7. Rickover was selected for nuclear power training after the end of the war
In 1945 Rickover was sent to Okinawa, tasked with establishing a ship repair facility. A typhoon destroyed the facility just as the end of the Pacific War rendered it redundant. The US Navy was already then beginning to study the feasibility of using atomic power as a means of ship propulsion. During World War II one of the most hazardous tasks performed by the fleets at sea was the refueling of destroyers. Destroyers carried smaller fuel loads and required numerous refuelings when accompanying the task forces on long voyages. Rickover was assigned to the General Electric plant in Schenectady, New York, to determine the feasibility of developing atomic power plants for destroyers. His own experience with submarines led him to lobby instead for the development of a reactor which would make what were then submersible surface ships into true submarines.
The following year the Navy announced a program to have a contingent trained in nuclear power at the Manhattan Project’s Oak Ridge facility. Rickover applied and received the endorsement of his former boss, Rear Admiral Earle Mills. Aware of Rickover’s reputation among his fellow officers, Mills nonetheless endorsed Rickover to head the Navy’s contingent to the Army facility. By then Rickover was known as an officer who held many Naval traditions and courtesies (such as captain’s inspections) in unbridled contempt. His frankness when evaluating equipment and procedures had made him enemies among the officers criticized by his reports. Rickover was also known to oppose the bureaucratic system, in which officers had developed their own zones of control, and instead tended to focus on all aspects of systems development. From the onset, his appointment to head the Navy’s nuclear propulsion effort drew opposition within the Navy.