Rickover, Hyman G.
Rickover, Hyman G. (1900–1986), U.S. naval officer. Hyman George Rickover is generally known as the “father of the atomic submarine,” having been head of the U.S. Navy's nuclear submarine program from 1948 until his retirement in 1982.
Born in Makow (now Maków Mazowiecki), Poland, then a province of Czarist Russia, Rickover came to America at age four, his family settling in Chicago. A good student, he earned an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy. Although Jewish in a highly prejudiced service, he was generally liked at the academy. (Later, would he renounce Judaism and became an Episcopalian.) He graduated in 1922 and as a young officer served in a destroyer and then a battleship. He received a postgraduate degree in electrical engineering and in 1929 entered the submarine service. Though qualified to command a submarine, Rickover was not given a command and in 1935 returned to surface ship duty.
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