Welcome aboard, shipmate!
The surrender of Axis powers at the end of World War Two brought an end to almost six years of death, destruction, and upheaval for a world starved for peace.
But far from the peace we had prayed for, the years following gave birth to what came to be known as the Cold War. Fearing a return to hostilities and conflict, the two principal contenders, the United States and the Soviet Union, found themselves engaged in an unprecedented and undeclared war, a war without an objective, other than conquering the fears that each protagonist imagined. It was a race without a finish line, a struggle for prestige and dominance, ostensibly without shooting, based on fear as a deterrent.
The prize for winning this bullet-less war? Survival and global supremacy.
The key to victory? Intelligence and deterrence.
The means? The occasionally maligned, persistently effective, far-reaching, terror-inspiring denizens of the deep, the submarines.
Unseen, unheard, unafraid, and unacknowledged, it was the submarine that carried out surveillance and intelligence gathering. It was submarine that patrolled invisibly beneath the sea carrying missiles that were capable of delivering death and destruction to any location on the planet. It was the submarine that took the fight to the enemy, with the threat of swift and unambiguous consequences for any who dare challenge the intentions of those that had tasted freedom. In the end, it was the submarine, patrolling quietly and ubiquitously, that ensured that the balance of world power did not devolve into a shooting war.
Intelligence and deterrence. Survival and supremacy. Silence and invisibility.
Long referred to as the Silent Service, the men of the U.S. Navy that operated the only ships ever called "boats", conquered seemingly insurmountable engineering problems, vast distances of dark and silent passage, and their own fear and trepidation to take their place as the point of the Cold War spear.
The men who fought the proxy-wars of the Cold War at places with names like Dien Bien Phu, the Golan Heights, Chosin, and Kandahar are remembered with honor because their stories are known, and recorded for generations. In contrast, the men of the Silent Service took the fight to places that cannot be named, through conditions that cannot be imagined, to do things that cannot be described, living out the tension-filled stories that will remain in the shadows forever.
Anonymity, silence, and, more than most are aware, their lives, were the price paid by those men for their service to our country.
While their stories can never be fully revealed or understood, we honor them for the freedom that comes at such a high price.
This is a place to remember the boats, the exotic ports, the never-ending missions, and most of all, the iron men of the Cold War boats.
