What They Don't Tell You About Life on a Nuclear Submarine

In 1963, a kid from Las Vegas with no money and a father enlisted in the Air Force earned appointments to all three service academies. A retired Army colonel teaching high school math gave him one piece of advice: "if you want choices, go to Annapolis" and it set Tim Martin on a path into the most secretive community in the U.S. military: the Silent Service.

In Episode 46 of Ask A Vet, Tim takes us deep inside the Cold War nuclear Navy. Hand-picked for Admiral Rickover's legendary nuclear power program, Tim served aboard the USS John Adams (SSBN-620), a Polaris missile boat carrying 160 nuclear warheads — more destructive power than every bomb dropped in World War II — and later aboard the fast attack USS Permit (SSN-594), the "Steely-Eyed Killer of the Deep."

He tells the stories submariners rarely tell: trailing a brand-new Soviet missile submarine for 38 straight days without being detected. Surviving the exact same casualty that sank the USS Thresher, a seawater flange blowout at 1,300 feet. Snagging a fishing net with his periscope at 2:30 in the morning. Watching Apollo 13 launch through the periscope. A swim call in the middle of the Panama Canal. And the day his captain made him the boat's official Shark Control Officer.

Tim went on to a career in nuclear power and today serves on the USS Utah (SSN-801) Commissioning Committee — and he's the first submariner ever featured on this show.

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CHAPTERS

00:30 — A Las Vegas Kid Gets Appointments to All Three Academies

07:15 — Plebe Year, the Chronometer Answer & Falling for Submarines

12:45 — Rickover's Nuclear Program: Sawed-Off Chairs, Nuke School & the Idaho Prototype

19:00 — USS John Adams (SSBN-620): 16 Polaris Missiles, 160 Atom Bombs

22:30 — Earning His Dolphins: Thrown Over the Side in Guam

28:43 — THE DRAGNET STORY: 2:30 AM, Periscope Up Under Two Spotlights

35:45 — Life at 300 Feet: Six On, Twelve Off, Movie Night & Fixing Everything

40:30 — USS Permit, "Steely-Eyed Killer of the Deep": Trailing a Soviet Sub for 38 Days

49:00 — Nuclear Torpedoes & the 1974 Anti-Nuclear Protest in Japan

59:00 — The Thresher, the Scorpion & Surviving a Flange Blowout at 1,300 Feet

1:06:49 — Creaking Hulls, Angles & Dangles, and How You Evade a Torpedo

1:19:40 — Ice Cream Over Sonar, the Army-Navy Game Heist & Apollo 13 Through the Periscope

1:30:30 — THE SHARK STORY: "You're the Shark Control Officer"

1:35:30 — Rickover's Legacy, the USS Utah & Life After the Silent Service

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