At 11:15 PM (EDT) on 3 August 1958, USS NAUTILUS (SSN-571) became the first vessel of any kind to reach the geographic North Pole. The boat’s navigator, Lieutenant Shep Jenks, filled out a special ship’s position form for the occasion—then noticed he had done so in blue ink, which was not, as far as the Navy was concerned, an official color. So he wrote a second form—the one that has ended up in countless photographs—in black ink, but he kept the original. This past spring, shortly after Jenks’s death, his stepson contacted the Museum to ask if we might like to have a form that he had found among his stepfather’s personal papers. Little did he know what a wonderful piece of American history he was holding! We are proud to have added this unique artifact to our collection and we thank the Jenks family for their generosity in donating it.
