As the eye of the storm passed over, brave tugboat crews—read about their crazy ordeal here— and the Narwhal's crew tried to keep the nuclear fast attack sub from being pulled away, but the winds and currents were too strong. With the second half of the storm fast approaching, the Narwhal's commanding officer had to make a very tough call. He could either let the nuclear submarine drift away with the wind and current or he could do the unthinkable, dive the boat in the middle of the river.

With no diesel fuel onboard and the reactor cold, running only on battery power, the dive alarm was sounded and Narwhal's crew executed their orders, dropped anchor, flooded the sub's ballast tanks and submerging to the river bed. Just the submarine's sail and masts were left sticking up out of the water (pictured at the top of this article). The crew sat in the submarine with everything off but emergency lighting to wait out the storm, watching the hurricane's 150mph winds rage around them through the narrow field of view of submarine's periscope.

The captain's bold plan worked, it took some time the next morning to break the boat free from the silt it lay in, but Narwhal and her crew came out unscathed. The submarine went on to get its refueling and refit and served another decade as part of her 30 year long career.

The captain's call could have lost him his command or even his entire career, but according to reports, instead his quick thinking resulted in an early promotion.

Hat tip to our own @Ancientsubhuntr for prompting this story.

Contact the author: Tyler@thedrive.com