kids stuffed inside during Hell Week)

* the capital and technological infrastructure that took fifty years and $trillions to build...

* The Nebraska actually stayed under no more than eighty to ninety days at a time because it didn't have enough room for food to feed the crew much past that

* Every two weeks, like clockwork, an American ballistic missile sub still slips quietly away from its pier and sinks deep into the dark ocean to relieve one of the ten Tridents that remain on constant patrol in the Atlantic and Pacific. (This was written ten years ago. I assume nothing has changed, but they wouldn't tell me if it had)

* ...and the fanged propeller made of a precision-machined aluminum, nickel, copper and bronze alloy. The divers were making sure that saboteurs hadn't attached bombs.

* ...each (tug) prepared to nudge the long black vessel right or left if it sailed off the center track of the channel (as it left port)

* ...the small amount of time the Nebraska spent on the surface could be the most hazardous...

* The blade count is important. Merchant ships usually have three or four blades on each propeller. Warships and submarines have five or more. The class stack (I've lost track of what that is) can also tell if a propeller's revolutions per minute increase or decrease, a tip-off that a ship is speeding up or slowing down.

That should give you a flavor for the book. Fascinating, don't you agree?

I finished this book wanting to read more. As I read the part about the simulated launch of the missiles, I was chilled to the bone about what would happen if they had to be launched for real. I have a better apreciation of the Navy, especially its submarine service, because now I know that it is in excellent hands.

I don't know about you, but I've never been on a nuclear submarine, and have no idea how they work. This book reads like a Rolling Stone-style investigative article, minus the hip counterculture references, in that it focuses on the people and machines working together for a task. It does its best to push that task to the background and portray instead for us the life which wraps around that unspoken task, and how the psychologies of these individuals were able to adapt. It gets a bit fat in the second half (like most of our lives, I suppose) and is never a dramatic or flashy read, but if you wouldn't mind reading a 250 page Newsweek article on submariners, this book is a fertile ground for the imagination.