Nautilus remained dockside after her commissioning for further construction and testing. At 11:00 a.m. January 17, 1955, the crew dropped the mooring lines and Wilkinson, on the bridge with Rickover, gave the command to back. When the boat was scarcely clear of the pier, the engineering officer in the maneuvering room reported to Wilkinson on the bridge that there was a loud noise in the starboard reduction gear and that he had switched to electrical propulsion. Under normal circumstances, Wilkinson would have returned at once to the dock, but in full view of the press boats and other small craft attracted to the scene, Rickover was determined not to terminate the trial unless it was necessary. While the boat proceeded down the river on the port propeller alone, Panoff and the engineering officer inspected the noisy gear. It took but a few minutes to replace a loose locking pin on a retaining nut, and Wilkinson shifted back to steam propulsion. As the Nautilus slipped down the Thames past the breakwater into Long Island Sound, a signalman on the submarine blinked to the escort tug Skylark: "Underway on nuclear power." On 10 May, she headed south for her
shakedown cruise. She traveled from
New London to
San Juan, Puerto Rico and covered in less than 90 hours, submerged the entire way. This was the longest submerged cruise by a submarine at the time and at the highest sustained speed ever recorded. From 1955 to 1957,
Nautilus continued to be used to investigate the effects of increased submerged speeds and endurance. These improvements rendered the progress made in
anti-submarine warfare during
World War II virtually obsolete.
Radar and
anti-submarine aircraft had proved crucial in defeating submarines during the war, but they proved ineffective against a vessel able to move quickly out of an area, change depth quickly, and stay submerged for very long periods. On 4 February 1957,
Nautilus logged her 60,000th nautical mile (), matching the endurance of the fictional
Nautilus described in Jules Verne's novel
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea. In May, she departed for the Pacific Coast to participate in coastal exercises and the fleet exercise operation "Home Run," which acquainted units of the Pacific Fleet with the capabilities of nuclear submarines. during a visit to
New York Harbor in 1956
Nautilus returned to
New London, Connecticut on 21 July and departed again on 19 August for her first voyage of under the polar pack ice. She then headed for the Eastern Atlantic to participate in
NATO exercises and to conduct a tour of various British and French ports where she was inspected by defense personnel of those countries. She arrived back at New London on 28 October, underwent upkeep, and then conducted coastal operations until the spring.
Operation Sunshine – under the North Pole President Eisenhower ordered the U.S. Navy to attempt a submarine transit of the North Pole as a technological showpiece following the Soviet Union's successful launch of
Sputnik. On 25 April 1958,
Nautilus was underway again for the West Coast under Commander
William R. Anderson. She stopped at
San Diego, San Francisco, and
Seattle, then began her history-making polar transit under "
Operation Sunshine", leaving Seattle on 9 June. On 19 June, she entered the
Chukchi Sea but was turned back by deep
drift ice in those shallow waters. On 28 June, she arrived at
Pearl Harbor to await better ice conditions. By 23 July, she set a course northward. She submerged in the Barrow Sea Valley on 1 August, and she became the first watercraft to reach the geographic
North Pole on 3 August at 2315
EDT. She continued on from the North Pole and surfaced northeast of
Greenland after 96 hours and under the ice, having completed the first successful submerged voyage around the North Pole. The technical details of this mission were planned by scientists from the
Naval Electronics Laboratory, including Dr.
Waldo Lyon who accompanied
Nautilus as chief scientist and ice pilot. Navigation was difficult beneath the arctic ice sheet. Both magnetic compasses and normal
gyrocompasses become inaccurate above 85°N. A special gyrocompass built by
Sperry Rand was installed shortly before the journey. There was a risk that the submarine would become disoriented beneath the ice and that the crew would have to play "longitude roulette". Commander Anderson had considered using
torpedoes to blow a hole in the ice if the submarine needed to surface. The most difficult part of the journey was in the
Bering Strait. The ice extended as much as below sea level. During the initial attempt to go through the Bering Strait, there was insufficient room between the ice and the sea bottom. During the second attempt, the submarine passed through a known channel close to Alaska. During the address announcing the journey, the president mentioned that one day nuclear cargo submarines might use that route for trade. As
Nautilus proceeded south from Greenland, a helicopter airlifted Commander Anderson to connect with transport to Washington, D.C. At a White House ceremony on 8 August, President Eisenhower presented him with the
Legion of Merit and announced that the crew had earned a
Presidential Unit Citation. Her next port of call was the
Isle of Portland, England where she received the Unit Citation from American Ambassador J.H. Whitney, the first ever issued in peace time. She then crossed the Atlantic reaching
New London, Connecticut on 29 October. For the remainder of the year,
Nautilus operated from her home port of New London.
Operational history Nautilus entered the
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in
Kittery, Maine for her first complete overhaul from 28 May 1959 to 15 August 1960. Overhaul was followed by refresher training. She departed New London on 24 October for her first deployment with the
Sixth Fleet in the
Mediterranean Sea, returning to her home-port on 16 December.
Nautilus spent most of her career assigned to
Submarine Squadron 10 (SUBRON 10) at State Pier in
New London, Connecticut. She and other submarines in the squadron made their home tied up alongside submarine tender
USS Fulton (AS-11), where they received preventive maintenance and repairs from the crew of machinists, millwrights, and other craftsmen.
Nautilus operated in the Atlantic, conducting evaluation tests for ASW improvements and participating in
NATO exercises. During October 1962, she participated in the naval blockade of
Cuba until she headed east again for a two-month Mediterranean tour in August 1963. On her return, she joined in fleet exercises until entering the
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard for her second overhaul on 17 January 1964. On 2 May 1966,
Nautilus returned to her homeport to resume operations with the Atlantic Fleet, and she logged her 300,000th nautical mile () underway that month. She next conducted special operations for
ComSubLant and then returned to Portsmouth in August 1967 for another year's stay. During an exercise in 1966, she collided with the aircraft carrier on 10 November while at shallow depth. Following repairs in Portsmouth, she conducted exercises off the southeastern seaboard. She returned to New London in December 1968 and operated as a unit of
Submarine Squadron 10 for most of the remainder of her career. On 9 April 1979,
Nautilus set out from
Groton, Connecticut on her final voyage under the command of Richard A. Riddell. She reached
Mare Island Naval Shipyard of
Vallejo, California on 26 May 1979, her last day underway. She was decommissioned and stricken from the
Naval Vessel Register on 3 March 1980.
Noise Toward the end of her service, the hull and sail of
Nautilus vibrated such that sonar became ineffective at more than speed, making the vessel vulnerable to sonar detection. Lessons learned from this problem were applied to later nuclear submarines. ==Awards and commendations==