USS Scorpion: Buried At Sea

U. S. Naval Institute ^ | February 25 | Ed Offley

[Nervous Tick]

I know there are several of us cold-war submariners on the forum... this may be of interest. This is a (long) excerpt from the (lengthy) article, although not noted as such in the body.

[AndyJackson]

ba 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.”

BS. on all counts. Captains and Admirals routinely visit their comm centers to keep up with fast flowing information coming across on a specific topic of interest. And the Navy does not salute in doors.

[null and void]

“There were officers openly discussing the fact that they believed the Scorpion had been sunk,”

That sounds like an act of war.

Had this been widely known, we would have had little choice but to go to war.

A full up shootin' war, nuclear power to nuclear power.

The results of which are left to the reader as an exercise...

[Nervous Tick]

Yup. “It was complicated.”

[GingisK]

If I recall correctly, they considered torpedo loop-back as a possible cause.

[AndyJackson]

The article gets better as it goes along, and does cover to some extent John Craven's involvement which Craven wrote about in his book "Silent War." John Craven was, however, the Chief Scientist of the Navy Special Projects Office which is the office that developed the Polaris submarine and worried a lot about all the technical developments necessary for submarine warfare and the Navy part of the Nuclear triad.

What is not discussed is now Carven's efforts found the Scorpion. And noone has discussed what was actually known about what was going on.

[camle]

i read scorpion down. interesting read. i seem to recall that the soviets lost a sub prior and blamed the us. scorpion was payback, according to the book. also lbj didn’t want to go to war.

also interesting was an article from a british source that said that bob ballard was on a mission to map the scorpion and threshers wrecks and incidentally found the titanic.

i’m sure the superior min ds of FR will correct me if i’m mistaken

[GingisK]

That was a good article. Its deliberate sinking seems to be the strongest case.

[Rockingham]

The article does not offer a conclusion or even a discussion of the two major competing theories of hostile action by the Soviets or a fatal malfunction with a hot torpedo. Arguably, the continuing secrecy may point to the latter.

With the Cold War over, sending subs to sea with dangerously defective torpedoes is now harder to explain to the public than a Soviet attack that was kept secret. As I recall, after the Scorpion was lost, there were newspaper reports about the Navy's bungling of fixes for its problematic torpedoes.

[antidemoncrat]

Also “On 10 April 1963, Thresher sank during deep-diving tests about 350 km east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, killing all 129 crew and shipyard personnel aboard.”

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.

[Nervous Tick]

>> The article does not offer a conclusion or even a discussion of the two major competing theories of hostile action by the Soviets or a fatal malfunction with a hot torpedo.

Ah, you didn’t read the article, did you? Because the article does, in fact, discuss (in a fair amount of detail) the hot torpedo theory as well as the hostile action theory.

[Chainmail]

I wonder if we’ll ever see truth out of our government -and if the Soviets did kill our men, did we ever even up the score?

[pfflier]

And the Navy does not salute in doors.

Sometimes the subtle things can trip up a Tom Clancy wannabe. Good catch.

[Sequoyah101]

Being a geeky kid I remember this event well. Shrouded in silence.

[DiogenesLamp]

I have someone who was very close to me who was a submariner. He flat out said the Scorpion was sunk by a Russian sub. He also said there is a sunken Russian sub a short distance away from the Scorpion, which appears to have been sunk by a torpedo.

He says the evidence indicates they both sunk each other, and rather than start a war over the incident, the leadership decided to keep it under wraps. They got one of ours, but we got one of theirs.

[DiogenesLamp]

Had this been widely known, we would have had little choice but to go to war.

Which is exactly why it was kept under wraps.

[BlueLancer]

That sounds like an act of war. Had this been widely known, we would have had little choice but to go to war. A full up shootin' war, nuclear power to nuclear power.

"Well, boys, I reckon this is it — nuclear combat toe to toe with the Rooskies. Now look, boys, I ain't much of a hand at makin' speeches, but I got a pretty fair idea that something doggone important is goin' on back there."

[pepsi_junkie]

A very interesting read is Blind Man's Bluff which is full of previously classified stories like the story of the Scorpion. Some fascinating hidden history was being made under the surface during the cold war.

[Notthereyet]

“If I recall correctly, they considered torpedo loop-back as a possible cause.”
_________________________

You’d be believing the false story they put out.

The article goes into great detail about what happened.

A fairly long read though well worth the time spent.

[Nervous Tick]

>> A very interesting read is Blind Man’s Bluff

Thanks for the tip; I’ll look into it!