uss triton + columbia + scorpion + civil war union navy ships

Only three men - Meeker Lieutenant John Rogers, the director of the message center or his boss, Cmdr. In one corner of the room stood a pair of encryption machines with a thick curtain that could be pulled for total privacy. Yet some messages were so sensitive that not even Hannon or his coworkers were allowed to process them.

The submarine Scorpion photographed on Aug. Navy’s submarine operations during the Cold War. On one wall, a large board tracked the current operational status of each of the 104 submarines assigned to Submarine Force Atlantic.ĭespite the hushed ambiance, the message center was the nerve center of the U.S. Six to eight junior officers and radiomen typically tended various encryption machines under the supervision of a warrant officer ensconced in an office separated from the main work area by glass windows. Manned around-the-clock seven days a week, Hannon’s workspace was the solitary link between the three-star admiral commanding the Submarine Force Atlantic and the scores of nuclear- and diesel-electric-powered submarines that, on any given day, were engaged in operations ranging from routine training to top-secret reconnaissance missions at the edge of - and often inside - Soviet territorial waters.

Inside, they would take the stairway up to the second-floor message center. Walking up to the unassuming brick building, they would show their ID cards to the armed Marine guards, then step up to the door at the ground-floor entrance to punch in the code to release the cipher lock.

Uss triton + columbia + scorpion + civil war union navy ships