It happened over a half-century ago. Now it’s time to tell the story.

There are things a man carries quietly for a long time. Not because they are shameful — but because discretion, in certain lines of work, is simply part of the job. I spent my years as a junior Naval officer in that kind of work. At eighty-five, after more than half century, with the Cold War long behind us, I find that the obligation has shifted. Discretion served its purpose. Now accuracy has a claim.

This is not a story I tell to seek recognition. It’s not bragging. The people who needed to know — the Navy, the commanders who came after, the crews who inherited what we built — many have always known. What follows is simply the fuller account, set down while I am still here to set it down correctly.

What Was Built, and When

In the late 1960s, serving as a junior officer in the US Naval Nuclear Submarine force, I was given the opportunity to work on a problem that mattered: how does a submerged fast-attack submarine track a Soviet submarine without betraying its own position? And how can we better prepare our fast attack submarines to conduct their highly-secret missions? Active sonar — pinging — was not the answer. It announced you. The answer had to come from listening, not transmitting.

Over time, after working with the crew of the USS RAY (SSN 653) and learning from them – especially the sonar gang led by Master Chief Owen “Coyote” Carlson, I was assigned to the US Naval Submarine School to teach tactics and Soviet naval ship recognition to prospective commanding officers of nuclear submarines. There, I integrated what I learned from the crew of the Ray and created the Geographic Plot (now called the “Geo Plot”) — a tactical system for passively tracking submerged Soviet submarines — and the tactical doctrine that gave crews the framework to use it.

Separately, I wrote a formal paper on the tactical use of the AN/WLR-6 electronic surveillance system. On May 7, 1970, Commander L. H. Bibby of OP-312C wrote to say the paper had been released for publication by OP-31 and now formed the primary basis for ECM/ELINT operator personnel requirements at the Bureau of Naval Personnel planning level. “It’s a nice piece of work,” Commander Bibby wrote, “and a big help to those of us who are chained unwillingly to Washington desks.”

I also conceived and developed the SSN pre-deployment training program at the U.S. Naval Submarine School in Groton, Connecticut, to ensure that every crew deploying on those super-secret operations had the tools and the doctrine to execute the mission.

When that tour concluded in July 1970, Vice Admiral E. P. Wilkinson — Commander of Submarine Force Atlantic and the first commanding officer of USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear submarine — issued the following citation:

“During this period, you provided the initial idea and were instrumental in the establishment of a new concept of training which is highly important to the operational readiness of deploying attack class nuclear submarines. The success of this new program is directly attributable to your outstanding professionalism. Your foresight, drive and enthusiastic dedication to the needs of the fleet have combined to contribute meaningfully to the effectiveness of Naval Submarine School officer training and to the state of readiness of the operating forces. Your performance was at all times in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service. Well Done!”

— Vice Admiral E. P. Wilkinson, U.S. Navy

A commendation from the Secretary of the Navy followed. I mention these not to burnish a résumé or brag, but because they are part of the documented record — and that record is what this article is about.

A Phone Call

In the early 1980s, I received a telephone call from a man named Tom Clancy. He had heard, through people who knew my reputation in the nuclear submarine force, about my work that had been done aboard the RAY and the innovations afterward.

He wanted to talk.

I shared nothing classified in our conversations. I confirmed what he had already heard from others — that the innovations existed, and that I had created them. Beyond that, the one thing I offered was a caution: do not write about what submarines were actually doing with passive sonar. Do not try to learn about or to expose the methodology to anyone.

Instead, I suggested that he consider a character who works the sonar system with nothing but a pair of headphones — a man who listens, who knows what he is hearing, and who trusts what the sound is telling him. Nothing technical. Just the man and what he hears. That was what was done in World War II.

That suggestion became the character Petty Officer First Class Ronald Jones — “Jonesy.”

And the broader picture of what the submarine force was doing during the Cold War — the patient, invisible, analytic work of men who tracked the enemy without ever being seen — found its way into the character of the analyst at the center of The Hunt for Red October.

Jack Ryan.

Clancy never identified me. He never wrote about the specific work. What I told him was, in any case, less than what I had already published in my memoir Super Nuke! — reviewed and cleared for publication by the Department of Defense and the U.S. Navy.

There is nothing here that was not already a matter of record.

The Blank Stare of a Captain

A few years ago, my wife Nancy and I toured a Virginia-class fast-attack submarine — the most advanced in the fleet. During the walkthrough with the Commanding Officer, I asked a single question. I asked if I could see the geo plot.

He looked at me with a blank stare.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “But that is classified.”

I said nothing. Gave myself a knowing internal smile, thanked him, and moved on.

He had no reason to know who I was or what I had been part of. That is entirely as it should be. The work was never about the man who did it.

It was about the mission it served.

But standing there, I found myself holding something quietly — not pride, exactly. More like the simple satisfaction of knowing that something you built still matters, still works, and still protects the people who depend on it.

That was enough.

I knew I contributed.

What Others Knew

The story told here is not one I am telling for the first time to people who had no way to know it. The men who commanded the ships, who oversaw the force, and who inherited what was built on the RAY — many knew. Several of them wrote endorsements for Super Nuke!, my memoir of that period. Their words are more authoritative than mine.

“He created the SSN Pre Deployment training program, consolidated developments made on the Ray to create the highly useful Geographic Plot (Geo Plot) and wrote the tactical doctrine for the SSN based electronic intelligence collection system. Well done, Charlie. I am proud to have had you as a shipmate.”

Albert L. Kelln, Rear Admiral, United States Navy (Ret.) Former Commanding Officer and Plank Owner, USS RAY (SSN 653)

“Charlie provided the initial idea and was instrumental in establishing and implementing a new concept of training which significantly improved the operational readiness of the nuclear attack submarine force. He created the ‘Geographic Plot’ to improve operational safety and wrote the tactical doctrine for a new and sophisticated nuclear attack submarine electronic intelligence gathering system.”

The Honorable John H. Dalton Former Nuclear Submarine Officer and 70th Secretary of the Navy

“As a junior officer, his individual accomplishments were most significant. The submarine efforts were probably the most important U.S. competitive strategy that drove the Soviets to the poor house and led to the demise of the Soviet Union.”

Bruce DeMars, Admiral, United States Navy (Ret.) My former partner at the US Naval Submarine School, Commanding Officer, USS CAVALLA (SSN 684), and Former Director of Naval Reactors

And then there is this — from Dennis Parker, who later served aboard the RAY after my time on the boat. He carries no flag. He speaks with no institutional voice. He speaks only as a sailor who understood what the work had meant:

“A little bit of the Ray, and a little bit of Charlie Jett, lives on in every U.S. nuclear attack submarine since, though the vast majority of sailors on them have no clue about the connection.”

Dennis Parker, USS RAY (SSN 653)

One Commanding Officer, two Admirals, a Secretary of the Navy, and a sailor. They are saying the same thing.

Why This, and Why Now

I am not writing this to settle a score, brag, or claim something I was denied. The Navy recognized the work at the time, through the proper channels, in the proper way. That was sufficient then, and it remains sufficient now. I know I contributed, and that is enough.

I am writing it because Tom Clancy’s novels brought the American submarine force into the public imagination in a way that nothing else had, and because the character at the center of that story had a real origin that has never been fully told. The men and women who serve on fast-attack submarines today are the inheritors of a tradition built by many hands — and they deserve to know, at least in outline, where some of it came from.

The technical details stay where they have always been. I have not shared them. I will not share them. Some things were given to me in trust by the nation, and I intend to keep that trust.

But the human story — a junior officer, facing a problem worth solving, who had magnificent and brilliant shipmates who pioneered new techniques, a novelist who came looking for the truth behind the fiction — that story belongs to the record now.

And so I have set it down.

I am the real Jack Ryan.

—

Charles C. Jett is a former Naval Officer (USNA ’64), author of Super Nuke!, and the founder of the Eight Critical Skills leadership framework. He lives in Chicago with his wife, Dr. Nancy Church.

Read more at criticalskillsblog.com and civicsage.com