can’t find any record of a loss in 1966. Can you fill in the blanks ? Thanks
https://www.hullnumber.com/SSN-585
https://naval-encyclopedia.com/cold-war/us/skipjack-class-submarines.php
https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_shipwrecks_in_1966
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lost_United_States_submarines
That “blank” seems to be an error in one of my reference books. I use an encyclopedia named Weapons and Warfare of the 20th Century. It says the Scorpion 589, was lost in ‘66, but that’s wrong. The 589 was lost near the Azores in 1968. I should have spotted the mixup ‘cause I was too close to that one. And the reporting was fuzzy ‘cause the Scorpion was a Skipjack class boat.
Then, the Scorpion was a weird case anyway: The first nuke hull was layed down in 57. But Ike and Rickover got antsy about wanting a boomer so they cut the first Scorpion in half, added a missile section, and re-named it the George Washington. Then they started a second Scorpion which is the one lost in ‘68.
Similar bit of confusion with the Thresher SSN 593, which was a class boat. It was lost in 1963 but naturally all the drawings, tech manuals, etc. were labeled “Thresher.” As time went by and the other class boats got finished some bean counter changed the “class” to “Permit SSN 594”. While working on the rest of the class boats one had to be extra careful to make sure you were looking at the right stuff.
As I recall it was the Woods Hole guys who got some pics of the Scorpion wreck. It was “telescoped” with the prop and shaft laying in the mud behind a shortened engine room section. That’s a heckuva over-pressurization. The ends of the pressure hull on that class are Truncated which means the whole thing collapsed like a diesel piston slamming top dead center.