The Terrible Hours
Peter Maas
In 1939, the Squalus, one of the newest and most advanced submarines in the U.S. Navy sunk off the New England coast in about 300 feet of water during a test dive. Miraculously, thirty three men survived the sinking but were trapped in the boat on the bottom of the ocean.
This book tells the story of their rescue; it tells the story of Charles Momsen, a naval officer who for years worked to find a way of rescuing submariners under such circumstances. Most of his work was done almost clandestinely as the Navy’s attitude was largely that anyone in a sunken submarine was lost and the Navy at that time was being run by “Battleship Admirals” who had little regard for submarines as weapons of war. In the end, all thirty–three of the men who survived the initial sinking were rescued. It is a suspenseful story and I literally had a hard time putting the book down, even though I knew how the story ended.
I was a senior in high school at the time the Squalus went down so I remember the event, although it happened three thousand miles away and my interest was rather casual. During my working days I had occasion to visit the Portsmouth Navy Yard (which is really in Kittery Maine) and saw a monument to the Squalus but did not have a chance to examine it. According to the book the monument comprised the superstructure and part of the deck of the Squalus.