“Diving Officer, make your depth 20 feet,” the XO ordered. “Make my depth 20 feet, aye, sir,” I heard in reply.
Very Low-Frequency depth. Two-way communications depth. I kept my face calm.
My XO continued. “Make your depth 20 feet, five-degree up bubble.” The bow planesman repeated, “Make my depth 20 feet, aye, sir,” and the stern planesman said, “Five degree up bubble, aye.
A gentle angle of ascent. Maybe 2 minutes until VLF depth. It had been 2 weeks since we’d been in a position to send and receive. It’s normally an exciting time, the reconnection to the world. I had a sense of dread rising much more steeply than my boat.
I hadn’t been out of contact for two entire weeks like the rest of my crew. Ultra-Low Frequency transmissions can still get through. We can’t respond, but a Captain can get orders, even at operating depths. You need it for getting nuclear launch orders for example.
Launch orders like I received the first part of 2 days after we dived. Suddenly cut off. Sometimes we get a stage 1 authentication as a training drill, but this was something else. Partway through the Stage 1, the signal disappeared. Then nothing until last week.
The Diving Officer interrupted my reverie. “Depth 20 feet, Sir”.
“Deploy the VLF antenna, John,” I ordered my Comms Officer. The informality drew a sidewards glance from the XO, but I barely noticed. My hand was clenched in my pocket.
“VLF deployed, Sir. Sending SitRep to COMSUBPAC.”
My hand was hot, the paper in its grip becoming a burning coal. Face still calm, but heart pounding now.
“Very good, Comms.” This time my voice cracked slightly. Again my XO, looked. Slightly more concerned this time.
It seemed like a week before anyone spoke. Almost as long as I’d been walking around with the paper in my pocket. The only other message that had come through on the ULF. Not like any Navy communication I’d ever seen.
“Sir, there is no response from COMSUB.”
“VLF must be malfunctioning,” my XO remarked.
“Mmmm.” I responded with thrilling leadership.
There was a pause again, this time the bridge waiting for words from the leader standing with them, as opposed to those on land.
“Surface.”
The XO and the bridge began again their familiar, calmly professional exchanges to execute my order. I began to pray for the first time since I was 12.
Please God, let this be some sort of test.
We surfaced and the Comms officer tried to check in with COMSUB again. Sending messages, but receiving nothing back. I pulled the last message I had received last week from my pocket and unfolded it.
ANYONE LEFT. ESCAPE AND EVADE. DO NOT COME HOME.
“Sir, there is nothing transmitting!”
“COMSUB not responding?”
“No Sir, but that’s not what I mean. Not no-one responding. Nothing transmitting. No commercial radio. No emergency beacons, not even the signal from GPS. The airwaves are completely dead”.
I hoped that it was only the airwaves.
“SIR!” the Radar Operator broke in, “Contact! Bearing Two Niner Zero.”
“IFF?” I asked, hoping to hear it was Search and Rescue.
“Negative, Sir. No ping. Sir, its closing fast. 1200 knots.”
I did what any submarine Captain would do.
“DIVE!”
