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
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea Wilkins. Calvert wrote the book "Surface at the Pole" about this and the other Arctic missions of USS "Skate." The film "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" begins with "Seaview" in the Arctic for the final phase of her sea trials, including a dive under the ice cap. Two milestones in underwater exploration were achieved in 1960, the year before "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" was released. On January 23, 1960, Jacques Piccard and Lieutenant Don Walsh (USN), in the bathyscaphe "Trieste", made the first descent to the bottom of the Challenger Deep. The Challenger Deep is