It was mid-June of 1952, and President Harry Truman was at the Electric Boat Company shipyard in Groton, Connecticut. Off to his side lay a huge, bright yellow steel plate that was to become part of the keel of a new submarine. Truman gave a speech, and then a crane lifted the plate and laid it before him. He walked down a few steps and chalked his initials on its surface, whereupon a welder stepped forward and burned them into the steel. The USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear submarine, was under construction.

At that moment the Korean War was under way. For the United States the struggle was proving to resemble the Pacific war of nearly a decade earlier. Jet planes ruled the skies, but otherwise the weaponry was essentially the same. The B-29, with its four piston-driven engines, was still the standard Air Force bomber, and the massive air raids against Pyongyang recalled the destruction of Tokyo. At sea the Navy was operating the battleships, cruisers, and submarines of the last war.

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