Five and a half years ago, I was sitting at a table on a Saturday morning with one of our newest Base members at the time. He had been a Sonar Tech and was DBF to the core. As we talked about his story, he told me that his adventures had included going under the ice… in a diesel boat.

Look, I am fascinated by under ice ops, but the idea of a diesel boat going under the ice for more than a quick duck seemed… insane. He laughed. “It was, but we did it.”

At the time I had no idea about Operation Iceberg, the Navy’s 1946 expedition under the overall Operation Nanook, to send submarines into the Arctic Ocean. Tom (although he qualified in 1962 aboard USS Cutlass SS-478) wasn’t old enough to have been a participant, but he certainly would have understood it.

One of my least favorite parts of being a USSVI Base Commander were the Eternal Patrol notices and the funerals. Tom was a great guy, and I was looking forward to a lot more discussions about these kinds of things. But it wasn’t to be.

So this article is dedicated to the memory of STSCS(SS) Tom Lee, departed on Eternal Patrol on May 8, 2020.

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