Earle Forbes

DOB: 8/7/35
Service Dates: 9/21/51-4/21/75
Boats Served On:
USS Remora (SS-487)
USS Thomas A Edison (SSN610-B)
USS Henery L Stimson (SSBN655-G)
USS Thomas Jefferson (SSBN618-G)

YOUR SUBMARINE IS BENT-1959: During Remora's WestPac deployment 1958/1959 the ship at creeping turns had a very annoying squeek from one of the shafts. (I forget which one), which resulted in a large number of dry dockings during our deployment resulting in the changing out of shaft bearings including wooden bearings and manmade bearings with no cure. A last effort was to remove the shafts and shoot lines to see if there was a miss-alignment. Do to the way she was blocked, all blocking stopped at the maneuvering room and the after torpedo room was left to kind of hang out unsupported. Cross wires were erected on both ends of the strut tubes, the motor room shaft way, both ends and the center of the main motor shaft was marked. Staging was erected and a transit was set up to look forward through the strut tube, motor room shaft way to the main motor marking. A Japanese marine engineer came to the boat to take the alignment sights and being unable to see the center mark of the motor room shaft looked at the Engineering officer and said. "This is simple, your submarine is bent". Well the fix was to reinstall the shafts, depart the shipyard and to proceed with the squeek until our return to San Diego. Months later it was found that we had a bad prop that caused the squeek.