Personal Narrative Manuscript/Mixed Material Audio Recording Ronald P.C. Waller Collection
Veterans History Project Service Summary:
- War or Conflict: Cold War
- Branch of Service: Navy
- Unit of Service: USS Scamp (SSN 588); USS Daniel Webster (SSBN 626)
- Location of Service: San Diego, California; Treasure Island, California; New London, Connecticut; South Carolina; Idaho; Scotland; Spain; Atlantic Ocean
- Highest Rank: Petty Officer First Class
- Collection Number: AFC/2001/001/67712
A trio of speeding tickets led 19-year-old Ronald Waller to join the Navy in 1960. He had been attending college and working at Remington Rand on early models of computers, so the Navy decided to put him into its nuclear submarine program. Waller served on the attack sub Scamp and the missile sub Daniel Webster, boats with contrasting missions. The Scamp's business was hunting down other submarines; the Webster kept a low profile as it patrolled various areas of the North Atlantic, waiting for instructions to fire its missiles. Waller adapted well to the lack of privacy in crowded quarters, less easily to the rotating schedules that played havoc with a sailor's body clock.
Ronald P.C. Waller Collection
Interview / Recording
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PlayOut of high school, working for Remington Rand, back when data was entered into computers through punch cards; going to school parttime; got three speeding tickets; father advised him to tell judge he was joining the military, to avoid jail, and he enlisted in the Navy; with his academic background, he was assigned to the new nuclear program. 00:04:21.7 - 00:05:48.4
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PlaySelected as the educational petty officer during training; description of Navy training; most difficult part was the fire training; learning to deal with lack of privacy. 00:07:54.7 - 00:11:49.0
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PlayGoing to electronics school on Treasure Island, CA; weeding out those who couldn't cut it; from there to the Scamp, which he joined right after it was commissioned; new era of nuclear submarines; talks about Seawolf, which experimentally used liquid sodium rather water to cool it; discusses evolving hull shapes; settling on water-cooled reactor; his fast-attack sub was one of the first versions of a pressurized water nuclear sub. 00:12:35.6 - 00:19:04.4
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PlayTalks about nuclear sub catastrophes, the Scorpion and the Thresher, which both sank due to design flaws; if too much water leaks, you can't expel it fast enough to avoid the water pressure doing damage; Thresher was in water too deep to survive a leak. 00:19:04.6 - 00:25:33.3
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PlayQualifying in submarines means learning every system on the sub; knowing everyone's job; having a limited time to do that or you're gone; other sailors on board enforcing a "pinging" period of hazing to test you; talks about a new supply officer getting the treatment until he decided to leave. 00:25:38.7 - 00:30:59.6
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PlayFront end of modern submarines are sonar listening devices; sensitive for thousands of miles; sonar man controls the direction of the equipment by wheel; it's a real art. 00:34:33.2 - 00:35:16.0
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PlayDeterrent submarines; 41 built, now all out of commission; their job was to do undetected; attack sub's mission was to kill other subs; "stealth is the business" on a missile-firing sub; went out to 50-mile square area and cruised at 3 knots, waiting for signal to fire a missile; cruising around Arctic; after a while, the cold would seep in and moisture would start collecting; attack subs were very effective in WWII, also had the highest percentage of losses; during Vietnam War, mission was one of support; no other subs to chase, no supply ships to sink. 00:35:36.6 - 00:40:21.0
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PlayMissile submarines trying to go undetected; Russian fishing boats loaded with equipment to find subs; each submarine had its own sound profile for identification; constant communication with military on shore; trailing antenna floating on water; could be cut off by a ship; missiles timed to go out between waves; wave motion affecting sub; sleeping in bunks with side straps to prevent you from rolling on to the deck. 00:40:22.5 - 00:44:23.8
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PlayMissile submarines going to sea for 90 days; alternating crews, blue and gold; thirty days between crew changes; flying to ports in Scotland or Spain for the changeover; going home for R&R and training; toughest part of being a sea was being on watches of 18 hours--6 on, 12 off--which played havoc with your internal clock; trouble adjusting from pure water on ship to chemically treated tap water on shore. 00:44:53.8 - 00:51:21.4
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PlayUnable to communicate with home while on a missile submarine; communication was one-way, from the Pentagon to the sub; dragging 1500 foot antenna around; military buried an ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) antenna in the North Woods that communicated with subs; families were granted 3 or 4 "familygram" personal communications to the sub; almost inevitably because of the 3-month cycle of rotations, you missed being home for the birth of a child. 01:05:25.5 - 01:11:21.4
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PlayLeaving the Navy; last two years was senior instructor in Idaho; reviewing what was entailed in training for sub duty; as instructor, was working with boiling water system for powering submarines; left because of inability to support family; went to work for company constructing nuclear power plants; that work dried up under pressure from anti-nuclear advocates. 01:16:33.3 - 01:20:24.8
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Play"A few interesting experiences": on Scamp, shaft broke off the sub; they bounced around for a couple of days before they were towed in to shore; on Daniel Webster, bounced off the top of an uncharted underwater mountain; oxygen generators blowing up, killing a couple of people; food supply is only thing that limits how long you can stay out to sea. 01:25:16.5 - 01:27:58.7
About this Item
Title
- Ronald P.C. Waller Collection
Names
- Walker Nelson
- Northland Pines High School
- Wagner, Dakota
- Geitner, Charles E.
- Waller, Ronald P.C.
Home State
- Wisconsin
Headings
- - Waller, Ronald P.C.
- - Cold War -- Personal Narratives
- - United States. Navy.
Repository
- Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
Gender
- Male
Status
- veteran
Service History
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Cold War
- Branch of Service: Navy
- Unit of Service: USS Scamp (SSN 588); USS Daniel Webster (SSBN 626)
- Location of Service: San Diego, California; Treasure Island, California; New London, Connecticut; South Carolina; Idaho; Scotland; Spain; Atlantic Ocean
- Highest Rank: Petty Officer First Class
- Dates of Service: 1960-1969
- Entrance into Service: Enlisted
- Military Status: veteran
Materials
- Audio: CD [1 item] -- Oral history interview (collected 2009-05-20; 2008-06-14)
- Audio: CD [1 item] -- Reference copy (collected 2009-05-20; 2009-05-20)
Collection Number
- AFC/2001/001/67712
Cite as
- Ronald P.C. Waller Collection (AFC/2001/001/67712), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
Online Format
- audio
Additional Metadata Formats
Part of
Wars & Conflicts
Service Branch
Location of Service
- Atlantic Ocean
- Idaho
- New London, Connecticut
- San Diego, California
- Scotland
- South Carolina
- Spain
- Treasure Island, California