Submerged Audiobook By Henry Rausch cover art

Submerged

Life on a Fast Attack Submarine in the Last Days of the Cold War

 Virtual Voice Sample

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection of titles.
Yours as long as you’re a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Standard auto renews for $8.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Submerged

By: Henry Rausch
Narrated by: Virtual Voice
Try Standard free

$8.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $9.99

Buy for $9.99

Background images

This title uses virtual voice narration

Virtual voice is computer-generated narration for audiobooks.
First Prize Winner in Published NonFiction, WriterCon 2025!

The author graduates from an elite university and enters the submarine service in the mid-1980s when rhetoric between the US and USSR threatens to turn the Cold War hot. He encounters an unforgiving world where submarines hunt each other unseen and unheralded in the ocean depths and in which minor mistakes can result in catastrophe. On four classified missions to the Mediterranean Sea, the North Atlantic, the Barents Sea, and the North Pole, he gradually and painfully learns the trade of a nuclear submarine officer in a world few people know of and even fewer have experienced.
These missions exert a heavy personal toll. At sea, the submarine crew exercises total radio silence and the rescue buoy is welded fast to the hull, ensuring that their families will never know if a catastrophe occurs. During these missions, his young wife suffers a miscarriage and later gives birth via emergency C-section, all while the author is at sea and unaware. While she undergoes these trials alone, the sub conducts missions vital to the security of the United States. Far from home, in the unforgiving depths, they track adversary submarines in dangerous games of cat and mouse where a mistake could result in a collision, flooding, and death. A storm damages the sub on the way to the North Pole, jeopardizing the ability to surface through the ice. They finally do so, after weeks of transiting through underwater ice canyons of pressure ridges capable of rupturing the hull on impact. While under the ice the crew suffers a poison gas leak and has to find a hole to surface quickly or perish.
The main theme of the work is growth. As the author journeyed to the ends of the earth and the depths of the ocean, he also made a personal journey from a sniveling boy-man to an apex predator of the deep. Sub-themes are how men and women cope with adversity, and how when things are at their worst, people are at their best. It is a tribute to the human spirit, especially the men who sailed these ships, and the families who loved and supported them. Armed Forces Biographies & Memoirs Military Military & War Naval Forces Submarine Cold War
Authentic Experiences • Well-written Content • Acceptable Ai Narration • Detailed Background • Sincere Delivery

Highly rated for:

All stars
Most relevant
Like being there experience. Very proud of the men and woman that serve our country!

Authentic view of sub life and leedership

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
While the detailed story was in many ways excellent, the presentation was poor, it sounded like it was a computer verbalization as many things were mispronounced, and frequently pauses were in the wrong places so required careful listening to follow along.

I appreciated hearing that O-gangers suffered from many of the same personnel mismanagement issues as did the working crew.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great book if you were in the navy and even if you weren’t.

It’s weakness is using a robo-reader to perform the task of narration. This is a GREAT weakness. It almost ruins the book. The book is well written and deserves a human reader with a knowledge of navy terms. Far too many mispronounded words and particularly acronyms. Submarine hatches are “dogged,” not “dog-ed.” Junior officers are “jay-ohs,” not “joes.” The officer of the deck, the OOD, is always read by the robot as the one syllable word “uud.” The sub’s engineering officer in the navy world is the “eng,” as in engine, not “ing” as in ring. And so on.

Still worth a listen, but you’ll wince at some of the robot reader errors.

Excellent Submarine True Story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The automated voice was very mechanical in places, missed normal jargon, so was
distracting. Inflections incorrect or non-existent. Poor overall execution.

Interesting story, poor execution.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I never knew just how complex it is to become a certified part of he naval solving crew.

Well written and narrated

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews