USS Triton Circles Globe Underwater: Cold War Feat
The nuclear submarine USS Triton departed New London, Connecticut, on February 16, 1960, with orders to circumnavigate the globe entirely submerged. Captain Edward Beach commanded a crew of 183 men on an 84-day voyage covering 41,519 miles, following roughly the same route Ferdinand Magellan had taken 440 years earlier. The Triton never surfaced, though it briefly raised its sail to transfer a sick sailor to another vessel. The mission, codenamed Operation Sandblast, was timed to coincide with the May 1960 Paris summit between Eisenhower and Khrushchev, intended as a dramatic demonstration of American naval capability. When the summit collapsed after the U-2 incident, the propaganda value was diminished, but the military implications were clear: the US Navy could project power to any ocean in the world without ever revealing its submarine's position. The Triton was the only US submarine built with two nuclear reactors.
February 16, 1960
66 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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