former submariner advising film crew
By Ward Sanderson, Stars and Stripes
Wylie Miller, a retiree who lives in Naples, watches action on the set
of the NBC movie, "Submerged." Miller worked as a technical
adviser for the submarine rescue film about the sinking of the USS Squalus.
ISLE OF MALTA — So many happy old ghosts found Wylie Miller here.
He was in Malta to help in the shooting of a TV movie based on the rescue of a downed submarine, a real event from 1939. Wylie was a former submariner and would make sure Hollywood got the details right.
But who could have known? The 62-year-old’s whole life seemed to come steaming back to him many miles and an ocean away from his native California.
There was Sam Neill trying to learn ukulele, a Wylie talent. Then there was James B. Sikking, an actor now but who, years ago, walked the same high school halls as Wylie. And the British assistant director who was once a hippie protester, heckling Wylie and his submariner buddies.
"I freaked out," Wylie said of all this.
Then there were the happy ghosts that got him this job to begin with, stronger now with his trying to remember them: His love of submarines, his memory of seeing one for the first time as a kid, what he learned later from actually serving aboard three.
This movie thing happened suddenly. The film studio, shooting a picture for NBC, called the U.S. submarine command in Naples. It needed a technical director, someone who knew subs. The command passed the request to Wylie. He lives in Naples with his Italian wife and runs the local military retiree association. He spent 10 years in the Navy and another 10 in the Air Force.
He got the job on a Tuesday and was told to show up in Rome for a shoot the next day. An express delivery driver met Wylie at the train station that morning, bringing the script. Wylie wolfed down the 97 pages on the train from Naples.
He suggested changes: "You need to say things like five-zero feet instead of 50 feet," he told them. Four divers who helped in the rescue of the USS Squalus crew were awarded the Medal of Honor, but the script never mentioned them. Wylie added that.
That was in March. First there were interior shots on a set in Rome, then exterior shots in Malta in April. The studio used a prop sub made for the film "U-571." It could steam but couldn’t actually dive.
Wylie, all shades and windbreaker, watched it hover from the limestone Maltese shore. Wylie Lucas. Wylie Spielberg.
The sub moved slowly offshore, and Sam Neill — you know, "Jurassic Park" and that other submarine movie, "The Hunt for Red October" — walked atop it. "There he is," Wylie said. "Swede Momsen."
The real Cmdr. Momsen invented the rescue chamber that saved the 33 Squalus survivors. The sub went down off New Hampshire when a valve failed to close, killing 26 men in the initial flooding. Writer Peter Maas penned a book about the dramatic rescue, "The Terrible Hours." This NBC movie, "Submerged," is adapted from the Maas account.
As Wylie watched Neill and crew, something suddenly bothered him. "See that officer in front? He should be moving around. Looking right, looking left. I’m going to tell the director that."
Off Wylie went.
He taught the pseudo-sailors how to wear white caps, known as Dixie Cups. He told them to salute the colors when boarding. He tried to teach an actor to do Morse code, but instead he wound up doing it himself and the film crew recorded him.
Wylie was tired but having a blast. He met Jane Seymour, wife of director James Keach. He met Justine Mattera, the actress known in Italy as a retro-style-blonde-bombshell, an in-the-buff pinup.
Wylie played the ukulele. So did Swede Momsen, and now, so did Sam Neill.
"He said, ‘Can you play it?’ " Wylie remembered. "I said, ‘Yeah.’ "
Then there was James B. Sikking, probably best known for "Hill Street Blues." He plays an admiral.
"We’ve been real tight," Wylie said. "Mutual acquaintances. Same teachers."
"We went to the same high school," Sikking said.
They both graduated from El Segundo (Calif.) High School.
"It was dumbfounding to be here in Malta," Sikking said. "When he said he was from El Segundo, I couldn’t believe it."
Then there was the assistant director, Simon Hinkly. Wylie was stationed in Scotland in the ’60s. "That’s when I met Simon," Wylie said. "I probably stepped on him."
Hinkly was a long-haired activist at the time who drove up from London to protest Wylie and the Navy. They used to lie down across the pier, forcing submariners to dance around them when leaving the sub.
"I was there to protest American imperialism," Hinkly said.
"They weren’t there when we came back drunk," Wylie said, "so we didn’t care."
And now he and Wiley were on the same patriotic picture.
Wylie switched to the Air Force so he could settle on terra firma with his new wife. But working on "Submerged" brought back the stealthy magic of running silent and running deep.
He had been a radioman. Though subs sank, that never worried Wylie. He’d wanted to be on a sub since he was a kid.
"I got the idea when my aunt took me to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago," he said. He was just 13 and the museum had a captured German sub you could walk through. Back home, Wylie would stand on the Southern California shore and watch Navy ships come and go from Long Beach.
Wylie was hooked. He said the Navy and its subs did not disappoint.
"It was the excitement of being hidden, of not being seen, of having all the comforts of home," he said. "Kind of like being in a satellite looking down on everyone."
Even after surfacing, a sub is like nothing else. It took Wylie a while to explain. It was the feel of the great machine as you look out from the conning tower, most of the big ship still submerged and rolling with the swell. Its vibrating strength beneath you and you knowing you’re in charge of it.
This reverence is what Wylie wanted the "Submerged" crew to respect.
"The real thing for me," Wylie said, "was to contribute some of the things I heard in the Navy to keep this story true."
Wylie made money on the shoot, but won’t say how much. He did say he hopes to be in pictures again. Who knows what happy old ghosts will find him next time.
"I’ll be an accredited technical adviser. I could put it on my resume, they said. I said, ‘Cool. Get me another job.’ "