Unknown Waters: A First-Hand Account of the Historic Under-ice Survey of the Siberian Continental Shelf by USS Queenfish (SSN-651) (Hardcover)

~ Dr. Alfred S. McLaren (Author), William R. Anderson (Foreword)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This memoir is very engaging....It provides a first-person view of submarine under-ice operations that appears in very few other works." - Gary E. Weir, author of Rising Tide: The Untold Story of the Russian Submarines that Fought the Cold War"

Product Description

This title tells about charting the Siberian continental shelf during the height of the Cold War.This book tells the story of the brave officers and crew of the nuclear submarine USS Queenfish (SSN-651), who made the first survey of the remote and important Arctic Ocean region. The unpredictability of floating sea ice, shallow waters, and possible Soviet discovery, all play a dramatic part in this fascinating 1970 voyage.Covering 3,100 miles over a period of some 20 days at a laborious average speed of 6.5 knots, the attack submarine threaded its way through underwater canyons of ice and rolling seafloor, at one point becoming lodged in an "ice garage." Only cool thinking and skillful maneuvering of the nearly 5,000-ton vessel dislodged it. The second phase of the journey began 240 nautical miles beyond the North Pole with a detailed survey of the Siberian shelf, working back to the Bering Strait through the Laptev, East Siberian, and Chukchi seas.The skipper of the Queenfish had been trained and selected by Admiral Hyman Rickover and, inspired by this polar experience, McLaren became one of the world's foremost Arctic scientists, studying first at Cambridge University, and obtaining his doctorate in polar studies from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 242 pages
• Publisher: University Alabama Press; 1 edition (January 25, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0817316027
• ISBN-13: 978-0817316020
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #459,926 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Captain Fred McLaren's Well-Told Story , March 3, 2008

By	Ken Wright "Ken Wright" (Denver, Colorado) - See all my reviews

Captain Fred McLaren's well-told story about cold war submarining in the 1960s, and through to the early 1970s, is a good read for armchair travelers, arctic explorers, and scientists. McLaren has provided lots of good photos that help humanize the book.

Unknown Waters provides a first-hand account of life and exploration in a nuclear submarine, the Queenfish, while it and its crew explored and mapped important and remote regions of the Arctic Ocean. The Arctic-Siberian Shelf Expedition of the 1970s represents the bulk of the story.

McLaren, using the first person, describes in fascinating detail how a giant nuclear attack submarine operates under thick polar ice and makes its way between icebergs that penetrate long distances below the surface.
Chapter 11 is of special interest to the layman; it includes the submarine surfacing at the North Pole and how it got there. McLaren provides a lot of photos of the surfaced submarine with crew members, including McLaren, posing with Jack Patterson dressed as Santa Claus on August 5, 1970.

It was nice to read a personalized description of the legendary Admiral Rickover and how he selected his submarine captains, an ordeal for any self-respecting naval officer. McLaren sat through 15 interviews with Rickover and thus became an expert on where to sit for an advantage and how to respond to challenging questions. The reader will end up with a good feeling and lots of respect for the Admiral.

McLaren has provided a good index of 11 pages that can help the reader to back into the book to find favorite stories.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Military Correctness, May 7, 2008

By	Michael W. Perry "Michael W. Perry, author of... (Author of Untangling Tolkien, Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you're interested in Polar exploration, you'll want to read this book. The dangers the USS Queenfish had to face demonstrate that, although modern arctic exploration by nuclear submarine has none of the extreme discomfort suffered by the early explorers, it remains quite dangerous. The crew of this ship could have died and been buried in arctic waters just as mysteriously as any 19th century explorer.

There is, however, one extremely odd aspect to the book. If you read an account of a similar exploration from a century ago, perhaps Erskine Childers's fictional The Riddle of the Sands (about exploring German coastal waters), you get a strong sense of a deeper purpose than merely a look-see. Childers's hero was quite aware of the naval struggle then taking place between Germany and Britain and was doing his part in that struggle by becoming knowledgeable about a difficult-to-sail region of the German coast.

You will find none of that in this book. It is true that we all know that the reason the US was willing to sent one of its most valuable attack submarines into such dangerous waters wasn't to map the ocean bottom for science or to study ice fields. It was the role those waters might play in a Cold War that pitted the U.S. against a powerful totalitarian regime that had killed over 20 million of its own citizens, a nation that had us targeted with thousands of nuclear warheads.

But what we all know isn't something Captain Alfred McLaren seems willing to say. I noticed only one brief, passing mention of that struggle in the entire book, a book in which he mentions the care his sub made to not go inside Soviet waters numerous times. And the index reveals that same attitude. Look up the Soviet Union, and you'll be referred to Russia, which only has six entries. Imagine an account of an account of a destroyer in the North Atlantic during 1943 that only mentions Germany six times and leaves uncertain why the ship is dropping depth charges at noises it picks up on sonar.

In short, this book suffers from a serious case of Military Correctness. Just as Political Correctness dictates that any criticism of the Soviet Union is a "return to McCarthyism," so this book bends over backwards to avoid suggesting that there was anything in the slightest wrong with the nation along whose coast they were sailing.

And it's just that inability to recognize evil as evil, either in retrospect or prospect, that's one of the primary reasons why we have wars. I just finished editing a book by someone who was warning, in the midst of WWI, that there was something wrong with Germany's ways of thinking that, if not corrected, would lead within a generation to another and yet more horrible war. Chesterton was Churchill before Churchill. In 1932, he would warn that Germany would turn to a dictator (Hitler), and if that dictator was not deterred by sufficient military force, the next European war would break out over a border dispute with Poland, precisely what happened in 1939. I see none of what Chesterton calls "moral imagination" in this book. In a retired military officer, that lack is particularly disturbing.

--Michael W. Perry, editor of Chesterton on War and Peace: Battling the Ideas and Movements that Led to Nazism and World War II

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not-so-deep water, July 30, 2008

By	J. Scott Shipman (Annandale, VA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

CAPT McLaren's splendid account of USS QUEENFISH's historic under-ice survey is well-written and gripping. As a former submarine sailor and arm-chair Antarctica junkie---I had little difficulty translating the submarine-speak and ice-speak. Some who have reviewed made the point of the "trade language"---I would offer the potential reader the following: CAPT McLaren's explained (more than once) the more esoteric terms---and had the grace to include an exhaustive glossary. I plan to purchase this book for one of my children--who has never served on a boat---and advise marking the glossary for quick reference. The prose is somewhat repetitive, but the nature of their work was repetitive. CAPT McLaren managed to make a topic that had potential to be dull and boring into a riveting story of a time not so long ago when submarine skipper's had no leash. Based on the story and a few people of acquaintance who know of CAPT McLaren, I could recommend this book for up and coming leaders---regardless the vocation. By all accounts, CAPT McLaren was/is thoughtful, honest, and courageous---good attributes for anyone, particularly anyone in a position of leadership.
Highly recommended.