About The Author

Born into an immigrant family of Germans from Russia, Albert Lee Kelln grew up in Shattuck, Oklahoma, during the trials of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and World War II. How he got to the U.S. Naval Academy, became a nuclear-trained submariner, and attained the rank of Rear Admiral years before his peers are all part of his memoir “Living the MIRACLES: A Sailor’s Life in the Nuclear Power Age.”

Al’s first book written while a student at the Naval Academy titled “Confederate Submarines” was published by the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography in July 1953 and relates the first successful sinking of a warship by a manned submarine. Writing this book influenced Al’s path to become one of the fifteen initial candidates to graduate from the Navy’s Nuclear Power Plant Operators School under the direct tutelage of Admiral Hyman Rickover.

Al’s twenty-eight years of service in the U.S. Navy encompassed historical firsts, close calls, and demanding leadership assignments, such as nuclear submarine commander, Chief Engineer of the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, and Commodore of a squadron of nuclear submarines. Before retirement, Al served in a key role to develop the new Trident Submarine and Missile program. After retirement, Al became founder of the Naval Submarine League.

He and his wife, Cecily Watson Kelln, also a writer, established several Christian ministries, such as the Tomball (Texas) Pregnancy Center. In 2011, they moved to the Texas Hill Country to create a quiet little ranch farm abounding in solar power, collected rain water, aquaculture gardens, chickens, rabbits, sheep and occasionally a covey of quail. Al has become a teacher of biblical End Times effects and periodically conducts a sixteen-session course on the subject.