Legend of the Christine Dore

Day 97

Legend of the Christine Dore

by

Kenneth A. Stephenson

This is a love story though. at first, it may not seem to be such. It has been more than 30 years and the time limit of my nondisclosure agreement has expired.

I was once in the US Navy Submarine Force billeted on a fast attack submarine in the Atlantic fleet. The name of the submarine is of no consequence as our mission could have been assigned to any of several nuclear submarines. Yet it was our good fortune, if you want to call it that, that we were the ones chosen. Our mission was classified top secret and as such may still be so I won't disclose the name attached to it, Truth be told it was so long ago I'm not sure I can remember the name. Suffice it to say our mission was to spend two months (60 days) under the northern ice pack conducting several operations to gather data for research purposes. At least that's the official description we were given at the time of our departure.

I was a Sonar Technician third class. First let me explain, S.O.N.A.R. stands for SOund Navigation And Ranging. There are two types of sonar; the first is active sonar, sending a sound (ping) into the water and listening for a return echo, the second is passive sonar, which is listening only, for sounds. Passive sonar is the most commonly used on submarines. Active sonar alerts other ships of it's presence and it's location.

As a sonarman my job was to listen for other ships sounds in the water which included the sound of a propeller (called a screw), machinery noise, and cavitation just to name a few. We also picked out the sound of aquatic marine life; whales, dolphins and shrimp were common. Under the ice though brings a whole different collection of sounds.

I won't bore you with details of our transit to our station under the ice shelf, nor can I give you the exact location where we first encountered ice above us. It wouldn't really matter anyway. The pack ice is a living thing constantly growing, shrinking and moving. Huge chunks sliding off the outer rim and more forming toward the center. When ice cracks it sounds like thunder. And during all of this movement the ice talks. It screams and whispers and moans and cries as it moves. A living thing.

It takes a certain type of person to be closed up in a long metal tube with florescent lights and recycled air and a hundred other men for an extended period of time. Six weeks out and we were getting irritable and more than a little stir crazy. Especially in sonar. I had been under the ice pack before but not for this long. As I told you things under the ice are different. So when I came across this strange new sound I figured it was just the ice shifting. The sound grew louder, which it will, when the source gets nearer. I couldn't quite make it out at first. It sounded like the voice of a child. A few more seconds and, by God, it sounded like a child crying and calling, "Mama!"

I removed my headset, rubbed my ears, and put them back on. The line on my monitor had which signify's a sound and the direction it's coming from, had disappeared. I asked if anyone else had heard the voice but no one had. At first I thought maybe a whale. But whales won't go far under the ice because they can't come up for air. Maybe I was going nuts. The rest of my four hour watch was uneventful and quiet. It wasn't until five days later, I was listening to water sloshing against the bottom of the ice, when suddenly I heard the child calling "Mama" again. Then all hell broke loose.

To be continued.

Until tomorrow,

Ken