Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea named for the radio message he sent to the Chief of Naval Operations to announce that "Nautilus" had reached the pole. His second book about these missions, "The Ice Diaries: The Untold Story of the Cold War's Most Daring Mission" (with Don Keith), was completed shortly before Anderson's death. This second book includes many previously classified details. On March 17, 1959, the nuclear submarine , under the command of Commander (later Vice Admiral) James F. Calvert, became the first submarine to surface at the North Pole. While at the Pole, her crew scattered the ashes of Arctic explorer Sir Hubert
Ice Station Zebra (novel) under the North Pole), , and . MacLean may have been anticipating the excitement of his British readers regarding the upcoming commissioning of the , the Royal Navy's first nuclear submarine. Also, MacLean may have been influenced by press reports about the nuclear-powered submarine USS "Skate" visiting Ice Station "Alpha", located on Ice Island T-3 in the Arctic, on 14 August 1958, as part of the International Geophysical Year (IGY)". At the time that the novel was published, under-the-ice operations by US Navy nuclear-powered submarines were prohibited until SUBSAFE measures had been implemented following the loss of the . "Ice