A Mysterious USS NAUTILUS Patch - Any Ideas?

[Salvage Sailor]

Aloha Everyone,

 

Here's one from my collection which has eluded all attempts to decipher it's meaning.....

 

 

USS NAUTILUS (SSN-571)

The Order of the Owl

Dec 1970 - Peace

 

 

Any ideas on this odd Peace patch?

 

From her history: On January 31, 1970, CDR David W. Crockfield, USN, assumed command of NAUTILUS and she commenced a period of crew training and ASW support operations for the rest of 1970.

 

Nothing seems to fit from her operational history for 1970, so what was so special about December 1970, Owls, and Peace to a Nuclear Submarine prowling the seas during the Vietnam/Cold War era?

 

The only lead I've come up with has to do with her first CO, Commander William R. Anderson (USNA 1942), who commanded the nuclear-powered submarine Nautilus on its historic cruise beneath the North Pole in August 1958 and who later served three terms in Congress. While in Congress he sparred with J. Edgar Hoover over FBI anti-war investigations into the Berrigan brothers in December 1970.

 

From the New York Times archives.

 

It was in December 1970 that Mr. Anderson criticized Hoover’s pretrial attack on two Roman Catholic priests, Daniel J. and Philip F. Berrigan, who were later convicted of destroying draft board records. Mr. Anderson started to have doubts about the Vietnam War as death notices increased among his constituents; doubts rose further after he visited Vietnam in 1970.

Mr. Anderson read an article in The Washington Post quoting Hoover as saying, in a closed Senate hearing, that the Berrigans planned to kidnap a government official and hold him hostage to demand an end to bombing in Vietnam and to disrupt government operations by blowing up electrical conduits.

In his speech on the House floor, Mr. Anderson said, “Mr. Hoover has resorted to tactics reminiscent of McCarthyism, using newspaper headlines and scare dynamics, rather than the due process of law.”

Mr. Anderson made headlines again in 1971 when, as the congressman from a rural, conservative district about 65 miles west of Nashville, he stood on the House floor and rebuked J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, for accusing two prominent opponents of the Vietnam War of plotting to kidnap a government official and blow up electrical systems in the Washington area. He termed Hoover’s accusations the “climax” of “an outrageous pattern of fear and repression.”

Coming from a soft-spoken, moderate Democrat who had long supported the Vietnam War, Mr. Anderson’s statement was especially surprising.

 

 

These two priest were prominent leaders of the anti-war movement of the period and their trial was national news. The time frame fits, as does 'Peace', but what is "The Order of the Owl" in this context.

 

There ya go.....

 

[zsmith]

http://ussnautilus.us/stories_owl_history.html

 

Just read the Nautilus newsletter [2007] and the article on the OWL Patch. I have to set the record straight. I did not design the owl patch.

I made the proclamation that every crewmember signed to refute the orders given to the Engineer to get rid of the Owl when he was hit as gear adrift by the ORSE Team. What was funny was when I even convinced the captain to sign it and promised the owl would take a trip foreword during any of the following ORSE inspections. The last person to sign it was the Engineer (Mr. Fast). When he saw the captains signature, he was beside himself because the captain ordered him to get rid of it. He calmed down when I explained the future travel plans for the Owl during any future ORSE Inspections.

After the Proclamation was completely signed, I got the idea that something additional had to be done to ensure the Owls legacy would live on - that's where the idea for the patch came from. We had a competition to design the patch. If my memory serves me, the winning design was from an I&C tech - name escapes me and I'm not completely sure if that is correct, but I did not design the patch.

The only thing I did with the Owl was to make the Peace sign that is hanging around his neck. I made it from a steam trap gasket and some sink stopper beaded chain. It was to establish that the battle to get rid of the Owl from the boat had finally come to an end "PEACE DEC 70" was the day when he was finally safe onboard.

The first time he was removed from the boat is history - the collision with the Essex - we sure did not want any bad Ju Ju with that kind of past experience.

Hope this helps clarify a bit of history and stories that get twisted over time. You might want to pass this on to the Historian - whoever that is?

I still wonder where the Owl went - I toured Nautilus during conversion at Mare Island Shipyard and the yard personnel told me everything was removed and locked up to prevent collectors from taking parts off the boat.

 

 

[Der Finn]

Great story, zsmith!

[zsmith]

I realized the story told above might be confusing to some the way it is written. ORSE stands for Operation Reactor Safeguard Examination... basically an inspection team comes on board and the nukes spend the next several days going through all kinds of testing and drills to ensure that the boat remains qualified to safely run a nuclear reactor. Apparently during their ORSE, one of the inspectors hit them on the owl as being gear adrift. It sounds like the Eng wanted the owl gone after that and the guys were trying their best to keep it around so they made a compromise that during any future ORSE inspections the owl would leave the engine room.

 

In 1966 they left the owl in port while they went on deployment. During that deployment they were involved in a collision with the USS Essex. We submariners tend to be a superstitious lot at times so they naturally decided that leaving the owl behind was bad juju and contributed to the collision. From that point on the owl didn't leave the ship and became their good luck charm. They finally were able to convince all the higher ups in the chain of command that the owl needed to stay... thus PEACE was established in 1970.

[Salvage Sailor]

That sums it up nicely and explains where "The Order of the Owl" came in. The only missing link is how the Owl initially came to be in the Engineering spaces on the Nautilus.

 

BZ zsmith

[zsmith]

The only missing link is how the Owl initially came to be in the Engineering spaces on the Nautilus.

 

 

 

You shouldn't try to rationalize "how". Submariners have a tendency to get drunk and do dumb stuff... like stealing an owl statue.

 

I got drunk in a port once and somehow ended up with a big bag full of little green Army men. I came back to the boat in the middle of the night and thought it would be a good idea to put them all over the place. People were still finding Army men weeks later and everybody ended up finding out that it was me who did it. One of the officers made it a point to remind me that we were on a submarine and not a troop transport.

 

From the website:

 

The Owl first surfaced years ago aboard the USS Nautilus. Being a crew member at that time, myself, Jiggs Kronenwetter, Jerry Forseth, and Phil Zahl had been to the Newport Jazz Festival the night before we were to leave on a patrol. Phil had the idea that we take this statue of an owl along with us then return it when we got back. (This is a common thing for submariners. They always take everything not nailed down with them on patrols. The torpedomen took the Navy diver's mermaid. Big Mistake!) So we took the Owl. That is another story.