William Anderson (naval officer) was distinguished. He was awarded the Bronze Star Medal and participated in a total of eleven combat submarine patrols. Anderson was selected by Admiral Hyman G. Rickover to be the second commanding officer of the first nuclear submarine to be placed into service, the USS "Nautilus" and was its commander from 1957 to 1959. Anderson and his crew received international notice when the "Nautilus" became the first submarine to sail successfully under the polar ice cap surrounding the North Pole. That transit was completed under direct orders of President Dwight Eisenhower, under extreme secrecy and was in direct response to
North Pole trek from Ellesmere Island in Canada, a distance of 800 km. On 7 September 1991 the German research vessel "Polarstern" and the Swedish icebreaker "Oden" reached the North Pole as the first conventional powered vessels. Both scientific parties and crew took oceanographic and geological samples and had a common tug of war and a football game on an ice floe. Polarstern again reached the pole exactly 10 years later with the "Healy". In 1998, 1999, and 2000 Lada Niva Marshs (special very large wheeled versions made by BRONTO, Lada/Vaz's experimental product division) were driven to the North Pole. The 1998