Memoir Summary
Admiral Hyman George Rickover, the “Father of the Nuclear Navy”, was a career officer in the United States Navy, having graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis in 1922. In the early part of his career, he served in various surface ships and commanded a diesel-powered submarine. Later he became an engineering specialist and spent most of the Second World War as head of the electrical section in the Navy Department’s Bureau of Ships.
Following the war, he was selected to explore the possibilities of nuclear energy for naval ship propulsion, and in 1948, over considerable opposition, he was assigned to head a joint Navy-Atomic Energy Commission naval nuclear ship propulsion program. This led to the development of the world’s first two nuclear powered ships, the submarines Nautilus and Seawolf. Within a few years the nuclear Navy had grown to dozens of nuclear submarines and surface combatant ships, including the world’s first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, Enterprise. All new submarines and aircraft carriers were to be propelled by nuclear power, with an unmatched record of performance and safety.
Because of his successful experience in developing the nuclear Navy, Rickover was assigned by the Atomic Energy Commission to develop the world’s first commercial nuclear electric generating plant at Shippingport, Pennsylvania that began operation in 1957.
Rickover began his nuclear career as a captain and was successively promoted to ever-higher ranks, finally achieving the position of four-star Admiral. His Navy seniors often opposed his advancement, but he overcame this opposition due to his achievements and strong congressional support. He reached mandatory retirement age but was periodically kept on active duty through congressional legislation, finally being forcibly retired at the age of 82 by the Reagan administration in 1982.
Rickover became an international celebrity, befriended by presidents, honored in his lifetime with, among other things, a nuclear submarine named for him, the engineering building at Annapolis named Rickover Hall, and awards of the presidential Medal of Freedom and two congressional gold medals.
Rickover died in July 1986 at the age of 86.
Richard A. Claytor, the author, a 1949 graduate of Annapolis, joined Admiral Rickover’s program in 1956 following designation as a Navy engineering duty officer and served for 17 years in the Naval Reactors program, first on Rickover’s headquarters staff in Washington and later as his personal representative at the Atomic Energy Commission’s Pittsburgh Naval Reactors Office. Claytor retired from the program in 1973 having advanced to the rank of captain.
