The Jumper On the Cooper River Bridge.

I catch a ride from Breach Inlet over to Charleston, S.C. I hit a few bars down on King and Calhoun Streets. Night time arives, I go to the bus stop, there I learn there are no buses across the Cooper River Bridge at night. I have no money for a taxi so I am forced to hitch hike or walk. I am wearing white fisherman's boots, jeans and a cold weather vest. Nobody stops to give me a ride. I do not blame them. So I set out to walk across the bridge.

I walk the bridge on the right hand side. All bridge traffic is one way and it comes from behind me. I do not attempt to hitch hike. A person would be a fool to stop on the bridge. As I cross the bridge I recall when I was doing a few diving jobs down there in the river. The life line and air hose on my Mark 5 diving rig became fouled up on some debries under the old bridge. We were doing some work for The Army Engineers. Later in life another Eddie and I are doing a job for the Navy replacing degaussing coils under the mud in that muddy river. We moved four or five feet of mud with a fire hose to get to the coils. I am thinking as I walk this long bridge in the cold wind that unlike Nancy's boots my boots are not made for walking. It is necessary to stop frequently, remove the boots, adjust the socks. I stop often to rest leaning on the bridge railing. Leaning there it is easy to remember things that were and are.

Under this very bridge the Boomers put out to sea. The Trident Missile Submarines are huge, both awkward and graceful. Their passage through the water creates a huge bow wave and from the stern a smaller wave is formed. Sailors in their crisp white uniforms stand tall on the planes jutting from the sail. The sailors standing there show you how large these sea monsters are. She can carry twenty four Trident Missiles, each Missile is capable of carrying eight W88 nuclear war heads each warhead has a potential yeild of 475 Kilotons. The W88 is a fission fusion fission weapon. The russians call this fission fusion fission method "Layer caking." The Russians Layer caked a nuclear bomb (Tsar Bomba: King Bomb) into an estimated 100 megaton yeild. When that mother went off I bet even God blinked.

About that time as I leaned there resting a Police car pulls up. The nice man in the car says "Get in the car." In the car I quickly warm. The cop says "What's your name?" I avoid the question and say "I am a commercial fisherman and my boat is tied up down at Breach Inlet and that is where I am heading." He relaxes some. He tells me they got a call about a "Jumper" on the bridge. "Is not me, I am not a jumper." I say. The nice cop dropped me off on the Mount Pleasant side of the bridge. Next car that came along took me right to my boat, the Vicky Mary".

I still think about the Boomers and all those nukes now and then. Do you?

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I tell you it is weird to cruise into New London and see the Groton yards empty.

W88's are getting old now, probably replaced with W92's? Still out there, still deadly, still under the nominal control of *.

Scares me to no end.

They were moved out years ago.

W92s? New and improved? I was at Groton when the Washington was launched.

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This is what it looked like when I was homeported in Groton. There weren't enough piers to go around....far from being an empty base.

from a private boat, and the Navy/Coast Guard patrols don't look up from their porno.
Far cry from the late 70's when we diverted all river traffic 500 yards away and arrested anyone with a visible camera or binoculars on deck.

On a Balao class boat (SS-319) we carried a couple of Mark 45's that made me nervous enough. Besides, there was little if any liberty on a missile boat.

As IC forward I had to peek into the warhead view-glass hourly on watch to make sure the litmus color was "still" blue indicating no rad leaks. The discomforting part was the escort holding the .45 semi-auto by his side was supposed to shoot me dead if I tried to tamper with the fish......needless to say, I didn't!

Here's a recent article where our Aussie friends smoked a Fast Attack in recent war games with their quieter diesel-electric.

Australian 'Hit' On U.S. Sub Gets Attention
By Nathan Hodge

WASHINGTON--The commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet confirmed today that an Australian diesel submarine "sank" a U.S. nuclear-powered sub during a recent training exercise in the Pacific. The significance of the event is not clear, but it reportedly has stirred considerable conversation in the Navy. In naval exercises, it's common for participants to achieve simulated hits. But a recent article in an Australian newspaper said the Americans were "shocked" by the performance of the opposing force's submarines. Speaking at a breakfast this morning with defense reporters, Adm. Walter Doran said the Australians' Collins-class sub had scored a hit against the U.S. boat "in an exercise context," but he suggested an Australian submarine commander may have exaggerated the significance of his success. Commodore Mike Deeks, an Australian submarine group commander, boasted in the Sept. 24 edition of the Brisbane Courier-Mail: "We surprise them. ... The Americans pour billions into their submarines, but we are better at practical applications." Doran downplayed the Australians' success, saying the foreign vessel was still no match for a U.S. sub. "These were pretty much set geometries for training exercises between the two submarines," Doran said. "It certainly does not mean that the Collins-class submarine in a one-on-one situation is going to defeat our L.A. class or our nuclear submarines." Navy Lt. Elissa Smith, a Navy spokeswoman, described the exercise as "tactical development and training of prospective commanding officers" for both the U.S. and Australian navies. Two subs took part in the exercise: the USS City of Corpus Christi (SSN 705), a Los Angeles-class nuclear sub, and the HMAS Waller, an Australian diesel-electric boat. Smith was not immediately able to provide the exact date or name of the exercise, but added: "During the exercise, there were events during which both submarines were simulated as being hit by exercise torpedoes." Doran, for his part, acknowledged that the article had caused a stir. "The article's getting a fair amount of attention right now, it's being passed around," he said. One of the reasons that Doran is in Washington is to talk with the Navy's top admiral, Adm. Vern Clark, about the Navy's need to shift training and resources toward anti-submarine warfare, or ASW. "We have to adapt ourselves to a new world," Doran said. "The new world is the proliferation of very capable, very quiet diesel-electric ... submarines throughout the world, and you have to be able to deal with that." In the Pacific, U.S. military planners have been particularly concerned about China's efforts to expand its submarine inventory, including the domestically built Song-class submarine and the Russian-designed Kilo SS-class subs, described in a recent Pentagon report as "one of the quietest diesel-electric submarines in the world." According to Doran, the Navy needs to boost ASW training and exercises in order to better prepare for the threat from diesel-electric boats. He said he had adopted a "stair-step approach," putting every carrier battle group through an ASW course before it deploys. Diesel-electric subs, he said, "are not 10 feet tall, but we have to re-dedicate ourselves to getting back into the issue."

(no link available)

now it is hello Nboat, good bye NBoat

nuclear? Guidence system? Range? Yeild?

Submarines are scary creatures. I do not think I would care for sub duty. Liberty call on a Boomer? Hee! Hee!

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I never saw it disassembled like that before.