Author Talk: Alfred Scott McLaren, "Emergency Deep: Cold War Missions of a Submarine Commander"

Alfred Scott McLaren will speak about and sign his new book, "Emergency Deep: Cold War Missions of a Submarine Commander." 

Emergency Deep: Cold War Missions of a Submarine Commander conveys the entire spectrum of Captain McLaren’s experiences commanding the USS Queenfish, mainly in the waters of the Russian Far East and also off Vietnam. McLaren offers a riveting and deeply human story that illuminates the intensity and pressures of commanding a nuclear attack submarine in some of the most difficult circumstances imaginable.

Captain Alfred Scott McLaren served as commander of the USS Queenfish (SSN 651) from September 1969 to May 1973, the very height of the Cold War. As commander, McLaren led at least six major clandestine operations, including the first-ever exploration of the entire Siberian Continental Shelf. Relying on his own notes and records, as well as discussions with former officers and shipmates, McLaren focuses on operational matters both great and small. He recounts his unique perspectives on attack-submarine tactics and exploratory techniques in high-risk or uncharted areas, matters of leadership and team-building and the morale of his crews, and the innumerable and often unforeseen ways his philosophy of command played out on a day-to-day basis, with consequences that ran the gamut from the mundane to the dire and life-threatening.

Readers are also treated to significant new information and insight on submarine strategy, maneuvers, and culture. Such details illuminate and bring to life, with both great humor and gravitas, the intensity and pressures on those engaged in covert missions on nuclear attack submarines.

Copies of the book will be available for purchase thanks to Bay Books Coronado. This event is free to attend. 

This talk will be recorded and available for on demand viewing on the Library's Facebook and Youtube pages following the event.

Alfred Scott McLaren, PhD and retired US Navy Captain, is recipient of the Distinguished Service Medal and two Legions of Merit, president emeritus of the Explorers Club, former senior pilot of the SAS Super Aviator submersible, and president emeritus of the American Polar Society. He is author of Unknown Waters: A First-Hand Account of the Historic Under-Ice Survey of the Siberian Continental Shelf by USS Queenfish (SSN-651) and Silent and Unseen: On Patrol in Three Cold War Attack Submarines.