By Robert G. Mahan, Lieutenant, USN (Ret.)

I was the Engineering Officer of the Watch on SSN-643 during shakedown – Rickover was riding.  He came into Maneuvering and issued an order to scram the plant.  When I tried to intercede, he made me drop to the deck while the Electric Plant Control Panel operator (Mitchell EM1) handled the drill.

Meantime Rickover summoned the corpsman and directed him to carry me to AMR-2 and administer 2 bottles of miniature brandies to me.  His final order was “make sure he drinks it’.

Only time I ever consumed alcohol on a ship.