Subject: Queenfish's Arctic Patrol Part 2
I got this article from the NY Times this morning.
Queenfish: A Cold War Tale<script type="text/JavaScript" language="JavaScript">function getSharePasskey() { return 'ex=1363579200&en=799941b1bd9e4bd6&ei=5124';}<script type="text/JavaScript" language="JavaScript">function getShareURL() { return encodeURIComponent('http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/science/18arctic.html');}function getShareHeadline() { return encodeURIComponent('Queenfish: A Cold War Tale');}function getShareDescription() { return encodeURIComponent('The icy surface of the Arctic Ocean may seem peaceful, but below the ice, its depths have boiled with intrigue.');}function getShareKeywords() { return encodeURIComponent('United States Armament and Defense,Submarines,Ice,Oceans,Missiles and Missile Defense Systems');}function getShareSection() { return encodeURIComponent('science');}function getShareSectionDisplay() { return encodeURIComponent('Science');}function getShareSubSection() { return encodeURIComponent('');}function getShareByline() { return encodeURIComponent('By WILLIAM J. BROAD');}function getSharePubdate() { return encodeURIComponent('March 18, 2008');}Published: March 18, 2008 (Page 2 of 2) Moscowclaimed seas extending 230 miles from its shores, including most of theshelf, whose waters averaged a few hundred feet deep. But Washingtonrecognized just a 12-mile territorial limit, and Dr. McLaren wasinstructed to play by those rules. As the book recounts, the subrepeatedly ventured within periscope range of Soviet land. In theSevernaya Zemlya archipelago, its crew examined the October Revolutionand Bolshevik Islands. The Queenfish also spotted a convoy. “Iwas able to see and identify all six ships as Soviet,” Dr. McLarenwrites. “They consisted of an icebreaker leading a tanker and fourcargo ships on an easterly course that slowly weaved back and forththrough the chaotic ice pack.” The main mission was to map theseabed and collect oceanographic data in anticipation of the Arctic’sbecoming a major theater of military operations. The sub did so byfinding and following depth contours, for instance, by locating theareas of the Arctic Basin where the seabed was 600 feet below thesurface. A result was a navigation chart that bore the kind of squigglylines found on topographic maps. The goal of mapping the bottomcontour also sent the Queenfish into the dead end. The crew waswatching a favorite Western movie, “Shane,” when a messenger touchedDr. McLaren on the shoulder and whispered that the sub had ground to astandstill. “Heart in my mouth, I ran up to the after-port sideof the control room,” he writes. “Saturating the iceberg detector scopewas bright sea-ice-return in all directions.” Dr. McLaren orderedall crew movement to cease as he and other watch standers worked thepropeller, rudder and stern planes to move the Queenfish slowlybackward. Finally, he writes, the boat entered deeper water, and thecrew “gave out a huge collective sigh of relief.” The two-monthvoyage ended in Nome, Alaska, where the sub and crew encountered achilly reception. The mayor and other people on the town dock hadmistaken the sinister-looking sub without markings as Soviet. In 1972, Dr. McLaren won the Distinguished Service Medal, the military’s highest peacetime award. Historianssay cold war maneuvering in the Arctic picked up after his mission,with the two sides deploying more submarines beneath the ice. TheUnited States built a total of 36 sister subs to the Queenfish, knownas the Sturgeon class. Little is known publicly of the polarexploits. But every so often the icy world erupted in a foretaste ofwar. In 1984, an American satellite observed a Soviet sub breakingthrough the ice of the Siberian sea to test fire missiles. Militaryand legal experts said Dr. McLaren’s book, while providing a glimpseinto a hidden world of cold war planning, might also make politicalwaves today. That is because of the sub’s repeated penetrationsof what Moscow considered its territorial waters, defying boundariesthat Washington refused to recognize. The disclosure of that boldnesscould bolster the case in international forums for Americannavigational rights, legal experts said in interviews. Bernard H. Oxman, a specialist in maritime law at the University of MiamiSchool of Law, called the 1970 voyage “an indication of state practiceand a refusal to acquiesce in Russian claims over navigation.” AlthoughMoscow has in recent years relaxed such claims, he added, the legalprecedent remains. So too, Dr. McLaren sees his spy mission asa milestone for freedom of navigation, whether in Russian waters orelsewhere in the contested wilds atop the globe. Today the issueis hot, because melting polar ice is opening up new shipping lanes andexposing potentially vast deposits of natural resources, including oil.A modern gold rush is getting under way. “It’s important tomaintain freedom of the seas,” Dr. McLaren said in an interview.“That’s something our country has fought for literally from itsinception.” Global warming and the shrinking polar ice pack arecreating new opportunities and responsibilities, he said, adding,“We’ve got to stand our ground.”
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Queenfish's Arctic Patrol Part 2
