Hesburgh travels aboard nuclear sub
By MEG DADAY
News Writer
What can you give a man that has said mass within a mile of the South Pole and broken the world speed record aboard an SR-71?
The United States Navy responded to the challenge by giving Father Theodore Hesburgh the opportunity to travel aboard the USS Portsmouth, a nuclear submarine.
He accepted, and from Jan. 16, when the boat departed from San Diego, Cal., until Jan. 22, when it arrived at Pearl Harbor, the hatch was closed and Hesburgh never saw the sun.
"It's just like getting into a dark cave. There's no communication with the outside world," said Hesburgh.
After leaving San Diego, the boat submerged to 500 feet and occasionally dropped to 700 feet, but, according to Hesburgh, it never rose to less than 60 feet and that was only to receive satellite commands.
"A new president was inaugurated while we were in there, but we were totally cut off from the world."
In addition to the roughly 130 crew members aboard the submarine, Hesburgh's brother who is a naval officer, and Pat Casey, the commander of Notre Dame's ROTC program accompanied him on the trip.
The three of them slept in bunks that were stacked on top of one another. Hesburgh described the beds as "the size of a child's coffin. You had to get in sideways and you couldn't really sit up or even bend without hitting your head. You had to be fairly acrobatic to even get in, but we all slept well."
Not only were the sleeping conditions small, Hesburgh said, "The quarters were so tight you had to turn sideways to pass someone. And there were a lot of ladders."
Despite the closeness, Hesburgh described the meals aboard the submarine as "terrific. We never had a duplicate meal. They have to do something for those guys; they can be under as long as three months."
In addition to saying mass everyday and hearing confessions, Hesburgh was granted unlimited access to the entire submarine.
"We saw everything on that ship; there were no restrictions. Normally, the whole engineering space is out of bounds to anybody except naval officers. They said we could go anywhere and we did," the former University President said.
One thing that struck Hesburgh was the quality of the officers and crew aboard the boat. Instead of a 24-hour day, the schedule on board was 18 hours long, allowing them six hours to sleep, six hours to work and six hours to eat and relax. Instead of unwinding, however, the members of the crew studied maneuvers during their free time.
Comprised of African-Americans, Hispanics and Asians, "The crew was a very good slice of America," he said.
Mostly in their 20s and 30s, he believes about half are married.
"It's tough on families," he said. "There's no communication for long amounts of time."
There was one thing that particularly surprised Hesburgh during his trip. "Having spent considerable time on board naval ships, I know the language gets pretty rough," he said. "I was very surprised; I only heard one very mild cuss word the entire week."
All News Stories for Thursday, February 1, 2001
