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Fifty years ago today, the USS Nautilus the world's first nuclear powered submarine, made a daring voyage beneath the arctic ice cap, crossing the planet's North Pole beneath the ice. That's the Nautilus above, two weeks after its historic venture.

The skipper was Cmdr. W. R. Anderson, who, six days after the astonishing feat, accepted the Legion of Merit from President Dwight D. Eisenhower for himself and his crew.

Anderson, the citation read, "by farsighted planning, skilled seamanship and thorough study of the arctic area, succeeded in cruising Nautilus across the top of the world from the Bering Sea to the Greenland Sea, passing submerged beneath the geographic North Pole."

Then the citation gets a little ahead of itself. "Under his intrepid leadership, Nautilus pioneered a submerged sea lane between the Eastern and Western hemispheres. This points the way for further exploration and possible use of this route by nuclear powered cargo submarines as a new commercial seaway between the major oceans of the world."

Fifty years later, thanks to global warming, we are watching as the arctic sea ice begins to melt back far enough during the peak of the summer season to allow surface ships to traverse the arctic.

Whatever. Anderson told an astonished world that his ship left Honolulu on July 23 and cruised submerged to the Bering Sea - a distance of 2,900 miles - at an average 20 knots. The crew took the submarine to the edge of the ice pack, exploring on the surface for a likely spot to head beneath the ice and cross under the polar ice cap.

Off Pt. Barrow, Alaska, they submerged again, and cruised northward into the arctic basin, 400 feet beneath sea ice that averaged 10 to 15 feet thick. Some jagged slabs - upended by wind and ice pressure reached down 50 feet or more, Anderson told reporters at the time.

"During the time we made the transit we had 24 hours of daylight, so there was always a considerable amount of light present up above," Anderson said. "We could look through the periscope and we could see the ice going overhead. Quite a fascinating sight. Like clouds going by extremely rapidly." In addition to the periscope, the crew could watch the ice go by on a closed-circuit TV system.

The voyage took place less than a year after the Soviet Union orbited the world's first artificial Earth satellite - Sputnik I - to the surprise and embarrassment of America's scientists and politicians. The fact that a U.S. Navy submarine had sailed beneath the arctic ice - the previously vacant sea space between the U.S. and Canada on one side, and the Soviet Union on the other - was no doubt seen as a bit of welcome Cold War turnabout. The Russians called it "war preparations."

It was never a sure thing. The region beneath the ice had never been charted for depth. "We had no definite assurance there was not a range of underwater mountains, so to speak, that would come up to the point where it might almost meet the ice," Anderson said.

They also had no assurance their navigation equipment would work. Anderson surfaced his ship through the ice one time during the voyage. He also navigated with the first inertial navigation system ever installed on a combat ship.

They spent four days under the ice pack, covering 1,830 miles. They passed the North Pole at 11:15 p.m. Sunday night, Nov. 3, 1958 in 13,410 feet of water, and notified Washington of their success 40 hours later when they surfaced in the Greenland Sea.

Eight days later, another nuclear sub, the Skate, made the same trip. That voyage was skippered by Cmdr. James F. Calvert, a 1942 Naval Academy grad and Annapolis resident at the time.

Nautilus was decommissioned in 1980 and now rests on display at the U.S. Navy Submarine Force Museum in Groton, Conn. It was named for another submarine, built in 1800.  Cmdr. Anderson died in February of last year.

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