Here is a magazine article about the submarine Nautilus that made an unsuccessful attempt to travel under the polar icecap in the 1930's. I couldn't get one of the pages and have used the text from that page, which was still available.
Reblogged from http://blog.modernmechanix.com/will-the-nautilus-freeze-under-the-north-pole/#mmGal
Fantastic, at first glance, the Wilkins expedition certainly is. In fact, to the layman it is more than fantastic—it is suicidal. This opinion, incidentally, is concurred in by many submarine experts of the world’s navies, some of whom are quoted later on in this article. Even the sponsors of the trip have admitted the possibility of a great disaster which will snuff out the Nautilus and all aboard it. Yet every resource of science, every mechanical precaution which ingenuity can devise, is incorporated in the Nautilus to protect the submarine from anticipated dangers. The detailed drawing on page 48 shows the arrangement of the novel devices which make the Nautilus the most unique submarine in all history. Most of these devices—ice-cutting drills, sled runners, diving chambers, etc. —were designed by Simon Lake, veteran submarine inventor.
What are the dangers which will imperil the expedition? Some of the most obvious are these: The Nautilus may get caught beneath ice so thick that its 100-foot drills could not bore through it; consequently the submarine could not get air, without which the men would perish. Air is also essential to run the Diesel engines used to recharge the batteries which drive the sub under water. For eight hours out of the 24 the sub must lie on the surface recharging the batteries.
The bow of the Nautilus, reinforced with concrete though it is, may be damaged by collision with obstacles sufficient to spring a leak and flood the interior.
Batteries may be discharged more rapidly than calculated, leaving the submarine powerless.
Damaged propellers or control surfaces jammed with ice may not be amenable to repair by divers.
The submarine that Doc Savage had in THE POLAR TREASURE was presumably similar to the one that was described in this article.
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