Navy Captain and Author Edward Beach

Since 12-03-02

 Retired Navy Capt. Edward L. Beach, 84, a much-decorated World War II submarine officer who became a best-selling author and set an undersea  nuclear navigation record, died Dec. 1 at his home in Georgetown. He had  cancer.

 Capt. Beach took part in the Battle of Midway, sailed on 12 combat patrols  and held the Navy Cross for gallantry in action.

In addition, he wrote a dozen nautically oriented books, including "Run Silent, Run Deep," a popular 1955 novel about undersea and interpersonal conflict. It was made into a movie starring Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster.

 Under Capt. Beach, the nuclear-powered USS Triton sailed around the world underwater, covering 41,000 miles in 84 days. It left Groton, Conn., in February 1960 and surfaced in May.

Powered by twin reactors, the Triton set a speed and endurance record that still stands -- although Capt. Beach later said that a 24-hour wartime spell under Japanese depth charge attack seemed a greater test of submerged  endurance.

Edward Latimer Beach was born on April 20, 1918. His father, also named Edward Latimer Beach, was also a naval officer -- and an author and role model.

Shortly after graduating from Annapolis, Capt. Beach was assigned to the  USS Trigger, in which he was at Midway, and in which he participated in nine war patrols, which sank or damaged three dozen enemy ships. He later was given the Navy Cross while aboard the USS Tirante, on a patrol on which it sank nine ships.

At war's end, he was commander of the USS Piper. Hostilities ceased before it ever attacked, but it rescued six Japanese sailors from the Sea of Japan.

 Capt. Beach later wrote that he was grateful "after all the depth charges and torpedoes, that this, instead of destruction of my fellow man, is my last memory of the war."

"Run Silent, Run Deep" was written while Capt. Beach was a naval aide to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. A disciplined man, he said that instead of golf or parties, his after-hours time was spent in his living room with a clipboard. The goal was two pages a night.

Asked once to reflect on the meaning of the Navy in his life, he spoke of adventure and the opportunity to do things that most people "just couldn't  comprehend." He also said "it's always been a tremendous feeling that I am part of an organization that's much bigger than I am."

But Capt. Beach was not uncritical when he saw what he believed to be shortcomings. He took issue with what he viewed as the Pentagon's failure to warn Pearl Harbor in time to prepare for the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack  there.

In his 1995 book "Scapegoats: A Defense of Kimmel and Short at Pearl Harbor," he worked to clear the records of Adm. Husband E. Kimmel and Gen. Walter C. Short, the Navy and Army commanders who he said were wrongfully blamed for being caught off guard.

Capt. Beach was vigorous in his criticism of the Navy for providing  defective torpedoes early in the war; they sometimes reversed course and headed for the submarines that launched them.

From 1969 to 1977, Beach was staff director of the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee. Afterward, he devoted himself to writing.

His wife, Ingrid, said that many sailors wrote to him, saying that his  books inspired them to enlist and achieve.

Beach Hall in Annapolis, headquarters of the Naval Institute Press, is named for him and his father.

In addition to his wife, of Georgetown, survivors include two sons, Edward A., of Eau Claire, Wis., a professor of philosophy, and Hugh S., of Stockholm, an anthropologist; a daughter, Ingrid A. Beach, of Nelson, New Zealand; a sister, Alice L. Beach, of Palo Alto, Calif.; and four grandchildren.