Hyman Rickover — admiral (nuclear navy) with roots in the Russian Empire
Hyman George Rickover was born Chaim Godalia Rykower on 27 January 1900 in Maków Mazowiecki, a small town in Congress Poland, then part of the Russian Empire. His parents, Abraham and Rachel, née Unger, were Jewish; in March 1906 Chaim, his mother and his sister sailed to New York, where the family first settled. The family soon moved to Chicago, where his father worked as a tailor.
Rickover graduated from John Marshall High School in Chicago with honours in 1918. As his parents could not afford college, he sought an appointment to the US Naval Academy, and Congressman Adolph Sabath nominated him; he graduated with the class of 1922, having replaced his middle name with George. After serving in the destroyer USS La Vallette and the battleship USS Nevada, he took a master's degree in electrical engineering at Columbia University in 1929, trained in submarines, and in 1937 commanded a minesweeper. He served in the Navy through the Second World War, at its end at Okinawa and San Francisco.
In 1946 he was sent to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to study nuclear physics and engineering, and became convinced that nuclear power could propel ships, above all submarines. From 1948 he headed the Navy's nuclear propulsion effort and, at the same time, the naval reactors branch of the Atomic Energy Commission, a dual role that allowed him to drive the project. Congress authorised the first nuclear submarine in 1951; USS Nautilus was laid down in Groton, Connecticut, in 1952, commissioned in 1954 and on 17 January 1955 signalled 'Underway on nuclear power'. Rickover went on to direct the reactor programme for the Navy's growing fleet of nuclear-powered ships; every officer seeking to enter it needed his approval.
Twice passed over for promotion, he was made rear admiral in 1953, vice admiral in 1958 and admiral in 1973, and was twice awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, in 1958 and 1982; President Carter presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980. Congress repeatedly exempted him from the normal retirement age, and he retired in January 1982 after sixty-three years of service under thirteen presidents, the longest-serving officer in the Navy's history. The Naval Academy named its engineering studies complex after him in 1975.
He died in Arlington, Virginia, on 8 July 1986, aged eighty-six. Two submarines have been named after him.
"Came to New York with his mother and sister in March 1906, joining his father; the family settled in Chicago, where his father worked as a tailor."
Migration storyTracing the roots — Maków Mazowiecki, Congress Poland (now Poland)
Born Chaim Godalia Rykower in 1900 in Maków Mazowiecki, a town in Congress Poland, then part of the Russian Empire, to Abraham and Rachel Rykower, he came to the United States with his mother and sister in 1906.
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Maków Mazowiecki, Congress Poland (now Poland). At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.
A career defined by ambition
"The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war."