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"As the boat moved down the channel into Long Island Sound, the captain ordered a message sent ashore that forever changed the strategy of naval warfare: "Underway on nuclear power."
With those words on the morning of Jan. 17, 1955, Cmdr. Eugene Wilkinson signaled that Nautilus, the Navy's first nuclear-powered submarine, a bold and technically complex project, was a success.
The primacy of diesel-powered submarines, forced to surface regularly and thus vulnerable to counterattack, was over. Future U.S. submarines would be nuclear.
With its onboard reactor, the Nautilus could stay submerged almost indefinitely and could move faster than any diesel submarine. It could detect and strike an enemy before the foe knew what was happening.
In the middle of the Cold War, with the U.S. and Soviet Union vying for dominance at sea, Nautilus "was definitely a game-changer," said Lt. Cmdr. Benjamin Amdur, director of the Submarine Force Museum near Groton, Conn., where the Nautilus is now a floating museum.
Wilkinson, Amdur said, receives much of the credit. "He's our Neil Armstrong," someone who went where no one had gone before and helped America beat the Soviets in a race for prestige and scientific prowess.
A World War II hero who became an executive in the civilian nuclear industry after retiring from the Navy, Wilkinson died July 11 at his home in Del Mar. He was 94."
"As the boat moved down the channel into Long Island Sound, the captain ordered a message sent ashore that forever changed the strategy of naval warfare: "Underway on nuclear power."
With those words on the morning of Jan. 17, 1955, Cmdr. Eugene Wilkinson signaled that Nautilus, the Navy's first nuclear-powered submarine, a bold and technically complex project, was a success.
The primacy of diesel-powered submarines, forced to surface regularly and thus vulnerable to counterattack, was over. Future U.S. submarines would be nuclear.
With its onboard reactor, the Nautilus could stay submerged almost indefinitely and could move faster than any diesel submarine. It could detect and strike an enemy before the foe knew what was happening.
In the middle of the Cold War, with the U.S. and Soviet Union vying for dominance at sea, Nautilus "was definitely a game-changer," said Lt. Cmdr. Benjamin Amdur, director of the Submarine Force Museum near Groton, Conn., where the Nautilus is now a floating museum.
Wilkinson, Amdur said, receives much of the credit. "He's our Neil Armstrong," someone who went where no one had gone before and helped America beat the Soviets in a race for prestige and scientific prowess.
A World War II hero who became an executive in the civilian nuclear industry after retiring from the Navy, Wilkinson died July 11 at his home in Del Mar. He was 94."
