The Story Of How I, Tom McMahon, Set The All-Time Record For The Quickest Disqualification Of A Nuclear Reactor Operator In The Entire History Of The United States Navy

You don't set out to do something like that. I mean, Ralph Branca didn't mean to throw Bobby Thomson the pitch that became The Shot Heard 'Round The World back in 1951. And Chicago Cubs fan Steve Bartman didn't mean to screw up the Cubs chances a couple of years ago. But I'm stalling. Best get started telling the story . . .

The Launch Of The First Atomic-Powered Submarine, The USS Nautilus, In 1954

Funny thing: The day this picture was snapped was the day I was born. Probably quite appropriate for a Tom McMahon ("Atomic Man" - get it? ). Anyway, an achievement like the Nautilus doesn't happen out of thin air. There's a lot of planning involved. And testing out of the new technology. Like the nuclear reactor, for instance. So before they built the Nautilus, they built a working test reactor to make sure the whole thing would work. But where?

National Reactor Testing Station

Idaho, of course. Just west of Idaho Falls. A whole lotta nothing out there. Not too far from where Evel Knievel tried to jump the Snake River Canyon in his rocket motorcycle. Right down the road from Mud Lake, Idaho, for those of you who remember the old Jonathon Brandmeier song. The National Reactor Testing Station was an area bigger than the state of Rhode Island. But believe me Rhode Island, you have nothing to be worried about.

NRTS Area

Because the NRTS was so big and so remote, they made all of us take the NRTS-provided buses to the site -- a distance of about 50 miles. A couple of times my bus was stopped by Basque shepherders taking their huge flock across the highway. Shepherds and cutting-edge nuclear technology, all in one free bus trip.

The SIW Reactor, One Of Many At The NRTS

The S1W prototype they built for the Nautilus was just one of many reactors at the site. Probably the most infamous of the NRTS reactors was the SL-1, which blew up on January 3, 1961. A non-nuclear explosion, to be sure, but they had to bury the three guys killed in lead caskets, such was the radioactivity. Poor fellows. A couple of my instructors had worked on the cleanup of that mess. Since I was here in 1974, the SL-1 was old news by then, and we watched a couple of the newsreel-type black-and-white documentaries that were made in its aftermath. On the film badges we wore to measure the amount of radiation we had received every month there was a tiny metal canister, the purpose of which was to measure the amount of radiation our dead bodies would have received in the event of another SL-1 type accident. Just in case, you understand.

Inside The S1W Reactor Building

Here are some pictures of the S1W reactor. If I had taken these when I was there, I would have gone to jail. These? Found them on the web. 

Anyway, to get there you had to go through a couple of other Navy schools first. I went through elecronics technician school, and then a 6-month course in Nuclear Power near San Francisco. That was the theoretical stuff. Idaho was the hands-on phase of the training, also a 6-month course.

My class started in April 1974, just about the time Hank Aaron was breaking Babe Ruth's all-time home run record. 12 hours a day, plus 3 hours worth of bus rides a day. 15 hours a day. Get home, a bite to eat, head hits pillow, alarm rings, get up, do it again. That was the schedule, until you got qualified. Once you got qualified, it was only 8 hours a day, plus the 3 hour bus ride. Piece of cake.

To get qualified you had to demonstrate you knew all the systems, inside and out. The instructors would have you draw out entire system diagrams out on the blackboard from memory, then yell at you if you forgot any detail or drew something wrong. You had to stand watch, monitoring the various systems of the plant. It was long, tedious, demanding, stressful work, 15 hours a day. But by the end of July I finally got myself qualified as a genuine US Navy Nuclear Reactor operator. Some of the longest 4 months of my life.

When you got qualified, you changed your badge color from pink to green, and you handed out cigars to everybody to celebrate your accomplishment. Real ones, not bubble gum ones or candy ones like you have to do these days. On my first work day after getting qualified, that's how I spent my first 4 hours, passing out cigars. The second 4 hours I was scheduled to be on watch for the first time by myself as a fully qualified Nuclear Reactor Operator.

Nuclear Submarine Maneuvering Room

This is what the room looked like, more or less. I was in the middle. The watch started off smoothly enough. Then we ran a drill, some lube oil fire or something like that. Well, one thing lead to another and things got out of hand and all of a sudden the reactor shut down -- "scrammed", as they called it, and all heck broke loose.

The Reactor Control Panel

This was the reactor control panel I was in charge of. Man, did all these lights and dials go nuts or what! Unfortunately, in the excitement I forgot to turn off a couple of pumps that I was supposed to. That's what I got disqualified for, even though the reactor scram itself wasn't my fault. So at 1 hour and 45 minutes into my first watch, I was disqualified and relieved of my watch. The All-Time Navy Record.

I took me about a week to get myself re-qualified. I had to study over what I did wrong, demonstrate my knowledge to the Plant Manager, and say a few Nuclear Hail Marys in penance.

Gummed Reinforcements, aka PPT-14

After that, I still had 2 months to go in Idaho. They had a number of "Proficiency Phase Tasks", or "PPT's", for us to do. I got assigned PPT-14 a lot, which was putting these gummed reinforcements onto the ripped pages of the reactor manuals. And I got pretty darn good at it, if I do say so myself.

Comments

[Dad29]

Small world.

One of my best friends (who died early in his life a few years ago) was assigned to that installation as a 'remediation' engineer; he went from there to the Big Time: Hanford.

That was the direct cause of my Most Unusual Vacation: took the family to the Hanford Site as a destination...

[Woody]

Tom, they told you to check the manual and fix the holes. They meant in the system--not the pages.

[Tom McMahon]

But after that little incident they didn't let me near the system all that much!

[wheels]

I was there a year or so later - were Wingnut and Thumbscrew there when you were? How about the coffee cup in the seawater tank with the deficiency tag?

[Tom McMahon]

I don't recall Wingnut or Thumbscrew, but I think I kinda remember the coffee cup.

[Guy]

I passed this along to my ex-Navy friend, he steered me to this amazing story:

http://www.history.navy.mil/library/special/guitarro.htm

Just goes to prove, things can always get worse...

[Matt Hoffman]

I Had a friend who attended Nuclear Power Training at Mare Island in the early 70's also. The story my be apocraphyl, but he said at one time there was a hand routered sign above the entrance declaring....

"Nuclear Power Engineering Training School - A $100,000 dollar education shoved up your ass, a nickle at a time."

Lot of burnouts from that school, as I was on the other side of the island and observed a bunch of them every Friday night at the enlisted men's club.

[wheels]

I don't remember that sign from when I went through Mare Island in 1975, but that was how we used to describe our USNA degrees. We used $50000 as the figure for that, though, so I suspect that anything that says $100000 for the six months of Mare Island is from a later date.

Wingnut and Thumbscrew were the Naval Reactors reps - Wingnut got his name because his ears stuck out.

[Alan]

You're right, wingnut was Kenny D____ -an incredible piece of work and an IBO rep. Ex MM1. Only one I know of that was able to scram the plant from starboard floor. I was class 7404 so it looks like I got there a little behind you, Tom.

I was a glutton for punishment, stayed for staff and came back a second time as RCLPO. I got you beat though. I permanently changed the BFPL curve. That was exciting for a real brief period of time. Wingnut was in the incident critique and later sat my EOOW/EWS board. As Jack (CCC techrep) used to say, the ICC sounded like a good idea at the time.

[Comrade]

Cool story, but your's is not all that unique.

I was in engineroom lower level when the fire alarm went off, and they passed "Fire in Manuevering". For some silly reason, I immediatley thought that somebody's sticky-bun had caught on fire in an ashtray, but, it turned out to be real. Apparently, a newly-minted staff scrape-up electrician was attempting to tag out a main lube oil pump. He was supposed to pull the fuses on the "B" pump in the engineroom vital bus (the one underneath the mimic bus drawings behind the EEOW's desk). Well...sparky got out his trusty fuse puller, yanked the first-phase fuse, and heard a loud pop. Not being the sharpest tool in the shed, he dove right in and pulled the second fuse, problem was, he was pulling fuses on the operating pump. I heard that the arc as the second fuse was removed was quite beautiful.

[Comrade]

Cool story, but your's is not all that unique.

I was in engineroom lower level when the fire alarm went off, and they passed "Fire in Manuevering". For some silly reason, I immediatley thought that somebody's sticky-bun had caught on fire in an ashtray, but, it turned out to be real. Apparently, a newly-minted staff scrape-up electrician was attempting to tag out a main lube oil pump. He was supposed to pull the fuses on the "B" pump in the engineroom vital bus (the one underneath the mimic bus drawings behind the EEOW's desk). Well...sparky got out his trusty fuse puller, yanked the first-phase fuse, and heard a loud pop. Not being the sharpest tool in the shed, he dove right in and pulled the second fuse, problem was, he was pulling fuses on the operating pump. I heard that the arc as the second fuse was removed was quite beautiful.

[Ed]

Comrade,

When was the electrician there? It may have been myself that pulled the fuse. I remember doing a tag out and pulling fuses. It was in the compartment just prior to where the ELT sampled on the port side. I pulled the wrong fuses and shut down a reactor coolant pump which of course shut down everything else. That occurred about 1980.

[Lee]

Wow, what a flashback..

It's all coming back (I was there in early 72) As I remember the 3 consoles were all at the same level and PP was on the aft b/h by the EOOW. RO annunciators were at the top, not on the bottom, as in the museum mockup - and port and stbd yarways were on the sides. How's that for 25 yrs ago?? The cadillacs (APD's 1 & 2) were always going off. You can't forget that crap even if you want to...

On my first RO Watch under instruction, we were doing a startup. I dropped the Group 1 rods while transferring to the hold bus - nothing negligent - but had to scram the reactor. In retrospect, this was a perfect omen for my future as a reactor operator.. within a month, I was railroaded out on trumped up charges: somehow I missed my bus one morning and was 1 hr UA. For this, my first offense, I was busted from prospective E5 to E3, thrown out of the program, and sent to the brig. Only much later did I find out I was charged with being out drinking the night before and demonstrating moral turpitude. This was all thanks to "Little Hitler", that psychotic POS XO. (anyone else encounter that little bastard?).

Later on, I found out what the real story was: apparently the Drug Exemption Program which had recently gotten underway was out of control - something like Chernobyl, you might say. The DEP was set up to allow anyone in the nuke program to fess up to prior marijuana use without getting busted in rate. (after all, the Navy didn't want some pothead working on an 80 Million Watt nuclear reactor having one of those well-known 'marijuana flashbacks') But due to unexpectedly high response to this program, there was now a projected shortage of future RO's. Not good. When the Powers That Be found out, some NIS agents from Washington were sent out to fix the mess. We couldn't afford to have an entire arm of our strategic nuclear triad disabled for a shortage of RO's!! So the word came down: Stop those damn jumpers! Shut em up! Bring back the punishment! Maybe a few well-publicized canings (as it were) would do the job. So this is what I was: one of the fall-guys to save the system and maybe even, who knows, prevent WWIII.

The next thing I knew, I found myself in the TI Brig, in San Francisco Bay, only about a mile from Alcatraz. Breaking Rocks!! I'm SERIOUS. With a Sledge Hammer!! and jarheads with a nightsticks standing around just looking for an excuse.. suddenly I was in Hell, with the absolute dregs of the navy. All this after busting my ass and letting the Navy spend 100k on ET School and (we were told) 1 million on a per capita basis for nuke school. Even then I saw the absurdity and could only laugh.

I ended up on a tin can going on westpac, so I had no appeal rights. I got shafted real good. But I did get AIMS Mk XII IFF school out of it. Milked the system pretty good, so I got even in that respect. Ha.

[Alan]

Ah, yes, the memories just won't go away no matter how much you wish. Use-ta-waz you could punch the upper left corner of J-125 and the twitch in VPI power would cause p/f scram. The didn't call it the Intermittent Control Console for nothing. I can still hear the 1000 hz hum.

Had a sea pup named Alex that took exception to the "that's normally abnormal, start up anyway" mode of thought. The next thing you know he was at mast, busted, and shipped out. He got the last laugh, though. I was driving around IF listening to Walter Cronkite on the AM radio (tells you how long ago and backwards Idaho was/is-and I say that fondly as an Idaho boy) when Walter's serious midwest baritone starts talking about SIW and the leaking MCIV's and squirrley NI's. Boy did it ever hit the fan. We had an investigation team from BAPL and NRO there in no time. Every RO was interviewed about whether they thought it was unsafe to operate the plant. After a while it all died down-same thing, different day. Even the ACLU couldn't help Alex get his crow back though. He aired the Program's dirty laundry in public (an unforgivable sin regardless of how much truth there was in his tale) and he must be punished!

[El Guapo]

oh man - i remember taking newbie to the catwalk waaaaay up there to do some damn PM, well, this schmuck didn't tie his wrench to his belt loop like we were told and dropped the friggin thing - i knew better than yell "head's up" because it'd probably INCREASE the chance some poor schlep would get whacked. that wrench hit some damn pump motor on starboard floor aft (right by that big outliet manifold) and sounded like a gun going off. SO, what does the moron guard that was napping in his office up in the mezzanine do? comes running out across that catwalk that ran the length of the hull, trying to unsling his m16 the whole time and manages to chuck the thing right over the water brake! i've never seen squids move so fast - everyone in the smoking area hit the deck lickity split!

[Brian Foley]

I was in Class 7306 (January, 1974-June, 1974, I remember Hank Aaron's homer as well. I remember Chief Beutler, 6'9", 300+ lbs., size 20+ shoe and submarine qualified. I did a PM on level detector by chucking a cup full of water at probe. Humans didn't fit near probe. Does anyone have information about how to contact old buddies from nuc. school?

[Bill Murrey]

Hey I remember Chief Beutler, had my end of qual card checkout with him. Damn that was along time ago. I was a MM in Class 7306. Brian your name sounds familar but I can't place your face.

[Bob]

Don't pull the fuses that power the sightglass lights - you'll scram the reactor

[Jason Haas]

Wow, seriously cool post. I never expected to see a blog post about vintage nuclear submarines! Relics of the Cold War (the old one, anyway) are of great interest to me. Thanks!

[Brian Foley]

Can anyone conjure up more names? Class 7306. Ken Nowak was my Seadaddy. Will Short was one of the outhull trainers. Does anyone remember -52 degrees, maybe around February, 1974 with no wind. I remember a MM named Gruber. Some ET's were McNellis, Van Wyk, Reinhart, I'll think of some more later.

[Big Mike]

Man, you guys bring back a lot of memories. I was an MM in class 7903. Made it all the way until final exams and flunked out. got to re-take the exam twice (3 times total). The best time I had was after I was dropped awaiting new orders. Went to work for the MMCM at A1W, cleaning floors, emptying trash. After 7 12-hour days X 3, I was putting in no more than 8-hr days M-F, off all weekend, and more days than not, chief sent me home at noon. Did that for 6 weeks. But as far as S1W goes, some yoyo in our class bought a bucket of soldiers, made tiny parachutes for them all (had about 200 or so), and climbed up to the very top of the building and placed them on the vent system piping. The first time those monster vent fans came on, that piping vibrated big time and all the soldiers came floating down like an invading army. Another guy brought his RC submarine and placed it in the sea tank. He stood way off and when the chief made his rounds up top, the guy surfaced his sub. Every time the chief tried to grab it, he dove. It went on for about 30 minutes before chief gave up. Ah yes, those were the days.

[Todd]

Hey there..

I went to S1W, too, in 1983. Class 8203. I was an ET. We had a guy carve a floating sub about of a block of packing foam. That looked cool..but.. didn't go over too well.

I'm working at a nuke plant in Iowa and as ironic as you'd think, the guy that was my sea-dad at S1W is working at my plant. ET1(SS) Carlson. I recognized him right off..(he had his coffee cup in one hand and the tip of his other hand in the front of his pants... just as I had remembered him).

[Jay]

Wow, brings back memories. I was a MM in class 7903. Made it to the last 2 weeks before I snapped and threatened to melt down the core. Grabbed a pair of wirecutters and started making my way to the CRDM panels on the platform forward of the RCUL. Needless to say I was at Treasure Island within 48hrs. Know what the biggest joke was? TI shipped me to SubBase Pearl where I became a RadCon monitor! Ha! Caught up with my recruiter 3 days later, hew was COB on the Aspro at that time.

Big Mike! Remember when Uncle Hymie came through while we were there? I was tending the EPM while he was in maneuvering. You could smell the fear in the air from our instructors. I still remember the air inversions setting off the radiation detectors, making it necessary to take manual air samples every 4 hrs.

Damn if I don't remember those paper-assholes being used as a punitive PMS. I also remember the Army soldiers.

[Alan Scott]

Just stubbled upon this site and now all the suppressed memories are now flowing out. (Thanks.) I was an ET in class 7404 and managed to survive the program and later ended up as an RO on the Nimitz (plank owner). Did my six years and got out.

In response to other comments: I don't recall the left panel being raised either and definitely don't remember the big wheels (smaller servos maybe?) I remember two instructors, ET2 Karnous and ET2 Kopang, both decent fellows. I've forgotten all the assholes. I passed Rickover in the passage way on the Nimitz, but he didn't stop to chat.

[Wayne Carlson]

Funny what you remeber when promted, I was in 7102 in Mare Island and 7201 in at S1W, qualified as Electrical Operator and had a sea daddy named Odegaurd, not sure on the spelling. Best part i remember was the really REALLY hot secretary in the office of the Plant Manager. DUMB as a post but playboy material. One time another guy called her from on site, told her he was from the phone company and because of bad reception, he had to 'blow the lines clean'. There fore she was requested to put her reciever in the wastepaper basket to keep her desk clean. He walked by a few minutes later and sure enough there it was.