#First nuclear submarine commander full#

In 1946, Rickover traveled to Oak Ridge as part of a project to develop a nuclear electric generating plant. Rickover became assistant chief of the Electrical section of the Bureau of Engineering in 1939, and during the war he served as the head of the Electrical section of the Bureau of Ships. This post ended after a few months, however, as Rickover became an engineering duty officer in October 1937. He was then assigned to duty on a battleship, and assumed ship-command of a minesweeper in 1937. Rickover volunteered for submarine duty, and served on two submarines from 1929-1933. After a year at the Naval Postgraduate School and time at Columbia University, Rickover received his M.S. He served next onboard a battleship before returning to school. In under a year, he was made an engineer officer, the youngest in the squadron. Rickover graduated in 1922 in the top quarter of his class, and then joined the crew of a warship. Rickover sought an appointment to the United States Naval Academy after high school, as his parents could not afford college tuition.

#First nuclear submarine commander full#

Rickover got his first paid job at age 9, and during high school he worked full time delivering Western Union telegrams. After initially settling in New York City, the family moved to Chicago, where Rickover’s father worked as a tailor. Hyman George Rickover was a Navy admiral who served during World War II who is known as the “Father of the Nuclear Navy” due to his role in developing the first nuclear-powered submarine.īorn Chaim Godalia Rickover in Poland, then part of the Russian Empire, Rickover traveled to the United States with his family at a young age as part of a wave of Jewish refugees fleeing Russian pogroms during the Revolution of 1905.