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NURC: Celebrating 50 Years of International Partnerships IN oCean Research and Operations , Volume 2, a quarterly 21, Number The O journal of

By Thomas D. Allan Memories from the Sixties ceanography Society. Copyright 2008 by The O The Beginning had participated in several geophysical the Arabian Gulf, and the captain had Many of the disparate band of scientists research cruises to the eastern Atlantic. offered to tow my magnetometer on the and engineers who gathered in La Spezia When I embarked on the research vessel way. In the new theories emerging at to set up the new NATO SACLANT Discovery II during the summers of that time, the was possibly an Anti-Submarine Warfare Centre 1957 and 1958, we tried out a number of embryonic ocean. Here was a chance to (SACLANTCEN) had been recruited new techniques and devices that would seek a few clues. from their own national defense eventually reveal symmetrical patterns Back in Cambridge in time for the establishments. At that time, I was the to support the concept of a spreading birth of my first daughter, I took a ceanography Society. A

only Brit to join straight from university seafloor and the theory of plate tectonics. phone call from Henry Charnock, one all correspondence to:ceanography Society. Send [email protected] Th e O or where I had just completed my disserta- At Cambridge, I was put in charge of of my shipmates on Discovery, asking if tion on marine geophysics. This was my the so-called “proton magnetometer,” a I might be interested in applying for a

first real job. beautifully simple device built around post with a new anti-submarine warfare Permission is reserved. ll rights granted to in teaching copy this and research. for use article Republication, systemmatic reproduction, I had stretched my time as a student a bottle of water wrapped in a coil of center that had recently been opened at to the limit—nine years at three universi- copper wire that, towed behind the a place called La Spezia on the Italian ties—and for the previous three years ship, could detect very small changes Riviera. The UK Ministry of Defense in Earth’s magnetic field had just come up with a job offer, but I (Figure 1). Another new put that on hold while I flew out to be instrument that emerged interviewed by the Centre’s director, about that time was a heav- Gene Booth, and his deputy, Mel Arsove. ily damped spring balance I recall that the “interview” was more of

placed in the center of the a relaxed conversation over a Campari ceanography Society, P ship to detect small changes soda in the bar of the Hotel Jolly, but I in Earth’s gravity field. can’t recall why it was held there and not I had gathered enough at the Centre.

data for a dissertation and Shortly afterwards, my wife Helen M D 20849-1931, US 1931, Rockville, O Box was starting to put it all and I were winging our way out to Milan together when my supervisor with our 10-week-old firstborn, thence asked if I fancied a cruise to on to Pisa after a seven-hour delay, to the Red Sea. HMS Dalrymple report for duty on May 2, 1960 (May 1 is of the UK Hydrographic a holiday in Italy). Figure 1. Recovering a proton magnetometer, November 1959. Service was heading for SACLANTCEN was to become a fully A .

18 Oceanography Vol.21, No.2 Figure 2 (left). R/V Aragonese. Figure 3 (below). Author Tom Allan fledged NATO center a few years later, and the captain of the Aragonese but at that time a private, nonprofit, officially open the bar, 1962. Italian company called SIRIMAR ran it (initially overseen by the Raytheon Company and subsequently by Penn- sylvania State University). SIRIMAR employed two senior US administrators: a question that bothered Nat Maggio (in charge of finance) and me much at the time as Bob Nelson (in charge of personnel). my wife and I plus new The military side was the responsibility baby, recent tenants of a of a bevy of US naval captains. Another one-room flat in England, prominent American of that era was moved into a picturesque George Wood, who drove a Bentley villa in Maralunga and was such an Anglophile that on overlooking the Gulf of his birthday the Brits presented him La Spezia. My amateur effort to capture will of our support staff, which consisted with a bowler hat. that view on canvas still hangs in my of the Port Captain Mario Mastrosanti, office to remind us of happy, sunny days. the ship’s workshop staff under the The Groups direction of Vito Failla and consisting of Canadian George Lindsay led the Aragonese highly skilled technicians such as Enrico Operations Research Group; a well- The Centre chartered an old freighter, Muzi and Celsino Montanari to name respected German pioneer, always which had to be converted into a fully just two who were particularly helpful. referred to by more junior scientists as fledged research vessel (Figure 2). Dr. Fischer, led the Sound Propagation Possibly, Gene Booth had concluded that The Cruises Group; the UK’s Bill Kelly led the giving a few oceanographers their heads During the first half of 1961, with Henry Target Classification Group; and the to pursue their own, unclassified research Charnock as chief scientist, I undertook bearded Dane Lars Brock-Nannestad, might be one way to ensure that the a number of short cruises aimed mainly led the Electro-Magnetic Group. conversion of Aragonese could be accom- at bedding down our new equipment. Oceanography’s strength doubled plished in short order. And, it proved to Henry ventured as far as Gibraltar on when I joined Henry Charnock, its be so. Within a few months, the hold had one cruise and I still have his cruise head. Roberto Frassetto, an Italian been turned into a spacious laboratory reports from that period. His unique, war hero turned scientist, recruited equipped with a precision depth recorder, pithy style was clearly an attempt to from Columbia University’s Hudson gyrocompass, course recorder, long-range bring everything up to speed as quickly Laboratories in New York, soon joined radar, intercom, an air-conditioning unit, as possible, but there is more than a us in the Oceanography Group. Within and two 60-kw generators to provide an hint that the Port Captain’s office should a year, Andre Kermabon, a French independent power supply. On the upper model itself on UK procedures. Here are engineer recruited from Schlumberger, deck, hydrographic winches and bathy- just a few examples: joined us to design and use a thermographs were installed. Contrary to new bottom corer. US Navy regulations, we even managed • The winch works fairly well but is not To this day, the question may still be to create a “rest and recreation” area, well enough fixed to the deck causing asked as to why a new antisubmarine otherwise known as a bar (Figure 3). excess vibration. warfare (ASW) research center, free to Of course, with the exception of recruit defense experts from 15 NATO Roberto, our level of Italian was pretty Thomas D. Allan ([email protected]) is nations, should choose to include in its basic and we depended enormously on Retired, SACLANT ASW Research Centre, staff a few oceanographers. It was not the high level of competence and good La Spezia, Italy.

Oceanography June 2008 19 • Mark sample bottles with white paint Suez). These cruises, of course, were a National Institute of Oceanography, on caps. follow-up to the earlier investigations and the US Coast Guard. Rendezvous • On four occasions the Captain carried out on Discovery. were made at sea with WHOI’s Atlantis expressed his concern about the stock of We made many port calls. To check on and Chain, and with Jacques Cousteau’s fuel oil, recommending that we should any cumulative drift in our ship-borne Calypso. Scientists from France, drift, or steam on one boiler. Please let gravity meter, it was necessary to com- Germany, Italy, Turkey, the United States, me have a statement of the fuel oil on pare its reading in port with a calibrated and the United Kingdom sailed with us board at La Spezia on 24 May and the station of an international terrestrial on several of the cruises. So, although amount used per day. grid of control points. It was recom- the program may seem to have had little • On June 1 it was reported that the mended practice to make these checks direct link with the main ASW thrust water supply was critical. It was said as frequently as feasible, thus providing of the Centre, this collaboration helped that 100 tons of saline water had been us with a splendid excuse for a short to create joint programs with well- taken on by mistake at Gibraltar. It was run ashore. Over this two-year period, established centers of research during decided to take fresh water at Almeria Aragonese called at Gibralter, Almería, the Centre’s formative years. Several joint and the operation took two whole days. Barcelona, Monaco, Villefranche, publications bearing the Centre’s name • Please arrange that official messages Cagliari, Civitavecchia, Naples, Valetta, appeared in a variety of well-respected are addressed to the Captain or Chief Siracusa, Palermo, Piraeus, Rhodes, scientific journals. Scientist. Do not send unnecessary Izmir, Alexandria, , Port , Inevitably, there were many teething messages such as, ‘Tell the bridge when and Aden. Judged by the prices asked problems to overcome as we struggled to you have finished with the winch’ today for a Mediterranean cruise with a convert a comparatively old lady into an or, ‘You can buy petrol in Gibraltar.’ fraction of that number of port calls, I effective research vessel. Cruise reports Do send important messages e.g., can appreciate in retrospect what a mar- of the time reveal some of the frustra- ‘Aragonese is not required at the vellous profession I had stumbled into. tions we faced in trying to generate the Centre until June 25.’ One clear advantage to the Centre, right sort of power day and night, seven in supporting an oceanography group days a week, for a variety of European I was to get to know Aragonese rather free to pursue a program of unclassified and US machines. well over the next two years. During that research, was that many well-established A blow-by-blow account of individual time, I was chief scientist on 10 geophys- research centers and scientists from cruises would be tedious and repetitive. I ical surveys and spent a total of almost around the world were keen to col- have retained copies of the original cruise reports and what comes across is that the frustration gradually diminished with Fifty years on I can look back on these each cruise. The geophysical tools with which we started were augmented by times not just through rose-colored tools for sampling the seafloor—corers, spectacles, but also with real affection. dredges, and the like, as well as under- water cameras, probes for measuring the heat flowing from the seafloor, and nine months at sea. We completed over laborate with us. Our location on the “sparkers,” hydrophones, and small 50,000 miles of track covering the entire Italian Riviera might just have been a explosive charges for acoustically investi- western Mediterranean basin, all of the contributory factor. gating the seafloor’s substrata. Aegean Sea, a large part of the Ionian We worked closely with scien- Sea, and the whole of the Red Sea from tists from Scripps Institution of First Cruise In Charge top to bottom, including an excursion Oceanography in California, from After a series of short one- or two-day into the Gulf of Aqaba (the bit at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution trials during that first year, my first top of the Red Sea opposite the Gulf of (WHOI) in Massachusetts, the UK’s serious cruise began in July 1961 and

20 Oceanography Vol.21, No.2 involved the participation of many vol- speed and course and for frequent sights Beirut. Arriving on board Aragonese the unteers from other groups (including the from land stations. next morning, I was handed a telegram director), and tracking the ship day and We had invited Italian researchers announcing that I was father of a second night with theodolites mounted from sta- from a center in to install their daughter—born just hours after I left. tions atop Palmaria and Montenegro as recently acquired Askania meter on We entered the on the ship steamed east-west tracks off the Aragonese, and we set this alongside the November 11 and started our planned Cinque Terre. I can still remember the Lacoste model flown in by scientists survey of the Red Sea the day after. endless communications from the ship to from La Jolla, California. We planned Over the next four weeks, we were to these stations beginning: Fox 2 and Fox 3. a number of trials under different sea crisscross the sea 58 times and cover This is Fox 1. How do you read me? Over. conditions and at different ship speeds. 6,000 miles, making this by far the most We had one or two summer students Due to the efforts of many willing detailed geophysical survey of the Red helping out. Handing over to one of them collaborators, my first cruise in charge Sea ever undertaken. at the end of a long day I asked him to produced a successful outcome. At the From the charts of gravity, magnetics, verify that we were being tracked during end, we understood much more about and bathymetry that this survey gener- our program of measurements. This he the behavior of these meters under ated, we were able to confirm not only did—but without first checking the ship’s different operating conditions than we that the Red Sea was a new ocean in the position on the radar screen. The conver- knew beforehand. The results were sub- making, but also that following the sea- sation as related to me went: Fox 2—this sequently published jointly in the Journal floor spreading models being developed is Fox 1. Can you see me, can you see me? of Geophysical Research. at that time, we could make a pretty To which a weary voice replied from the good estimate that it was opening at a top of Palmaria: See you? From where I’m The Red Sea rate of 1.1 cm per year. Give it another standing I could spit on you. Another cruise that provides vivid few hundred million years and it will be Seaborne gravity meters had just memories was the one to the east- as wide as the Atlantic! arrived on the scene, and there was ern Mediterranean and Red Sea still a lot of uncertainty regarding their completed between October 19 and The Last of the performance. Two different models were December 16, 1961. Geophysical Surveys available—the Askania from Germany I was meant to take charge over the During my time at the Centre, I served and the LaCoste-Romberg from the whole of this cruise, but our second under five Directors—two Americans fol- United States. The business of trying to daughter, due to be born a week before lowed by a Norwegian, a Dutchman, and detect small changes in Earth’s gravity my departure, decided to delay her a Canadian. It was fairly obvious that we field to a few parts per million on a appearance. My wife was booked into could not expect to be allowed to carry heaving ship had always presented a a hospital in Pisa but even a climb to out our own research program forever. daunting challenge. Essentially, heav- the top of the leaning tower and a quick But we had had several good innings. ily damped sensitive spring balances descent failed to persuade Giulia to We continued with geophysical were used to measure an average value cooperate. Aware of my reluctance to surveys until1966, later on board Maria over 10–15 minutes. abandon Helen in Pisa, Henry Charnock Paolina G., which replaced Aragonese. But, the very significant contribu- made an eleventh-hour intervention, Our last cruise was a serious attempt, tion to the measured value from the offering to sail with the ship as far as strongly supported by the US Naval ship’s motion had to be assessed and Beirut. By stepping in, Charnock gave Research Laboratory, to make a more corrected for as precisely as possible. me an extra week at home before flying direct contribution to submarine war- There was no GPS in those days, and out to take the ship on into the Red Sea. fare. Our previous surveys had identified radio navigational systems for civilian When after a week there was still no areas of anomalous magnetic field values use in the Mediterranean had yet to baby, I was forced after all to leave my caused by underwater volcanoes. It emerge. Hence, there was a need for the wife in the hands of friends in Pisa and was decided to resurvey one of these best possible reconstruction of the ship’s board a plane for Rome and another to anomalies in great detail using a spacing

Oceanography June 2008 21 between profiles of no more than half a took shelter in a bay, the winds steadily The Night Maria Paolina mile. By this time, the radio navigational increased. The sea was a maelstrom and Did Not Run Aground system Loran-C was working well for us, no ship was to be seen passing through Ralph Goodman, who later returned to and we chose to survey following Loran the Strait. The time for the clock release the Centre as Director, and who at that lanes using a Loran repeater installed approached. I was chief scientist, but a time had never been to sea, asked if he on the bridge. young German oceanographer, Jochen could join us on one of our geophysical The idea was to investigate how a sub- Ziegenbein, who had recently joined surveys to the eastern Mediterranean. merged submarine might locate its posi- Frassetto’s group, was in charge of the By then, watch-keeping had become a tion accurately without giving away its buoy operation and was understand- fairly routine exercise involving checking position. It would enter the selected site ably agitated at the thought of losing a that all instruments were functioning (in this case an area some 20 x 20 miles) month’s worth of valuable data. as they should, writing the time on and make passive magnetic field mea- Safety of the ship was and remains each record at fairly frequent intervals, surements. By matching its profile with the sole responsibility of the captain. It plotting our position on a navigational those stored on its computer, it might seemed to me to ask too much of him chart, and making entries in a log book. determine its position uniquely without to venture out onto the teeth of a gale. Ralph quickly learned the drill and the having to surface or give out any active Tension rose on the bridge and eventually time came for him to do a middle watch acoustic signal. I suggested to our young oceanographer (midnight to 4 am) on his own. I am not sure if this work ever came that he might want to wait in the lab. I One of our instruments was the preci- to anything, but at the time it seemed an stayed with the captain on the bridge, sion depth recorder (PDR). The width idea worth pursuing. This little survey, but neither of us said much. I had let him of the paper on which the bottom echo our last, was completed in 1966 and know how much this recovery meant to was displayed was 400 fathoms, but one represents the only classified survey us, but under the circumstances a recov- had to add to that depth the particular we ever made. ery seemed unlikely. With 40 minutes to phase of the recorder. So, for a measured Many of the incidents of these early go to release time, the captain crossed to depth of (say) 1000 fathoms, the depth years stay in the mind—some involving the bridge telegraph and signalled to the would appear to read 200 fathoms and scientists on a learning curve who subse- engine room to start engines. We crept the phase was +800. quently went on to greater things. out into the Strait at a speed of around When Ralph took over the watch, he four knots, course one-eight-zero. wrote the phase on the record as +1200. Recovery of the We reached the buoy position with All went well. The instruments were all Gibraltar Buoy a few minutes to spare. The sea raged ticking over and the stillness of the lab at We laid one of Roberto Frassetto’s sub- and the wind howled. Suddenly, like night was punctuated only by the rat-tat- merged buoys in the Strait of Gibraltar a rocket emerging from the deep, the tat of the punched paper tape recording with an array of thermistors suspended buoy shot out of the water and landed on magnetic field values at half-minute beneath it to record the passage of the surface of a foaming sea fewer than intervals. The ship was sailing north, internal wave trains. The buoy had to be 10 meters from the ship. The bosun threw approaching the coast of Crete. The submerged to avoid ship traffic and was out a rope with a grappling iron attached, second officer was on the bridge. The fitted with an acoustic release system and a few minutes later the buoy was depth showing on the PDR began to rise, attached to the anchor. The idea was to recovered and lying on the deck. That the echo passing out from one edge of call it up at the end of the mission by evening in the mess, champagne was on the record and reappearing at the other. transmitting a coded signal. In case of our German colleague who was not only Ralph wrote in +800. Within a few min- failure, it also had a back-up clock, set to able to report the findings in the journal utes, the process was repeated with the release at a certain time. Deep Sea Research, but some years later depth decreasing rapidly. Ralph noted When the time came to recover this went on to become German representa- +400. Soon it got to +0—that is, on the buoy, the weather took a turn for the tive on the Centre’s Scientific Committee last 400 fathoms. The bottom continued worse and for several days, while we of National Representatives. to rise steeply to 350, 200, 100, 30. When

22 Oceanography Vol.21, No.2 it reached 10, Ralph realized the ship was those of the scientific party not standing ity. Without their generous support and about to run aground. And this was his watch to gather in the evening and relax unfailing good humor and courtesy, we first watch in charge. over a beer. I introduced my Italian would have achieved little. The bridge was not equipped with colleagues to the joys of poker dice. Fifty years on I can look back on these our precise depth recorder. In a panic, In the early stages, I could win fairly times not just through rose-colored Ralph reached for the intercom to consistently—but they were fast learn- spectacles, but also with real affection. warn the bridge of impending disaster. ers. One technician who hailed from When we left the Centre in 1974, the “Ponte! Ponte!” he yelled, and watched in a sweat as the echo trace went to zero before appearing at the other side of the ...if part of the spirit of those chart. The depth, of course, was really 400 fathoms, and he had been on the early years lives on in the Centre, wrong phase since the start of his watch. it will survive for another 50 years!

An Unlikely Bet with a German On another of our cruises, we embarked Naples became the most proficient liar 10-week-old baby we had brought out two scientists from the German Hydro- I had ever come across. The pupil soon with us was a 14-year old schoolgirl, and graphic Office to test and compare their became the master, and I was soon to we had produced four siblings, all born gravity meter against ours. One evening lose a few beers. in Italy. The Italian connection remains over supper, the conversation turned to strong with all of my children; two of chance and probability. I remarked how Work and Play in the 1960s them now live and work within a 30- strange it seemed that it required a group There was undoubtedly a pervasive minute drive of La Spezia. of no more than 26 people to have a pioneering spirit abroad in these early The Centre may have changed its 50-50 chance of finding two people with years. We liked to think we worked hard name (no more SACLANTCEN) and the same birthday. One of the Germans and played hard. There seemed to be a the work program has certainly changed. refused to believe this statement and party in the Hotel Jolly or the Circolo Most of the people I worked with then bet me he could prove it to be complete (Italian officers’ club) every other week. have retired and some of my dearest nonsense. I was not overconfident SACLANTCEN became a favorite place friends and colleagues, these original myself, but could hardly back down now. to visit for many senior NATO naval pioneers, have passed on. But, if part As it happened, the second officer held officers and we dutifully turned up of the spirit of those early years lives the list (with birthdays) of all personnel with our wives to entertain them. The on in the Centre, it will survive for on board—11 in the scientific party and camaraderie that flourished then was another 50 years! 16 officers and crew, for a total of 27. partly a result of the group’s international The list was produced, and to our flavor—roughly 50 of us drawn from Concluding Note astonishment (not least mine) there 11 NATO countries. There was also Colleagues of that era who have read this were not one but two pairs with the mutual respect and recognition of the account have pointed out that although same birthday. There was champagne all different talents that each individual much of our “pure” research came to round that evening. brought to the Centre. an end around 1966, a firm foundation Of course, it helped to be located in had been laid on which studies in ocean A Consummate Liar one of the most beautiful spots on Earth. acoustics, seafloor structure, and military The bar proved a great success on these And it helped that that spot was in Italy. oceanography were able to build. But cruises and its very presence signalled Not only were we made welcome by our that is for another chapter. one of the great achievements of the Italian hosts but we also quickly came to Oceanography Group. It was a place for appreciate the warmth of their hospital-

Oceanography June 2008 23