Posted on 03/11/2020 2:39:05 PM PDT by Red Badger
The submarine mysteriously went down in 1963, killing everyone on board. Thanks to a lawsuit, we're about to learn why.
A retired U.S. Navy submarine commander sued the Navy to release an official report on the sinking of the USS Thresher—and won.
Thresher sank in April 1963, lost with all hands, but there has never been an official explanation as to why.
The loss of Thresher lead to an improved culture of safety in the Navy, and since 1968, the service hasn’t lost a single submarine.
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A retired U.S. Navy submarine commander has won a lawsuit forcing the Navy to release its report on what happened to the USS Thresher, a nuclear-powered attack submarine that sank during diving tests in 1963. The loss of the submarine has never been fully explained, and the Navy has never released the report on the sub’s sinking.
Diagram of Thresher showing off its teardrop hull.
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USS Thresher was the first of its class, a new type of fast, deep diving attack submarine. The Thresher-class subs used a streamlined hull designed for fast underwater travel. With a torpedo-like hull design and a S5W nuclear reactor, the Thresher class could make 20 knots on the surface and 30 knots underwater—the reverse of World War II-era submarines designed to spend most of their time on the surface. The submarines were 278 feet long, 31 feet wide, and carried Mk. 37 homing torpedoes for use against surface and subsurface targets, SUBROC anti-submarine torpedoes, and sea mines.
On April 9, 1963, the Thresher was 220 miles east of Cape Cod, conducting diving tests. It was the first submarine to use the new HY-80 steel alloy, and the Navy was eager to determine how deep the new design could safely dive. At 9:13 a.m., while at a depth of 1,300 feet, the submarine radioed the submarine rescue ship USS Skylark, waiting above:
“Experiencing minor difficulties. Have positive up angle. Am attempting to blow (ballast tanks). Will keep you informed.”
But Thresher never surfaced, and the Navy later found the sub in six pieces on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. All 129 personnel on board were killed. People have come up with many theories about how the sub sank, including blaming the faulty welds that failed during the tests, shorting out the sub's critical electrical systems and sapping its power.
Capt. Jim Bryant, a retired Navy submarine officer, wanted to see the Navy’s 1,700-page report on the Thresher’s sinking, but the Navy refused to release it. So Bryant, Stars and Stripes reports, sued the Navy, and last month a federal judge ordered the service to release it in 300-page chunks.
The Navy has long been extremely protective of the report. The Navy submarine force is notoriously tight-lipped; submariners say the nickname “the silent service” not only applies to the quiet nature of subs, but the secretive nature of the sub community as a whole.
The service first said it would release the Thresher report in 1998, but released only 19 of 1,700 pages, claiming that keeping it classified was to protect serving submarine crews. The problem with that explanation? The accident happened during normal dive tests. More than 50 years have passed since the sinking, and the submarine’s technology is obsolete.
The loss of the Thresher led to a sea change in the Navy submarine force. After the sinking, the service instituted SUBSAFE, a program that ensures the safe operation of submarines. SUBSAFE monitors the design and construction of new subs to ensure ships can remain watertight and survive accidents at sea. (The Navy lost another submarine, the USS Scorpion, in 1968, but it wasn't built to SUBSAFE standards.)
In 2005, the attack submarine USS San Francisco collided with an underwater seamount at the equivalent of 30 miles an hour—and was still able to sail to Guam for repairs. The culture of safety spawned by SUBSAFE—and indirectly Thresher—is credited for ensuring the San Francisco’s survival.
The Navy will begin releasing the Thresher report in segments on May 15 and will continue until Oct. 15.
“What about Scorpion?”
Sunk by the Soviets, in retaliation for us sinking one of theirs in the Pacific. Tit for tat.
If it broke into six sections were the breaks where the welds were?
Russkies.
ML/NJ
I remember some WWII U-Boats went way deeper than their design was supposed to go. I think close to the same depth as the the Tresher.
It's riveting and easy to read.
One documentary I saw blamed the debris screens on the emergency blow valve outlets. Tests revealed that they could ice up, given the wet environment and the rapid expansion of compressed air.
I read an anniversary (30th?) article that included an interview with a guy that was a submariner back then that said that there were problems with silver soldered pipe joints at the time, and that a joint failure may have been the initial cause of the boat’s problems.
FWIW, the Thresher Class was renamed to Permit Class.
Thanks gator. only an uninformed dumb ass would make such a comment. Anyone who knew rickover, served unfer rickover or trained under rickover would Never say such garbage. Rickover is a TRUE ledgend. old SS/ Nuc- Rickover trained sailor here
When the British captured a German U-Boot during WWII they were absolutely stunned at the depths it could reach; it may have been enough information for them to turn the tide against the Germans. (Prior to this they had been setting the depth charges at ridiculously shallow depths, completely unaware that the U-Boots were safe far below.)
“, it is probably safe to assume the crush depth wasn’t as good as expected or there was a bad weld.”
In 1969 we saw a training film of ‘events’ which could have weakened the Thresher. I have never seen these events listed online.
I was on the 599 and our crush depth was nowhere near 1300 feet. It was more like 1100 and we never went below 800 on purpose.
Corrupt, stupid, vain or all the above admirals are nothing new, and neither is their cover-ups of their mistakes.
Drachinifel has a good overview of the Mark 14 torpedo debacle from WW2, which got many crew killed and ended more than a few officers’ careers because they dared to question the almighty Bureau of Ordinance before Admiral King got fed up with them and lit a fire under BuOrd:
I spoke with one of the key investigators of the tragedy; he was from Babcock and Wilcox. The initial failure was a braised joint in a line which was a hull penetration. Upon failure, sea water leaked into a circuit breaker room and shorted most of the electrics and shut down the reactor. Some key personnel were not on this dive; their presence may have averted the disaster. At any rate, trying to blow the ballast with emergency methods froze the valves and prevented the sub from surfacing.
Methods were later developed to ultrasonic test brazed joints - there was no good method when Thresher was built.
Does it mention the USS O-9 that went down at Isle of Shoals too? It was one of the WWI boats that were brought back for training purposes on the eve of WWII.
Had a neighbor that spent part of his USCG career at Portsmouth, and his cutter was involved in the attempted rescue mission.
He said he also ran into a survivor of the Squalus crew, and who said that the cook had opened a hatch topside to go dump the garbage just before the captain decided to dive.
Sounded weird to me, but my neighbor had lots of “stories”.
[Former submariner here] I don’t expect the full story of the Scorpion to get out in the next 50 years.
Thanks for the helpful reply.
From my reading and attention over the years. Braised cooling water pipe burst in the engine room. They sealed it off.. had battery power to try to climb to the surface but the boat was tail heavy. Blow valves froze. When the battery gave up the juice that was the end.
No more braised pipe on subsafe pipes.
https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=89766
In the book “Black May”, naval historian Michael Gannon states, that in the summer of 1943 a Type-VIIC boat involutarily dived to 340 metres (1115 feet) without breaking up.
The calculated absolute maximum ‘crush-depth’ of this type was actually 280-300m.
Note that the maximum setting for a Royal Navy depth-charge was 550ft (167m).
Ice in the valves from what I remember.
I had a 1st cousin who died on the Thresher
.....Electrician’s Mate First Class Roy Overton Denny Jr
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