Chris E Wiggins

Ingalls Cold War Nuclear Submarines Chris E Wiggins

The Cold War was in full swing. Both sides had nuclear weapons. The Soviets were ahead in rocketry and conventional submarines. The United States needed to maintain strategic leadership. Ingalls Shipbuilding, an existing Gulf Coast ship builder that had previously done mostly cargo ships, entered the struggle--producing nuclear submarines, the world's most technologically advanced craft, rivaling the manned Space program in complexity. Could those Mississippi folks do it? It turns out, they could and did. This is that story and not just of the building but what those submarines did when they sailed away into a cold, deep, and, often unforgiving, sea.