Title: Living The Miracles: A Sailor’s Life in the Nuclear Power Age
Author: Albert Lee Kelln
Publisher: Proisle Publishing Service
ISBN: 1737871262
Pages: 220
Genre: Memoir
Synopsis
Al Kelln’s twenty-seven miracles will inspire the reader. The son of German speaking immigrants left the aftermath of the Depression in Oklahoma to become a Naval officer and nuclear propulsion engineer.
His years at U.S. Naval Academy (class of 1952) prepared him for destroyer and diesel submarine deployments to the Korean War. Surviving several close calls, the author trained in Admiral Rickover’s Nuclear Power School.
Early exploratory voyages under the ice to the Arctic Ocean on nuclear submarine USS Skate allowed him to be the first person to have flown over, stood at, and gone under the ice at the North Pole.
Kelln served in the construction and subsequent operation of four nuclear submarines. Admiral Rickover made him the Chief Engineer of Aircraft Carrier Enterprise CVAN for its operations in the Mediterranean, its circumnavigation of the world, and shipyard overhaul.
With humor, the author shares poignant meetings with John Eisenhower, the Queen of Greece, and ruffians at Holy Loch, Scotland.
After retirement, Admiral Kelln founded the Naval Submarine League and several Christian endeavors, including a Pregnancy Center. He and his wife, Cecily, live in Llano, Texas and continue their teaching ministries.
About the Author
Born into an immigrant family of Germans from Russia, Albert Lee Kelln grew up in Shattuck, Oklahoma, during the trials of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and World War II. How he got to the U.S. Naval Academy, became a nuclear-trained submariner, and attained the rank of Rear Admiral years before his peers are all part of his memoir “Living the MIRACLES: A Sailor’s Life in the Nuclear Power Age.”
Al’s first book written while a student at the Naval Academy titled “Confederate Submarines” was published by the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography in July 1953 and relates the first successful sinking of a warship by a manned submarine. Writing this book influenced Al’s path to become one of the fifteen initial candidates to graduate from the Navy’s Nuclear Power Plant Operators School under the direct tutelage of Admiral Hyman Rickover.
Al’s twenty-eight years of service in the U.S. Navy encompassed historical firsts, close calls, and demanding leadership assignments, such as nuclear submarine commander, Chief Engineer of the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, and Commodore of a squadron of nuclear submarines. Before retirement, Al served in a key role to develop the new Trident Submarine and Missile program. After retirement, Al became founder of the Naval Submarine League.
He and his wife, Cecily Watson Kelln, also a writer, established several Christian ministries, such as the Tomball (Texas) Pregnancy Center. In 2011, they moved to the Texas Hill Country to create a quiet little ranch farm abounding in solar power, collected rain water, aquaculture gardens,