USS Nautilus, First Nuclear-Powered Submarine, Launched

Context

By the early 1950s the United States and the Soviet Union were locked in a naval competition that emphasized stealth and endurance beneath the waves. Conventional diesel-electric submarines still relied on batteries for submerged travel and had to surface periodically to recharge, exposing them to detection. American planners, drawing on wartime German Type XXI U-boat hull forms, sought a propulsion system that could free submarines from these constraints.

Captain Hyman G. Rickover, head of the Navy’s nuclear propulsion effort, pressed for a pressurized-water reactor small enough to fit inside a submarine hull. The project received congressional approval in 1951 and was assigned to the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics in Groton, Connecticut. The design combined a streamlined hull with a compact reactor plant developed at the Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory and tested in a land-based prototype in Idaho.

What Happened

Construction began with the keel-laying ceremony on 14 June 1952, performed by former president Harry S. Truman. Over the next eighteen months workers assembled the 320-foot hull and installed the Submarine Thermal Reactor, later designated S2W. On the morning of 21 January 1954 the completed vessel stood ready on the building ways beside the Thames River.

First Lady Mamie Eisenhower arrived to serve as sponsor. She broke the traditional bottle of champagne across the bow, and the submarine slid stern-first into the water. The launch marked the first time a nuclear-powered warship had entered the sea. Rickover, who had supervised every stage of the project, watched from the platform with other Navy officials.

Aftermath

After the launch the Nautilus returned to the dock for final outfitting and reactor testing. She was commissioned on 30 September 1954 under Commander Eugene P. Wilkinson. On 17 January 1955 she cast off lines and signaled “Underway on nuclear power,” beginning a series of trials that demonstrated sustained high-speed submerged runs previously impossible.

Legacy

The Nautilus proved that nuclear propulsion could deliver virtually unlimited submerged endurance and high underwater speed, rendering many World War II anti-submarine tactics obsolete. The U.S. Navy quickly ordered additional nuclear attack and ballistic-missile submarines, establishing the nuclear fleet that became central to Cold War deterrence. The ship’s later submerged transit of the North Pole in 1958 further dramatized the technology’s reach.

Decommissioned in 1980, the Nautilus now serves as a museum ship at the Submarine Force Library and Museum in Groton, preserving the vessel that set the pattern for every subsequent nuclear submarine in the American and many foreign navies.