Seeking Solace Underwater - A Short History of the Submarine
Seeking Solace Underwater - A Short History of the Submarine
By: a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures
It isn’t a secret that I am a devoted Jules Verne fan. I have been completely enamored with his books for years, and my favorite, without question, is 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
That novel is particularly fascinating because it didn’t just imagine submarine travel; it helped inspire it. In many ways, 20,000 Leagues shaped the conceptual future of undersea exploration and directly influenced the eventual development of the nuclear submarine.
The idea of a submarine has been floating around since at least the late 1500s. The first documented working submarine was built in 1620 by Cornelis Drebbel and was powered by human oars. More than a century later, in 1775, the first military submarine—the Turtle—appeared, also powered entirely by human effort. It wouldn’t be until the late nineteenth century that submarines would operate using fuel-driven engines.
Because early propulsion systems were so limited, submarine development progressed slowly. It wasn’t until the early 1900s, with the introduction of diesel-electric engines, that navies began using submarines regularly. Once that hurdle was cleared, submarines quickly proved their worth. German U-boats became infamous during World War I, and by World War II, submarines were considered an essential component of any modern navy.
Before nuclear power, however, submarines were still constrained by oxygen. Diesel-powered vessels could only remain submerged for limited periods before crews had to surface to breathe and recharge. The kind of long-range, uninterrupted underwater voyages imagined by Verne were simply impossible.
That changed with atomic engineering.
A non–oxygen-dependent propulsion system became feasible in the mid-twentieth century, and by 1951, engineers had successfully developed nuclear propulsion for submarines. In 1954, the USS Nautilus was christened by Mamie Eisenhower and launched into history.
During the Cold War, the Nautilus demonstrated just how revolutionary nuclear submarines could be. On August 3, 1958, responding in part to the strategic anxieties sparked by the Sputnik launch, the Nautilus traveled beneath the Arctic ice and became the first vessel to reach the geographic North Pole underwater.
The USS Nautilus remained in service for nearly twenty-five years. Her final voyage took place on April 9, 1979, and she was officially decommissioned on March 3, 1980. Today, she rests as a museum at the Naval Submarine Base in New London, Connecticut, with her two forward compartments open to visitors.
For a lifelong Jules Verne admirer, that feels like a fitting resting place, for both imagination and invention.
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About the Author
a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller traveling through life
She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.
You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.
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