I'd like to say that I stumbled across your web site but that wouldn't be true. About a year ago, after reading a news story about the NR-1 being made available for cooperative missions with civilian oceanographic institutions and universities, I was reminded also of the Trieste project to which I had been assigned by the Sperry Corporation as an engineer. I had worked on both projects at Sperry. For the Trieste, I worked on its Instrument & Control System. For the NR-1, I worked on the adaptation of the Trieste's Transponder Navigation Subsystem and the planning of its first "oceanographic mission." The Sperry Corporation built the Instrument & Control System for both Trieste's as well as the NR-1. I worked primarily on the Trieste project in varying capacities from its very beginning at Sperry in 1964 until about 1970 when I was re-assigned to other projects in the marine field. Although Trieste was never officially a classified project at Sperry it was always treated as a "black" one, a project so secret that it wasn't assigned any of the usual security classifications. While on the project, I never got more than a glimmer of the Trieste's true mission. At DSSPO technical meetings the specifics of a mission were never discussed. Dr. Craven always managed to convey to us the technical problems we had to solve without ever revealing why those problems were to be solved. After leaving the project I often wondered about the Trieste's mission and what had become of the two bathyscaphs. About a year ago, after reading about the NR-1, I finally thought of searching the web. That's when I discovered that the Trieste II or III, depending on how you count, was on display at the Naval Undersea Museum in Washington and that a realistic scale model of Trieste III could be bought from Viking Models (www.bryus.net/vikingmodels/sub.htm). I also found Dr. Craven's site and his story of the Trieste project. About three months ago when I did a new search on the web, I found your extraordinary site. Extraordinary, because you have provided to those of us who have found it the opportunity to include our own stories and in so doing, perhaps adding some personal insights or aspects that would otherwise be lost. I decided to tell "my story" so that there would be some record of the role that civilian contractors and the engineers, who worked for them, played. There were other contractors beside Sperry. I can't speak for them. I can only tell a little about Sperry and its engineers based on a dimming memory. Allow me to digress. I think in terms of three Trieste's. First, there was the Trieste (Trieste I) in which Jacques Picard and Don Walsh made the record dive to the bottom of the Challenger Deep and which was used in the search for the Thresher. This Trieste is now on display at the Naval Historical Museum in the Washington Navy Ship Yard. Figure 1 shows how it looks today in the yard's 600-foot long Breech Mechanism Shop of the former Naval Gun Factory. Note how the sphere is suspended externally to the flotation hull. Then, there was the redesigned Trieste (Trieste II) built for the U.S. Navy and assigned to Submarine Squadron Three of the Deep Submergence Group at Point Loma, CA. Figure 2 shows that version. Note how the sphere was repositioned and the addition of the skeds and a bow tunnel thruster. Compare this photo with the other photo of Trieste II on this web site before the skeds were installed. Finally, Figure 3 shows the Trieste (Trieste III) which was built in secret at the Mare Island Shipyard and which begs the question of what happened to Trieste II. Does anyone know? Can anyone tell? By the way note that on Trieste III the tunnel thruster has gone and the bow thruster is once again topside. The Sperry Corporation (previously The Sperry Gyroscope Company) and its subsidiary, Sperry Piedmont, had been a supplier and contractor to the U.S. Navy since 1911 when it received its first contract for the installation of four gyrocompasses aboard the U.S.S. Delaware. Sperry field engineers and technicians often served aboard surface ships and submarines when new equipment was installed to train personnel and to assure that the equipment performed properly. Three of them, Kenneth Corcoran, Donald Keuster and Donald Stadtmuller were on the U.S.S. Thresher (SSN 593) when it was lost in April of 1963. When the Sperry Systems Division, then located in Great Neck, NY was awarded a contract for the Trieste's Instrument & Control System(s), it seemed quite natural, since the Systems Division was already pursuing work involving deep submergence vehicles and was the prime contractor for the Polaris Navigation Subsystem. I first learned of my assignment to the project in early 1964 when, along with four or five other engineers, we were summoned one at a time into a small conference room and told about the project. We were told little. Primarily, that we would be designing and building a new Instrument & Control System for theTrieste Bathyscaph and that while the project was not classified we were to treat everything about it as if were. (We knew a lot about submarines but weren't at all sure what a bathyscaph was.) The project was not to be discussed outside the immediate group except on a "need-to-know" basis. The original engineers assigned to the project were Fred Kreitner (Project Leader), Jim MacCallum Jr. (Navigation System Design and Operational Procedures), William Zdan (Guidance & Control System Design), Bill Gallant (Computer Programming), Bob Fahrni (System Integration Maintenance), and myself (Computer Simulation and Performance Specifications). John van Voorhis (who was already an experienced boat rider) and Neil Collins later joined the project as the Field Engineers responsible for installing and maintaining the system while I became responsible for evaluating its performance and replaced Fred Kreitner as Project Leader when he left Sperry. If you were associated with the project or if you've been learning about it from the other Trieste web site pages, then you know that Trieste II was to be used to test the prototype equipment that was to be installed on the Trieste III and eventually the nuclear research submarine NR-1. Figure 4 shows the NR-1 right after launching at the Electric Boat Shipyard in Groton, CT and Figure 5 shows the NR-1's Instrument & Control System undergoing final testing at Sperry in Great Neck, NY facility just prior to shipping. I no longer remember the names of the two Sperry engineers shown at the controls. A key part of the Instrument and Control System for the Trieste was the Navigation Subsystem which utilized a newly developed forward and backward looking (Janus) Doppler Sonar for ocean bottom dead reckoning together with bottom mounted transponders for periodic position-fixing to correct for the accumulation of velocity errors from the Doppler Sonar. All of the navigation and control system equipment was controlled by the MK XV digital computer, which had been originally designed for a Sperry aircraft inertial navigation system. I believe that this was the first system employing a digital computer intended for use aboard a deep submersible. The Doppler Sonar had never been tested at depth before nor had it ever been operationally integrated into a complete system with transponders for position-fixing. In 1967 and in 1968, because of the unavailability of the Trieste, DSSPO contracted with Reynolds Aluminum for the hire of its commercial deep submergence vessel, RV Aluminaut (yes, it was constructed of Aluminum), to evaluate the Janus Doppler Sonar and the transponders. I was appointed Test Director. During the summers of 1967 and 1968 about 20 dives were made to the bottom of the St. Croix Underwater Tracking Range to a depth of 3000 feet with the Aluminaut navigating prescribed courses and the Underwater Tracking Range recording its bottom track. Figure 6 shows the RV Aluminaut in drydock on St. Croix while the Doppler Sonar transducers and navigation system equipment were being installed for the tests. The two Sperry engineers on the right are John van Voorhis (with the beer can) and Neil Collins. The two RV Aluminaut crewmen on the left I can no longer identify. The beer dispensing machine in the background was the first one I had ever seen and I remember it well. (Progress came slowly to the mainland in those days.) I believe John van Voorhis was the longest serving Sperry field engineer on the project, having probably served 7 or 8 years. He may also have been the only civilian certified to dive on the Trieste. Figure 7 shows some of the crew and engineers being ferried from the mother ship to the RV Aluminaut for a day's test dive. Among those on the motorized raft are Bob Canary (Aluminaut's skipper), Ken MacKenzie (Naval Electronics Laboratory) who was doing sonar propagation studies and myself. Among those on the deck of the RV Aluminaut or in the water are Bob Stover (who was later killed in the Johnson Sea-Link accident) and George Tyler who 20 years later played a major role in arranging for the Aluminaut to be rescued from the scrap heap and restored for exhibition at the Richmond Science Museum in Virginia. Figure 8 shows how the Aluminaut looks today on exhibit at the museum. A Trieste Simulator was also built for crew training in navigation, control system operation and the use of the Trieste's manipulator arm. Figure 9 shows the simulator installed at Point Loma with Sperry instructors. In the rear right of the photo, it's just possible to make out the manipulator arm over a simulated ocean bottom. The operator sitting in the simulator manually controlled the manipulator while observing a TV display of the manipulator's claw, the object that was being "captured" and the simulated ocean bottom. Several ocean bottom models were available. Figure 10 shows John Carroll of Submarine Squadron Three in the simulator. While Trieste III was being built, Sperry conducted analog computer simulation studies of its expected performance using mathematical models which reflected physical and hydrodynamic data received from DSSPO and the Mare Island Ship Yard. Analog computers? Who remembers them? In their day they were faster than speeding bullets when compared to digital computers for solving the systems of differential equations which were developed to model the Trieste. Using analog computers, the expected performance of theTrieste operating in its various modes under control of its thrusters was analyzed. By having the onboard Mark XV digital computer time-sequence the thrusters, the Trieste could cruise dead ahead and sway or rotate and hover with minimal drift. These operations were also simulated and studied as well as those using the chain tether and ball to maintain bottom altitude while cruising. Although I never dived on the Trieste, I must have spent well over a hundred hours in the sphere working on various problems and checking out equipment upgrades. What a spooky feeling it was working in there alone and occasionally feeling apprehensive about being able to leave the sphere when I felt an ominous twinge in my lower back. Would I be able to get out if my back had a spasm? Would I able to work my way backward and up at right angles to leave the sphere and then climb up the ladder to the deck? Fortunately I was never put to the test. By 1969 I was spending only part of my time on the project and getting only occasional summaries of the Trieste's activities. By 1970 I was no longer on the project and lost contact with everyone associated with it. It wasn't until I came across Dr. Craven's web site and read the books, Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage, by Christopher Drew and Sherry Sontag and The Universe Below, by William J. Broad that I really understood what the Trieste's mission had been. It certainly was a unique project. I'm pleased to have been part of it.