Navy commissions the Nautilus, a submarine that never needs to surface

For half a century, submarines had been glorified surface ships that could duck underwater for a few hours at a time, limited by battery charge and the need to breathe air into a diesel engine. On September 30, 1954, the Navy commissioned USS Nautilus at Groton, Connecticut, with Commander Eugene P. Wilkinson taking command of the world's first nuclear-powered vessel. Her Westinghouse reactor meant she could stay submerged for weeks, not hours. The submarine still needed months of dockside testing before she would put that reactor to real use…