Eyes for Submarines

The hard-muscled youngster paused as he monkeyed up the ladder from the conning tower. "Permission-to-come-on-the-bridge-relieve-the-stern-lookout-sir?" he rattled off in a breath. The officer of the deck muttered: "Granted," returned to his own search of the darkness. Aft, the fresh-eyed lookout took the heavy Navy binoculars from the man on watch, began to scan his sector. Then his voice lifted over the wet mumble of the charging diesel: "Gunfire bearing one seven oh, sir!"

There it was: a pin point flickering on the dark, unmarked horizon. The lookout grinned with satisfaction: the real thing looked exactly like the flashes he had been taught to see in Night Lookout School, back at Base, in New London.

The Play's the Thing. Last week in New London another class bumped through the twisting, light-tight entrance to their schoolroom. They donned red goggles to open their eyes to their lesson. Their classroom: a little theater complete with stage and lighting effects, everything painted dead black, even the benches on which they sat. The cast: friend and enemy warships. The play: night on any ocean. Center aisle in the orchestra were the choice seats: two shelves in a wooden reproduction of a submarine's bridge. Here sat the students to be tested.

Behind them, the "stage electrician" manipulated his switchboard. He could simulate every effect they might see on a war patrol: dawn, eastern horizon (the thin line of light which justifies the phrase "crack of dawn"); dawn, western horizon (an upper glow, quite different); fire at sea (a glow unmistakable once seen); thunder showers far off; gunfire ("Here's a cruiser coming at you," explained the CPO instructor, and the class watched the tiny, stabbing flashes grow brighter).

On the arc of the horizon the instructor placed a scale model of a Jap ship. Black ship on black sea. Gradually the electrician turned on the dawn effect. To a landsman all was still dark, but one of the lookouts sang: "Ship! Bearing zero zero five." The black ship took faint shape as the light increased almost imperceptibly. "I think it's a carrier." It was. The artificial night was still black enough to make a cat stumble, but the lookout called the class and course of the enemy warcraft.

Shilling's Lookouts. This is one of the ways lookouts for submarines are selected and trained. Lookout duty, once a punishment, is now so important that the men get extra privileges. All day the submarine on war patrol waits and watches at its undersurface station, hoping for a target. At night it sidles off to surface and charge its batteries. Wallowing at "slow ahead," a sub is doubly vulnerable in the dark. Quick-eyed night lookouts are prized.

Administering the program is the Training Division of the Bureau of Naval Personnel. The Bureau, through Commander Charles Wesley Shilling, M.C., U.S.N., a submarine doctor since the early days of escape training, set up the machinery to select the right men for the new ships, and to pick the best men for such special tasks as lookout duty.

Like all submarinemen, lookouts must have sound health and intelligence and a stable temperament. Keen eyesight and color sense beyond the average are needed. But the most important quality in a good lookout is what Dr. Shilling calls "motivation." He must search actively, not passively. He must have a desire to see which overcomes the dulling effect of his job.

Motivation cannot be taught, but is quickly learned. "Men get motivation fast," said Dr. Shilling, "after they've been caught--perhaps machine-gunned by an enemy plane they didn't see coming."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.