Autonomous unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) are able to perform missions that would be unsafe or impossible for manned submarines. These missions include but are not limited to mine counter measures (MCM) and collection of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance data (ISR). The parameters of these missions occupy an important trade-space between stealth and communications. The operational tasks required of UUVs fall into two general categories: patrolling a region to gather data, and transporting data out of the operational region. Radio waves are absorbed by sea water - only the lowest frequencies penetrate down to a depth that is useful for UUV operations. Low frequencies require large antennas and high power to transmit efficiently. Radio communications from shore facilities to underwater vehicles are thus restricted to the VLF band (3kHz – 30kHz), or lower, and are not used for underwater to above surface return communications because of these limitations. Shorter-range, in-theater VLF is a concept that allows communication to submerged UUVs via airborne antennas within a few tens of kilometers of the UUV location. This paper develops the concept of in-theater VLF, including a process to send data back from UUVs to surface assets. This concept is a form of cooperative networking, and to illustrate this networking the following mission is proposed: A swarm of several UUVs simultaneously receive a VLF signal. The vehicles communicate underwater with each other using acoustic or optical signaling and aggregate their response. Finally one of the UUVs travels to a location where it can safely surface to communicate results to mission controllers. This paper presents simulation results of in-theater VLF communication with UUVs. The simulation integrates several models of communications among vehicles and incorporates all significant propagation and network effects. The simulation results can be used by command staff to investigate the range of mission scenarios over in-theater VLF is practical.