The Thresher's last dance.

[actaeon277]

The Thresher’s last dance. Part 14​

*ENGINEERING,SCORPION*
Cheng (Sub talk for Chief ENGineer) walks, checking his spaces, looking at the equipment but mostly talking to the officers and the watch standers. Anyone that’s ever been in command knows the equipment is important, but the men more so. Admiral Rickover himself not only not only was instrumental in creating the Naval Nuclear Power Program, but he personally interviewed EVERY SINGLE prospective officer in the program.
Mostly, Cheng was reassuring himself. It was his job to worry, he WAS the Chief Engineer, in charge of all in Engineering Department, men and equipment. He and the other department heads (Weaps, Comms, Supply, Med, etc.) were only subordinate to the CO and XO. Scorpion had had some problems recently, it was a highly complex machine operating in a dangerous environment. A Freon leak in the refrigeration systems, an electrical fire in the escape trunk, various equipment tagged to be looked at once in port, and she was operating with a depth restriction due to incomplete SUBSAFE upgrades (lessons learned from Thresher). Really, nothing more or less than had happened in any sub of the fleet. He heard the men gripe about not going straight to “the barn”, but soldier’s and sailor’s gripe, it’s their escape in highly stressful environments.
It wasn’t just the Scorpion that had had some problems. So far, 1968 had been a bad year for submarines across the globe.
INS Dakar was lost to the Israeli Sea Corp 25 January. On her way to port, she had periodically transmitted. But the transmissions ceased. The Dakar was lost with all hands, no known cause, no known location.
The Minerve S647 was lost to the French Navy 27 Jan. One hour from pulling into port, she radioed her status. She never made it to port. She hasn’t been found.
And more recently, K-129 was lost to the Soviets. 24 Feb she made a test dive and a listening station picked her up reporting completion to base. She submerged, never to be seen again.
This would not happen to the Scorpion, Cheng would see to that.


*ENGINEERING, SCORPION*
The ensign standing an “under instruction” watch at EOW (Engineer of the Watch, pronounced ee-ow) was tired. Physically tired, mentally tired. He swore his bones were tired. After long hours at nuke school was even longer hours at nuke prototype, studying and even standing watch simulating a submarine on land. After nuke prototype, do you think he could take a break or get a pat on the back? No. He was assigned to the Scorpion….. all 252 foot, 3 thousand tons of her. There were other NUBs onboard (sub talk for Non Useable Body, someone that sucks down oxygen but provides no useful output.), but NUBs were usually put with senior crew, to break them in. How was he going to lead these men, when they had years of experience at what they were doing. And it showed in the way they stood their watches. They made their reports, talked about everything from nuclear power to what they were going to do when they made port, and still scanned their equipment with the ease that could only come from hours and hours, days after days, of doing their jobs.
After all, the Scorpion was not a new vessel out on trials, like the Thresher. Her keel had been laid 10 years before. Numerous missions, racking up hour upon hour, mile upon mile. She was as safe as she could be, operating in a hostile environment.

Author’s Note: I highly recommend reading about Admiral Rickover.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_G._Rickover

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49068823
French Minerve submarine is found after disappearing in 1968

Thanks to d.kaufman for finding this article

 

[Hawkeye]

I saw the Minerva info earlier today. She was deep. Didnot know the Med was so deep that close to shore.

 

[Nazgul]

That is deep for a sub. My only experience on a sub was a bus driver.

I was in an enlisted commissioning program in Seattle when they discovered I had a bus driver certification and a Secret Security clearance. It involved some nuke stuff and communication handling info. They decided I was the one to drive the bus for the Naval ROTC to visit subs docked nearby.

Whenever I got on the boats, the Chief was usually there and twice took me aside for a somewhat extended tour. I have seen the "Glory Hole" and other things not allowed to the ROTC plebes.

Instruments were covered up in most areas. Being observant I did note what their range of depth was...….

By far the most interesting was the sonar capabilities, ***, amazing!!!

Don

 

[Brad69]

Wow

I just read a article about the Lost of four submarines in 1968

Israeli Dakar 25 Jan
Ex British sub sold to Israel an updated WW 2 sub that was modernized and evidently crewed by capable men 69 lost.

French 27 Jan
Minerva was a intermediate sized sub designed with high maneuverability and the ability to go in the open ocean. Just went through a refit and may have had some secret squirrel stuff and rumored to be a excellent Soviet Nuclear sub killer? Experienced crew considered a elite group in the French Navy 52 lost.

Russia 8 Mar (approx)
K-129 Big ballistic sub evidently 40 of the crew were new and the sub was called out on a mission halfway through a normal shore leave/repairs.
Lots of strange stuff surrounding this lost including the Russians claiming the U.S. Navy sunk it? 98 men lost.

U.S.A 22 May
Scorpion this one is even stranger! While having a experienced crew the sub had maintenance issues and needed repairs it left Spain shadowed by two Soviet killer subs. The Scorpion was sent to check out some Soviet activity around the Azores some rumors state another U.S. sub, one of the big ballistic subs was trying to shake Soviet killer subs and the Scorpion was sent to confront the Soviets? Other rumors that it was sunk by the Soviets in retaliation for the K-129 ? 99 men lost.

So Act wtf happened ?
Seems like 4 in a year is a bit much!

 

[actaeon277]

4 in a year is a bit much.
Still, statistically speaking, it was just a bad year. 4 times the dice came up snake eyes.
It's unlikely. But not impossible.

 

[Thor]

Bump!

First round of declassified USS Thresher Documents to be released in Sept.

https://news.usni.org/2020/07/22/fi...7.23.20&utm_term=Editorial - Early Bird Brief

 

[actaeon277]

Navy Declassifies 300 Pages of Probe into 1963 USS Thresher Disaster
https://www.military.com/daily-news...-uss-thresher-disaster.html?ESRC=eb_200924.nl


Read the comments at the end.
A lot of submariners are against releasing more info.
While electronic tech may change rapidly, basic sub tech hasn't.