Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea the Atlantic via the North Pole. On August 3, 1958, she became the first ship to reach the North Pole. For this accomplishment, "Nautilus" and her crew were awarded the Presidential Unit Citation, the first Presidential Unit Citation awarded in peacetime. The citation began with the words, "For outstanding achievement in completing the first voyage in history across the top of the world, by cruising under the Arctic ice cap from the Bering Strait to the Greenland Sea." "Nautilus 90 North" (1959, with Clay Blair) was the first book Anderson wrote about the Arctic missions of USS "Nautilus". It was
North Pole east and clockwise is west. The North Pole is at the center of the Northern Hemisphere. While the South Pole lies on a continental land mass, the North Pole is located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean amid waters that are almost permanently covered with constantly shifting sea ice. This makes it impractical to construct a permanent station at the North Pole (unlike the South Pole). However, the Soviet Union, and later Russia, constructed a number of manned drifting stations on a generally annual basis since 1937, some of which have passed over or very close to the Pole.