Arctic Submarine Laboratory

The Arctic Submarine Laboratory was a research facility of the U.S. Navy's Electronics Laboratory in San Diego, California. It began as a converted World War II mortar emplacement, Battery Whistler, and was focused on scientific exploration of the Arctic Basin, and particularly providing the capability to operate attack submarines in the Arctic under the ice canopy.

In 1941, Dr. Waldo K. Lyon started work at the Navy Radio and Sound Lab, as their first Ph.D. physicist. He was charged with forming and directing initial efforts of the Sound Division. The lab was used during World War II for testing, repairing and modifying submarine equipment and harbor defense systems in the Pacific Ocean.

Lyon recalls the creation of the Arctic Submarine Laboratory after the war:

His recommendation initiated an effort that would last over four decades.

In 1947, with the merger of Navy Radio and Sound Laboratory and the University of California Division of War Research into the Navy Electronics Laboratory (NEL), Dr. Lyon became head of the Submarine Studies Branch in the Research Division.

A test pool was constructed at Battery Whistler (a converted mortar battery at NEL) to test equipment for deep submergence vehicles like Bathyscaphe Trieste. The pool was equipped to grow sea ice and study its physical properties. The new facility also included a field station at Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, established in 1951.

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