Submerged

Life on a Fast Attack Submarine in the Last Days of the Cold War

De: Henry Rausch

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

First Prize Winner in Published NonFiction, WriterCon 2025.
Finalist, 2025 Self-Publishing Review Book Awards

The author graduates from an elite university and enters the submarine service in the mid-1980s when rhetoric between the US and USSR threatens to turn the Cold War hot. He encounters an unforgiving world where submarines hunt each other unseen and unheralded in the ocean depths and in which minor mistakes can result in catastrophe. On four classified missions to the Mediterranean Sea, the North Atlantic, the Barents Sea, and the North Pole, he gradually and painfully learns the trade of a nuclear submarine officer in a world few people know of and even fewer have experienced.
These missions exert a heavy personal toll. At sea, the submarine crew exercises total radio silence and the rescue buoy is welded fast to the hull, ensuring that their families will never know if a catastrophe occurs. During these missions, his young wife suffers a miscarriage and later gives birth via emergency C-section, all while the author is at sea and unaware. While she undergoes these trials alone, the sub conducts missions vital to the security of the United States. Far from home, in the unforgiving depths, they track adversary submarines in dangerous games of cat and mouse where a mistake could result in a collision, flooding, and death. A storm damages the sub on the way to the North Pole, jeopardizing the ability to surface through the ice. They finally do so, after weeks of transiting through underwater ice canyons of pressure ridges capable of rupturing the hull on impact. While under the ice the crew suffers a poison gas leak and has to find a hole to surface quickly or perish.
The main theme of the work is growth. As the author journeyed to the ends of the earth and the depths of the ocean, he also made a personal journey from a sniveling boy-man to an apex predator of the deep. Sub-themes are how men and women cope with adversity, and how when things are at their worst, people are at their best. It is a tribute to the human spirit, especially the men who sailed these ships, and the families who loved and supported them.

Interesting, AI voice wasn’t as bad as I expected.

As a newer military buff, it was interesting to see how things were ran only a few years ago. Not a edge of your seat story but kept my attention nonetheless. The AI narrator was OK once I got used to it and mostly only struggled with acronyms.

I really enjoyed this book.

I was stationed in Charleston, SC for 11yrs, so I'm pretty sure I know the name of this sub. I'm a girl so I wasnt 'on the boats,' but all I ever did was submarine repair: old boomers, floating drydock, old fast boats, new fast boats, new boomers on the west coast... yeah. so maybe I'm a touch biased.
there were a few liberties taken with the story. if you were stationed at pier Mike or the weapons station in the mid to late 80s, you'll catch it. not sure what to think about the Scotland story either, lol. wasnt like that when I was TAD to the Hunley around the same time, but it was entertaining.
Too bad it was virtual voice, the acronyms were slaughtered lol, but a Navy person will be able to figure out what most of it is. others, not so much. so I'd love to ask the author about that aircraft carrier off the coast of Charleston.... come on man, keep it believable. I'm thinking someone changed your ending, didnt even sound like the same person. overall I'm glad I read it, brought back memories.

Good detail about US Cold War attack sub operations

I enjoyed the story though I did not much care for the virtual narrator. That narrator requires some more work to make it right. It constantly made mistakes in intonation, inflection, reading acronyms, and pronouncing proper names. I give it a B- for performance.

Despite the niggling narration flaws, the story was worth the read. If you want a better understanding of how US attack boats operated, then this book is for you.

Virtual narration ruined the experience.

Author has a good story, but by cheaping out with virtual narration, the audio version of the book is not worth the time. Better to get either Kindle version or one of the printed version and stay away from the computer generated narration.

needs more clarity

Every man makes mistakes and this in this case instead of a doctor only Risking one life This case this man is really risking many lives he makes The wrong mistake. definitely tells of the extreme dangers of every day life on a nuclear submarine