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In fact, Nautilus had already been deep underwater for three days before it reached the Pole and did not come back to the surface, near the coast of Greenland, until 7 August 1958 – spending a week beneath the waves and ice. But running off a nuclear reactor meant that Nautilus needed to do none of these things.
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The epic voyage that peered into the voidīefore Nautilus, submarines had to surface, or at least extend a snorkel above the waves, to take in air needed to run their diesel engines and charge their batteries for electric propulsion.The dive to find the world's deepest shipwreck.The shipwrecks rewriting ancient history.The transit took place with the 97-metre-long (319ft) submarine and its 116 crew (it's not clear in the logbook if that includes Santa) entirely submerged under the ice, a feat impossible before the invention of compact nuclear-powered propulsion.Īs Anderson announced to his crew: "For the world, our country, and the navy – the North Pole." It was the final sentence of a celebratory record of the first crossing of the North Pole by any ship under its own power, a top-secret mission codenamed 'Operation Sunshine'. On 3 August 1958, the commander of the world's first nuclear submarine made an extraordinary, if somewhat tongue in cheek, entry in his logbook: "Embarked following personage at North Pole…" wrote USS Nautilus commander William Anderson, "…Santa Claus, affiliation: Christmas."