From: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org (alloy-digest) To: alloy-digest@smoe.org Subject: alloy-digest V5 #202 Reply-To: alloy@smoe.org Sender: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "alloy-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. alloy-digest Friday, August 18 2000 Volume 05 : Number 202 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Alloy: RE: alloy-digest V5 #201 [Damien Sweeney ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 12:19:28 -0500 From: Damien Sweeney Subject: Alloy: RE: alloy-digest V5 #201 Ok - this is Off Topic - but related to Melissa's post earlier this week. And related to -I guess- the recent talk of relating Dolby's songs to fathers. I just received this E-mail from my Dad and thought I'd share it. He was an officer on the USS Tuchumsa (sp?) Nuclear Sub in the late 60's - cold war cat & mouse stuff. He is not a Thomas Dolby fan (yet - only those who have not yet heard Dolby are not Dolby fans!) and does not know "One Of Our Submarines" but I think he does know - perhaps better than any of us - what that song may be about: """"""" - -----Original Message----- From: Roger Sweeney Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2000 9:28 AM To: Damien Sweeney Subject: Cold and Dark Once, patrolling at high speed through the South China Sea, at significant depth and moving through what were in those days largely unchartered waters, our fathometer alarm sounded. I was the watch officer on duty and I recall taking immediate evasive action: reducing depth, emergency turn, reduction in speed - and then breathless waiting. We were in very deep water, but in an area where there were underwater volcanoes and where islands were seen to emerge from the ocean and then recede. We could often hear their rumbling on our sonar repeaters, and in fact it was a nuisance because it masked those quieter sounds that might be emitted by our trailing Russian companions. That morning we watched as the bottom tracking sonar traced a rapidly ascending arc that showed we were in fact approaching one of those mountains. The question for us was how far it reached towards the surface and would it intersect with our course. The fathometer had been set on long-scale, due to the great depth of water, and we needed to switch it to short-scale to get an accurate reading of how much water we still had under the keel. There was a delay while the instrument found its new range, sent out its low-powered ping, and returned its first data point. By then we were at a depth of 200 feet, moving slowly and prepared to emergency surface if that would be required. As we continued, we saw on the chart, flowing by under our keel, the outline of a massive mountain whose peak was reaching for the surface - not yet there, but with only several hundred feet left before it saw sunlight for the first time. We were spared that collision by luck and fate. My friend and classmate John Sweet was lost on the USS Scorpion. When they found her, they saw the bow had been blown open, perhaps by their own torpedo. But they were in deep water, and the ship sank and passed through crush depth and was never heard from. I am thinking now of those Russians, whose ship appears to have suffered a similar fate, but in shallow water. Perhaps some are still alive, trapped in the cold and dark and waiting for help. All submariners know about that special fear, we have all imagined it, and we are praying to God for his mercy to guide those men out. Dad """""" Now, more than ever before, I relate "One of Our Submarines" to my father - one of the first nuclear submariners under Admiral Rickover. He is a modest man, now 58 years old, and it is very rare that he speaks about his Navy days but when he does I realize that he has done something that only a very few elite and brave men have done and the great risks that go with it. I think now that he has shared this with me that "Submarines" -to me- will be about nothing else. Damien Damien J. Sweeney President/CEO Network Professionals, Inc. ------------------------------ End of alloy-digest V5 #202 ***************************