By using the "Key West Agreement of 1947," during 1949 Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson ruled that the Navy should not become involved in ballistic missiles. Instead, the Air Force would specialize in intercontinental missiles (ICBMs), the Army in intermediate range missiles (IRBMs), and the Navy could observe. In September, 1955, a new SecDef, "Engine Charlie" Wilson formerly of General Motors, realized that placing all of his launch sites at well-known locations on land invited a surprise attack like that at Pearl Harbor. So he ordered the Army to modify its liquid-fueled JUPITER for launching from a Navy vessel on the high seas. With this assignment came funding. Immediately the Bureau of Aeronautics claimed this new version of JUPITER would be an "air vehicle" under its domain. On the other hand, the Bureau of Ordnance argued it was merely an "extra long-range explosive shell" launched from a battleship aft of the rear 16-inch gun turret.

Instead of resolving the squabble, SecNav Charles Thomas created during November 17, 1955, a Special Projects Office (SPO) under a former aircraft carrier skipper, RADM William F. "Red" Raborn (USNA 1928). Although the latter reported directly to ADM Arleigh Burke, the new Chief of Naval Operations, and to SecNav Thomas, "Red's" next 13 months were spent escaping from Dr. Werner von Braun's belief that a liquid fueled rocket could be safely launched from the fantail of a rolling ship. Fortunately, a ONR-sponsored National Academy of Sciences summer study at Woods Hole during 1956 generated a design for a shipboard IRBM weighing one fifth of the von Braun design by utilizing one of Charles Stark Draper's light weight self-inertial guidance system, a new fusion warhead invented by Dr. Edward Teller, and solid propellants concocted by the Atlantic Research Corporation under a ONR contract. Moreover, RADM Hyman Rickover, the curmudgeon of nuclear submarine design, agreed with Raborn that this new missile, soon to be called the POLARIS, could be launched from a submerged submarine.

At that point in our nation's history, it was postulated that the Soviets might well have 300 submarines capable of launching nuclear-tipped cruise missiles against the United States as early as 1958. In order to exchange tit-for-tat, during December 8, 1956, the Special Projects Office was authorized to achieve an interim POLARIS counterstrike capability by early 1963 via unlimited funding. To do so, Raborn's top assistants, CAPT Levering Smith, the smartest missileer in naval uniform, implemented a "Program Evaluation and Review Technique" (PERT) capable of keeping track of in near real time the work of what ultimately became 2,000 contractors. Internally, Raborn and Smith utilized five technical branches: Launcher; Missile-Fire Control-Guidance; Ship Installation; Navigation, and Operations-Test to control the concurrent development of missile, guidance, positioning, fire control, and launch sub systems.

Everyone and everything worked so smoothly that the submerged USS George Washington (SSN-598) fired the first POLARIS missile under operating conditions off Cape Canaveral, FL during July 20, 1960, or some 30 months earlier than had been projected back in late 1956, i.e., in less time than the U.S. Army utilized to develop the M-14 rifle. Moreover, the POLARIS concept was so expandable that between 1960 and 1964, the evolving POLARIS A-1 through A-3 models increased their firing range from 1,200 to 2,500 nautical miles. Then in 1972 came POSEIDON that, although it had no change in range, could deliver multiple warheads with increased accuracy. Finally during 1979 came TRIDENT I with a 4.000 nautical mile range, followed by TRIDENT H in 1990 with a range somewhat better than that.1,2

But despite all of this advanced technology, both the submarine and its outgoing missile must know their geospatial positions precisely if it is to be an accurate launch. Consequently, during the same month that Raborn's office was initiated, that office acquired the 18.000 ton Garden Mariner and converted her into the USS Compass Island (EAG 163) for evaluating the accuracy of various navigational systems and also of those being installed aboard the "boomers" when they came on line during the 1960s.

The first system capable of providing adequate navigational support proved to be LORAN-C, an Air Force derivative of LORAN-A but operating in the 90-110 KHz band. Upon being field tested by HYDRO during early 1959, the technique offered positional accuracies of 50 to 300 feet, i.e., a ship's length. 99 percent of the time out to 500 miles from the transmitters. After some urging by RADM Rickover, by the end of the year the U.S. Coast Guard had a LORAN- C chain up and running in the Mediterranean area. Then in March, 1960. came a Norwegian Sea LORAN-C chain well before a Polaris missile had been launched in a quasi-operational mode.

Meanwhile, great progress had been made in developing a precise but passive navigational system independent of surface read-outs. Once again advantage was taken of a defunct Air Force program. Back in the early 1950s. the aforementioned Professor Draper had developed an inertial navigation system for the Navajo missile. As its inventor noted, this device "... does for geometry - angles, distance and speed - what a watch does for time." Although the unit consisted of a complex mix of precision accelerometers and sensitive gyroscopes. its amazing end-product continually and instantly determined the host vehicle's position, heading, velocity and attitude with respect to the earth's rotation. But there was a limitation. Because the device was designed for a cruise missile, its reliability was of the order of three hours. So in early 1957 the SPO placed Draper under contract to rework the concept into a system reliable for several months.

By early 1958 the Compass Island had successfully tested a Ship's Inertial Navigational System (SINS) known as the North American Autonetics N6A autonavigator. Moreover, this highly classified device was seaworthy enough to merit installation aboard the Nautilus and Skate as a means of facilitating their under-ice cruises that just happened to reach the North Pole within nine days of each other, namely August 3 and 12, 1958. Although the SINS was now recognized as a revolutionary device for submerged navigation, gradual internal wear and incoherencies caused it to experience a slow but unpredictable drift away from true positional values.

To overcome this issue, CDR James A. Dare, skipper of the Compass Island, re-explored the concept of bathymetric navigation keyed to modern displays of seafloor topography supplemented by local readings of gravity and geomagnetism. In due course the Department of Defense's Appropriations Act for 1958 called for the conversion of three 16-knot ships into survey vessels to support the POLARIS program. As a consequence, the 13,050 ton vessels South Bend Victory, Tuskegee Victory, and Joliet Victory were withdrawn from the Fleet Reserve during August, 1957, and upgraded into the USNS Bowditch-II (T¬AGS 21), USNS Dutton (T-AGS 22), and the USNS Michelson (T-AGS 23).

Once that was done, these ships, now called "The Triplets" by their operator, the Military Sea Transportation Service, were assigned to the technical control of the Hydrographer of the Navy. Moreover, at this very point in time the Chief of Naval Research had released on New Year's Day, 1958, a much touted report, The Ten Year Program in Oceanography. As a follow-on, RADM Henry C. Daniel announced that HYDRO, too, had initiated a new "Oceanographic Survey Program" (OSP) to enhance man's knowledge of the deep sea.

Because the Triplets spent nearly 11 months of the year underway, HYDRO's Division of Marine Surveys gradually hired nearly a hundred new shipriders with skills primarily in geophysics, geology or civil engineering although foresters, mathematicians, geographers and marine biologists were included. As very few of these individuals had ever performed classified surveys at sea, they were first exposed to a two months course describing how to work and behave aboard a naval vessel. To this end, Joseph Cheeseman and Joseph Polio taught how to convert raw sonic data into smoothed field sheets while George Weston and Robert Seaton taught the "care and feeding" of the Varian V4901 proton precession magnetometer that trailed about 1,200 feet astern of each vessel. In addition, Sebastian Odend'hal offered the same type of instruction for operating the Lacoste & Romberg S-1, S-2, and S-3 type shipboard gravimeters. A.L. Riggs's lecture was the most popular, however. It related how recruits, even though they had been hired as lowly GS-5's, in six months could be GS-7's, a year later GS-9's, and full-scale GS-11 professionals a year after that.

Another lecture by Riggs was also carefully listened to for it dealt with a very touchy issue for their military managers, overtime pay for deployed civilians. As Robert Higgs, an early OSP geomagnetician, recalls:3

"The idea was to have six bathymetrists, three geomagneticians and three gravity specialists plus a senior scientist assigned to each ship to stand a 24-hour watch on the equipment and to process the data obtained. After about four months, i.e., three consecutive 35-day ship deployments interspersed with five- day periods of shoreside refueling and replenishment, this 13-person "Oceanographic Unit" would be relieved by a new team of the same size. Then for the next four months while ashore this initial unit would smooth up the field plots, produce the final charts, take some time off, and prepare for their next deployment. In order to provide continuity aboard ship we alternated the return so that there still would be at least one person on the ship who had made the previous deployment. Although there were three eight-hour watches, each man on watch usually worked at least twelve hours per day to complete the shipboard processing prior to entering port. Once in port, because of the SECRET classification of the data, everything had to be bundled up and shipped off immediately. However, only the "Gravity Guys" were permitted to work in port and get some compensation for it because the gravimeter readouts were meaningless until dockside calibration from readings of an accompanying Worden meter after it, too, had been re-read at the closest local gravitational benchmark. As for the geomagneticians we worked in port many times in order to get the equipment ready for the next deployment. Our tow cables and sensors always needed attention, but we were never permitted to get overtime pay for it".

With respect to the gravimeter, the original concept was to have it placed upon a "stable table" about 12 foot square near the ship's center of gravity. But no matter how hard everyone tried, the concept would not work. Higgs reports:

Table 23

Geographic Scope of Project Seascan (1960-1968)