When the idea of a nuclear submarine was hardly considered, J. William (Bill) Jones, Jr., was an apprentice for $14.50 a week at Electric Boat, a division of General Dynamics in Groton, Connecticut. He was born at Corning, New York, attended public schools at Flint, Michigan, and received a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from Lehigh University in 1933. "It was the Great Depression then," he said, "and any kind of a job was welcome."
Jones, in many ways, though, was fortunate. He had a close but frequently rocky relationship with Hyman Rickover, who he described as a cantankerous but brilliant father of what is now America's nuclear Navy. Jones still had a merry twinkle in his eye as he recalled his first meeting with Rickover. When Electric Boat was asked to pick 10 names to come to remote and little-known Idaho to build the Nautilus prototype in 1950, Jones did so, then added his own name. Only he and another person who was director of operations were chosen to go. The other man didn't want to go, so Jones took the trip alone.
That was December 1950, and it wasn't exactly a pleasant experience. His plane was stuck at Rock Springs, Wyoming, by a winter storm. Rickover met him at Logan, Utah, and they traveled by car to Salt Lake City to check out a company that built structures of some 33 feet in diameter for the submarine prototype. "He was a stiff-necked guy, all business," recalled Jones of Rickover. They flew from Salt Lake City to Idaho Falls during that severe winter day and what Jones saw at the NRTS was not exactly imposing. EBR-I, the first NRTS structure built at the site, was near completion but there was only a hole in the ground at what was to become S1W, the Nautilus prototype.
"Rickover was very nasty and liked to upset people," said Jones. "We had a working relationship for 17 years, but it was never one of warm friendship. He often called meetings on weekends, early in the mornings, or other difficult times. I can't ever remember him going to or enjoying himself at a social function. It was all work for him."
Jones remembered one early meeting with Rickover in 1951 at a stormy luncheon at the NRF cafeteria. He aggravated me so much that I called him an S.O.B.," said Jones. "I thought then it would take him less than 15 minutes to make a telephone call and get me fired. Instead, as he left he said, 'Yeah, Jones, but they never called me a dumb S.O.B.' "
Jones even now asserted Rickover was the right man in the right place for the nuclear submarine and later nuclear ships. "Without him, our country would have taken 20 years longer," he said. "We took the lead and still hold it."
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