Posted on 02/18/2025 4:52:16 AM PST by Nervous Tick
The loss of the Skipjack-class nuclear attack submarine USS Scorpion (SSN-589) remains to many an unresolved mystery more than 56 years after it sank, with all hands, on 22 May 1968. But a closer look at the event suggests a different description: that it is one of the more closely guarded secrets of the Cold War.
This is a focused review of the critical 18-day period immediately following the sinking, and eight key events that occurred during that span. It includes the sinking itself; the Scorpion’s failure to reach Norfolk as scheduled on Monday 27 May; the formal declaration of “Event SUBMISS” at 1500 EDT that day; the frantic eight-day open-ocean search that ended on 4 June with the Navy’s announcement both submarine and crew were presumed lost; and the opening of the Court of Inquiry into the incident the following day. In addition, it includes evidence to suggest the wreckage was not, as the Navy declared, discovered five months later on 28 October, but in early June—less than a week after the Navy pronounced the Scorpion was presumed lost.
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The veterans’ account of happened next at the COMSUBLANT message center indicates that 12 hours earlier, something far from routine had taken place in the eastern Atlantic. According to Hannon and Larbes, the quiet of the overnight watch ended abruptly several hours after midnight, when a number of senior COMSUBLANT officers suddenly barged into the message center, loudly speaking and arguing over the Scorpion’s status.
“I had never seen a captain or an admiral come into that place in the two and one-half years I worked there,” Larbes recalled. “Now we had captains and admirals running around wanting more information [about the Scorpion]. It was so crazy – they even suspended all of the saluting and all that.”
When Hannon arrived back at the message center shortly before 0800 on Thursday morning, 23 May, he found the workspace still full of senior officers, including a two-star Marine general. They were clogging the narrow aisles between the desks and tables with crypto machines. The room was full of cigarette smoke, and Hannon had difficulty performing his daily routine because of the nonstop telephone calls, arguments, and heated conversations.
But seemingly secure in a workspace where everything was classified Top Secret, the officers made no attempt to conceal their conversations from the duty radiomen, Hannon and Larbes said. Based on what they overheard, when the senior officers arrived at the message center after midnight, they already knew the Scorpion’s fate.
“There were officers openly discussing the fact that they believed the Scorpion had been sunk,” Hannon said.
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In the days and weeks that followed, Hannon said he became confused, then furious, as he watched the Navy hide the truth about the sinking, beginning with COMSUBLANT’s release on 24 May of the Scorpion’s scheduled 1300 arrival on Monday, 27 May, some five days after it sank. On the morning of the day that its disappearance could no longer be hidden, Hannon said he drove over to the destroyer-submarine piers and was devastated to see the families of the crew braving the nor’easter for the return of loved ones who were already gone.
“That sight has haunted me for more than 50 years,” Hannon said in 2017.
That was a tip off for sure. You are uncovered indoors and no one salutes uncovered. At least that is what was drilled into me.
Those were tense times for sure. I wonder if Clancy got any ideas from this one.
I’ll 2nd that, great book, worth reading FReepers.
The story of our tapping of the undersea cable in the Sea of Okhostk was just insane.
Read “All Hands Down”. I believe, after reading it, that the Soviets sank her.
DiogenesLamp ~ Which is exactly why it was kept under wraps.
Yes. It was the best decision possible at the time, painful and soul wrenching as it must have been for the decision makers.
1968, the year of 4 lost subs: Russian, French, Israeli and US.
Read:
“All Hands Down: The True Story of the Soviet Attack on the USS Scorpion”.
All Hands Down: The True Story of the Soviet Attack on the USS Scorpion
All Hands Down: The True Story of the Soviet Attack on the USS Scorpion
The only time I ever saluted indoors (uncovered) was when reporting for duty to the commander in his office (this was in the Air Force ‘70s to ‘90s) or during a pinning-on ceremony.
As I understand it she sank because of a faulty hull repair that failed. And if I remember correctly she hung up on a thermal layer for some amount of time before her final dive.
That must have been a thrill for the crew.
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The Thresher sank because of ice in the main ballast blow valve aft. They were doing angles and dangles and had a problem and blew main ballast, the aft ballast valve stopped working because of ice in the valve and so the ship developed a near ninety degree up bubble, the air spilled out the bottom of the MBT’s and the captian opened the forward vents and immediately they went down again. There was still a little air in the aft MBTs so they developed a near ninety down. At that point the reactor scramed so they could not push through the problem they were dependent on the MBTs. They blew again and aft again froze up again, they repeated it the third time and never recovered. This is what made all the boats install emergency main ballast blow valves. The new valves were huge ball valves and would be unaffected by ice. They even had a manual huge hand wheel to force open the valves if the air failed to open them. The program was called “Sub Safe” and included many other changes.
On sea trials after every refit we would test main blow from test depth, knowing what happened to Thresher I hated it but we never had a problem.
I think that lax maintenance and operation on the hi-packs caused the Thresher problem. Water was supposed to automatically drain but sometimes didn’t so we would several times a day manually open the drain cocks to make sure the air was dry. It was a noisy process but an important one.
Submarines are a greate weapon but require constant maintenance and attention.
You couldn’t get me to go back and serve on a boat again for a million dollars but I wouldn’t take a million dollars for my service there either. I learned a lot about a lot of things and am grateful for my time aboard the Henry but I don’t want to go back. The Henry by the way is razor blades now a casualty of the Salt agreement.
yup.
I was in the Navy Air at that time and we transported a sailor from Hawaii because he had gone completely nuts (according to the the Captain)...I agree with you. I wouldn’t take a million bucks to ride in a boat under the ice. But that is just me.
Thanks for the recommendation, just ordered the paperback.
I was in USN late 70’s. Rumors I heard were , Skorpion was sunk by soviets. Nothing to back it up, it was just what was circulating among us swabbies.
Yeah, it looks different after reading the article. I had to violate FR rules just to read the article.
No one is supposed to but I saw some places where officers demanded it (those inferiority complexes must be a bitch). At basic I ended up in a military hospital with pneumonia and we were either jumping out of bed to salute Frank Burns types or being told to get back in them by Hawkeyes. "Good training".
Thanks for the info.
She sank because, during the emergency blow, ice formed on the piping strainers in the ballast tanks. Once she went negative-buoyant the ran the reactors past redline power settings and the reactors scrammed. Sinking, no power.
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