Chapter 1

On the Beach opens with Lieutenant Commander Peter Holmes of the Royal Australian Navy preparing for a new naval assignment. One year earlier, there had been a devastating nuclear conflict in North America, Europe, and Asia. As a result, billions of people have died from nuclear radiation, which will eventually reach Australia.

However, Peter is happy to be getting a new assignment. After he fetches milk for his wife, Mary, and his infant daughter, Jennifer, he travels to Melbourne to learn the nature of his new appointment.

In Melbourne, Peter is appointed as the liaison officer to the U.S. submarine, the U.S.S. Scorpion. He has met the captain, Commander Dwight Towers, and remembers him as a "... quiet, soft-spoken man of thirty-five or so with a slight New England accent."

When the war had erupted a year earlier, the Scorpion was cruising near Australia. When...