In it's infancy, the submarine clung primarily to coastal waters, but as it's technology improved, it began to venture further out to sea, especially prior to World War I. The outbreak of that war however, accelerated this process, and it was during this period that the submarine's radius was greatly extended. This of course depended upon the amount of fuel a submarine could carry. A case in point is that of the USS SALMON, a 337-ton boat, which left Quincy, Massachusetts, on July 5, 1910 for an 800-mile endurance run to Bermuda. The cruise was undertaken to determine the feasibility of lengthy ocean trips by submarines. It averaged speeds of from six to ten knots in some rough seas carrying a crew of twenty officers and men. Its mission was successfully carried out.

This article recounts a few of the lengthy and important cruises made some records for their time. Today little is probably remembered about many of them. One of these was the journey and exploits of the U-21 under Kapitan-leutenant Otto Hersing. He and his crew made a voyage in l9l5 of over 4,000 miles from Wilhelmshaven, Germany, to Constantinople. His 250' craft nosed out of Wilhelmshaven harbor on April 25, 1915, headed north around Scotland, passing the northern tip of the Orkney Islands. Arrangements had been made to refuel and provision her off the northwest coast of Spain, near Cape Finisterre, in the Bay of Biscay. A week later she sighted her supply ship, the German steamer MARZALA. After identifying each other, she followed the steamer into the Rio Corcubion, where at night she took on supplies of food, twelve and a half tons of fuel oil, and two tons of lubricating oil. Once underway Hersing soon discovered they had received the wrong type of Diesel fuel. It refused to burn in their Diesel engines. Hersing was then faced with the decision of returning to Germany, or of continuing on to Cattaro. At that time he had only twenty tons of his original fuel left. He wrote in his log:

The run from Cape Finisterre to Gibraltar took four days. Upon reaching the Straits on May 6th the U-21 hugged the African coast, keeping as far away from enemy warships as possible. Nevertheless, they had to dive a few times to avoid detection until they arrived at Cattaro on May 13th with only 1.8 tons of oil remaining in her tanks.

Hersing sailed from Cattaro on May 20th for the Dardanelles and Constantinople. On the 25th she sighted the British battleship TRIUMPH, at anchor, surrounded by a torpedo net, with a destroyer circling around it to protect it from sub attacks. Hersing fired one torpedo from three hundred yards. It hit the 12,000-ton warship like a giant sledgehammer, causing it to leap up, spewing large clouds of smoke and debris. To save his boat from the destroyers, he dove deep under the sinking battleship stealing silently away.

The TRIUMPH had been battering Turkish positions with her heavy guns covering the Australians and Anzacz in their trenches, and on the beaches. Soldiers on both sides, hearing and seeing the explosion, stood up on their parapets in plain sight of each other fascinated by the sight, but soon jumped back into their trenches and began firing at each other again.

Later Hersing also sank the battleship MAJESTIC. On June 5th, forty days after leaving Wilhelmshaven, U-21 sighted the domes and minarets of Constantinople. She had only a half-ton of oil left in her tanks.

In the meantime, parts of four American boats of the "H" (H1 - H4) class had been surreptitiously shipped to Canada for assembly. Upon completion by Vicker's they made a trip across the Atlantic to Gibraltar. Leaving St. John's, Newfoundland, for the Mediterranean in mid-June of 1915, they were escorted by the cruiser CALGARIAN and gunboat CANADA, who were to tow them if they got into any trouble on their way across. They were the first submarines to cross the Atlantic under their own power, which took thirteen days. This long surface run was made in heavy rolling seas, in boats primarily designed for offshore operations rather than deep sea ones. Each sub carried a British crew of two officers and sixteen men. They were 150 feet long displacing 364 / 434 tons, and when submerged were driven by electric motors. They were sent to augment the British naval forces guarding the Straits of Gibraltar. Later, some of them saw service in the Adriatic and Dardanelles.

The first German undersea boat to cross the Atlantic was the unarmed merchant submarine, the DEUTSCHLAND. Built by Krupp's, of 791 tons, she was 315' long and driven by two Diesel engines. She carried a crew of four officers and twenty-five men. Her speed on the surface was fourteen knots and roughly half that when submerged. Her commanding officer Paul Konig had been a Captain of North German Lloyd liners before this voyage. He had never served in tile German Navy, or on submarines, but like most seafaring Germans of his day was automatically a member of the naval reserve.

Tile DEUTSCHLAND left Bremen on June 18, 1916 for Baltimore with a precious cargo of dyestuffs. She reached Baltimore on July 9th after a crossing of sixteen days. In talking with reporters after reaching his destination, Capt. Konig noted:

She sailed from Baltimore on August 2nd, making her trip home in twenty-three days. Her return cargo estimated at more than it cost to build her, consisted of crude rubber nickel and tungsten.

THE DEUTSCHLAND returned on a second trip, leaving Bremen on October 10th, travelling on a course taking her this time between the Orkneys and Scotland into the Atlantic. She arrived at New London on November 1st of the same year. Her crew of twenty-nine encountered heavy gales the sixth day out, making little headway for four days. Other than that and some foggy weather the voyage was without incident. As they had before the DEUTSCHLAND submerged for about ninety-five miles during the trip.

Upon her return trip she carried nearly a thousand tons of crude rubber nickel, crude tin, and "iron alloy," estimated at $2,000,000. Given clearance, she slipped her moorings after midnight of November 17th, heading down the Thames River to the sea. Two tugs escorted her along the way, one preceding, the other aft. Nearing Race Rock off the end of Fisher's Island Sound, the preceding tug unfortunately was swung by the ebb tide into the path of the oncoming sub, which didn't have time to react. The sub sliced through the tug's bow, causing the deaths of five of its crew. As a result the DEUTSCHLAND returned to its former pier while an inquiry into the tragedy was held. On November 21st, she finally received clearance, leaving this time in daylight. The waterfront and housetops were crowded with spectators. Passengers also lined the rails of ferryboats, as small craft scampered about accompanying the sub up the harbor. Before dark the DEUTSCHLAND was beyond the three-mile limit and on her way safely home. Her round-trip voyages covered upwards of 8,000 miles each.

A few weeks later another successful crossing of the Atlantic was accomplished by the armed U-53, under kapitanleutenant Hans Rose. She was sighted on October 7th, off Newport Harbor Rhode Island, and was escorted into the harbor by the United States submarine D-2, which had previously been maneuvering. It had taken the U-53 seventeen days from Wilhelmshaven.

This sleek craft crewed by her commander three officers and thirty-three men, remained only a few hours after delivering a letter to the German Ambassador Count van Bernstorff, before departing. Once outside the three-mile limit, she rampaged up and down the coast, sinking indiscriminately five merchant vessels within sight of American destroyers. Being a neutral nation they could not interfere. Miraculously no lives were lost, the destroyers having been ordered to assist in rescuing passengers and crews. This was a forerunner at what was to come once the United States entered the war in 1917. Kapitanleutenant Rose became one of Germany's top U-boat aces of World War I. He was awarded the Pour le Merite for having sunk 214,000 tons of shipping.

During peacetime a number of long endurance cruises were undertaken by submarines of various navies. Among these were important scientific ones, especially of The Netherlands. Dutch authorities dispatched the K.Vl to the Dutch East Indies, on an epic-making voyage of the times of 23,000 miles and return. She had a tonnage of 550/800. Her radius of action was 5,500 miles at eleven knots, with a surface speed of 14-1/2 and submerged 9-1/2. She carried a crew of twenty-seven.

Another Dutch boat, the K.XIII of 612/820 tons traveled 21,000 miles without an escort to the Dutch naval base at Surabaya in 1926. Under the command of Lt. Cmdr. L.G.L. van der Kun. It left Nieuwediep on May 27th. Newly constructed she was commissioned in March, and carried a crew of thirty-two officers and men. Her itinerary included stops at the Azores, Canary Islands, Curacao in the Dutch West Indies, through the Panama Canal to Balboa, to Mazatlan, Mexico, to San Francisco, where it arrived on August 24th. Until then, it had traveled about 10,000 miles. From there the 230' sub proceeded to Honolulu, then to Guam, Yap, Manila in the Philippines, Ambon, Banda, Bima, finally arriving at Surabaya on December l3th. There she joined other Dutch submarines patrolling the East Indies. None of the others had made such a Iong trip without being escorted by other surface craft.

The next Dutch sub to make a record breaking cruise was the K.XVIII, commanded by Lt. Cmdr. D.C. M. Hetterschij. This 777/1020 ton craft left Nieuwediep, Holland on November 14, 1934, and arrived at Surabaya on July 11, 1935. She carried a crew of thirty-seven. Her route was via Madeira, St. Vincent, Dakar, Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Tristan d'Acunha, Capetown, Durban, Mauritius and Fremantle, Australia. The only (civilian) aboard was Dr. Felix A. Vening Meinesz of Utrecht University. He conducted experiments throughout the voyage concerning the force of gravity and the influence of cosmic rays on various submarine depths. Also recorded was the deepest sounding ever taken at that time in the Atlantic of 21,976', between Dakar and Pernambuco. The experiments necessitated the submarine diving 230 times and navigating underwater for some 264 hours. In the course of her travels the K.XVIII had visited five continents covering a record 25,000 miles.

In 1924, the British submarine K-26, then the world's second largest, made a 20,000 mile cruise to Singapore. She was a steam-driven vessel of 2140 tons. This journey took eight months under the command of Commander George F. Thomson, with a crew of fifty-eight officers and men. The K-26 left Portsmouth, England, on January 2nd, arriving at Singapore on May 14th. She returned to England on August 12th of the same year. Stops were made at Malta, Port Said, Aden, Bombay and Colombo. Un-accomanied by a tender, the officers and men lived aboard the K-26 throughout the entire cruise. Her primary purpose was to test her habitability in tropical waters. On the trip they experienced sand storms in the Red Sea, a monsoon in the Indian Ocean, and a tropical thunderstorm at Singapore. While in the Indian Ocean they encountered a derelict ship on fire, which they sank by gunfire.

Another important cruise successfully accomplished was that of two French submarines, the BEVEZIERS and AGOSTA. They left Brest, France, on September 15, 1937, and returned on March20, 1938, after covering 17,500 nautical miles; however they were accompanied by a supply ship. Both were of 1,560 tons with Diesel-Sulzer engines permitting them to do 20 knots. This was the first time two such French boats were on a mission together. Their itinerary carried them to Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Bahia, Trinidad, Martinique, Grenada, Guyana, Curacao, Los Piedras, Puerto Rico, Ponta Delgada, Azores, Porta Praia (Cape Verde Island) and Casablanca.

The first submarine to ever round Cape Horn was the USS SEA ROBIN. commissioned in 1944, she was skippered by Cmdr. Paul C. Stimson. He had commanded her throughout the Pacific War. During that time the SEA ROBIN had conducted three successful patrols, sinking 13 Japanese ships. A fleet submarine of 2,000 tons, she was 311' long. On her voyage around the Horn she not only carried a crew of 7 officers and 78 enlisted men, but also two dogs.

The voyage was made from west to east, taking 55 days. It left Balboa, Canal Zone on May 15, 1947, making calls at Valpariso, Chile, Port Stanley in the Falkland Island, Montevideo, Uruguay, New London, Connecticut, reaching the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in July, after a 12,000 mile cruise. The purpose of this journey was to carry out a training program in cold weather as well as to promote good will in the South American ports visited. In addition, hydrographic work, taking soundings, checking navigational aid information, and acquiring other chart data was carried out. When in Valpariso, the Chilean President Gabriel Gonzalez and his wife and other Chilean officials were taken on a submerged dive. The SEA ROBIN was also the first warship to have visited the Falklands in fifty years.

One of the greatest historic feats of this century occurred with the voyage of the atomic submarine USS NAUTHUS. She departed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, under secret orders on July 23, 1958, and completed a 1,839 mile cruise submerged under the Arctic ice cap. She was the first ship in history to reach 90 degrees north latitude - North Pole. Her captain, Cmdr. William R. Anderson and his extraordinary crew of 115 men made the long sought after "Northwest Passage" in four days in comfort and without incident.

The NAUTHUS cruised at a speed exceeding twenty knots at about 400 feet below the ice cap. On August 3rd at 11:15 p.m. Eastern Daylight Saving Time it reached the Pole. The soundings taken at the time at the Pole indicated the depth of the water to be some 13,410 feet. On August 5th, she exited the ice pack into the Greenland Sea. Anderson, his crew and the NAUTHUS had accomplished the impossible.

In September, 1957 and June, 1958, the NAUTHUS had made two other forays under the Arctic ice pack on the Atlantic side. Both times the submarine was under secret orders. For the first trip the NAUTILUS covered over a thousand miles in seventy-four hours beneath the pack ice. She undertook her second voyage from Hawaii, attempting a passage to the Pole, but was forced back by extremely thick ice which blocked her passage. Nevertheless, all of these trips provided much scientific information, and proved that nuclear submarines could operate successfully and undetected under the Arctic ice cap.

Another extraordinary and epic voyage was that of the 447-1/2', 6,000 ton twin reactor atomic submarine, USS TRITON, commanded by Capt. Edward L. Beach. The submarine departed Groton, Connecticut, under secret orders on July 23, 1958, to circumnavigate the glove. St. Peter's and St. Paul's rocks in mid-Atlantic had been selected for her starting out point on February 17th, and to which place she ended up as her finishing point on April 25th. On board were 185 crew members, of which eight were technical and scientific personnel. One of her prime purposes was the collection of oceanographic and gravitational data.

The TRITON followed the approximate route navigated by Ferdinand Magellan in 1519-22. She girdled the glove totaling 26,723 nautical, or 30,752 statue miles, in 60 days and 21 hours. She never surfaced once during that time. She did broach, however with a portion of her sail showing above the water in order to transfer an ill crewman. Her average speed during her travels was over 18 knots.

Capt. Beach and his courageous crew proved that atomic submarines can operate anywhere undetected under the world's oceans. The TRITON on March 7th also became the second U.S. submarine to round Cape Horn. Beach and his crew observed this historic moment as they peered through their periscope at the Cape.