Big Red

by Waller, Douglas C.

• ISBN13: 9780060194840
• ISBN10: 0060194847
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-02-15
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

The Trident nuclear submarine is the most complex war machine the United States Navy has ever produced, a $1.8 billion marvel crammed with more modern military technology than any other vessel in the world. It is an 18,750-ton steel monster, taller in length than the Washington Monument and wider than a three-lane highway at its center. Deep beneath the ocean, it can sail silently for months, prectically impossible to detect by the enemy. And the twenty-four ballistic missiles on board just one of these subs have enough strategic nuclear warheads to unleash twice the explosive energy detonated by all the conventional weapons in World War II. Now, for the first time, veteran Time magazine correspondent Douglas C. Waller takes you on a tension-packed, three-month patrol deep in the Atlantic Ocean and inside one of these Tridents, the U.S.S. Nebraska . Granted more access to these awesome submarines than any journalist before, Waller penetrates one of the most secretive worlds in the U.S. Military. The Cold War may be over, but the U.S. Navy still has Tridents lurking the oceans, always ready at a moment's notice to unleash a nuclear holocaust. In chilling detail, Big Red reveals the top-secret procedures for starting World War II -- the secret codes, the elaborate fail-safe mechanisms, the highly classified battle tactics for nuclear combat. This book takes you into this closed society as a witness to secret rituals and life experience where submarines, underwater for months, hope never to unleash the destructive power they command.

Author Biography

Douglas C. Waller is a correspondent for Time magazine. Previously, he was a defense and foreign policy correspondent for Newsweek. He has also served on the legislative staffs of Senator William Proxmire and Congressman Edward J. Markey. He is the author of five previous books on foreign policy and defense. He lives in Annandale, Virginia, with his wife and three children

Table of Contents

Nebraska Submariners Cited in This Book	xi
Prologue	1	(14)
PART I: THE FIRST WEEK
Going to Sea	15	(26)
The Channel	41	(15)
A New Life	56	(15)
``Dive, Dive''	71	(16)
The ``Cob''	87	(12)
Listening	99	(16)
Casualties	115	(20)
Rabbit and Wolf	135	(18)
The Wardroom	153	(10)
Looking Outside	163	(15)
The Hostage	178	(10)
Sounds of Silence	188	(11)
Sunday	199	(4)
Cookies and Cream Them	203	(35)
Angles and Dangles	238	(9)
PART II: THE NEXT TWO MONTHS
Free at Last	247	(8)
On Guard	255	(9)
Halfway Night	264	(13)
Emergency	277	(6)
Love and Hate	283	(10)
PART III: GOING HOME
``Hard to Describe''	293	(19)
Postscript	312	(3)
Acknowledgments	315	(4)
Source Notes	319	(10)
Appendix: The Rest of the USS Nebraska Crew	329	(2)
Index	331