USS Scorpion (SSN-589) was a
Skipjack-classThe Skipjack class of United States Navy nuclear attack submarine was the replacement for the Skate class. This class was named after its lead ship, the . A new design from the keel up, they were the first submarines to use a nuclear reactor in an Albacore hull: a round hull with a single shaft...
nuclear
submarineA submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has only limited underwater capability...
of the
United States NavyThe United States Navy is the sea branch of the U.S. Armed Forces. It is one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. As of 31 December 2008, the U.S. Navy had about 331,682 personnel on active duty and 124,000 in the Navy Reserve. It operates 283 ships in active service and more than...
, and the sixth ship of the U.S. Navy to carry that name.
Scorpion was declared lost on 5 June 1968, one of the few U.S. Navy submarines to be lost at sea while not at war and is one of only two nuclear submarines the U.S. Navy has ever lost, the other being
USS Thresher (SSN-593)The second USS Thresher was the lead ship of her class of nuclear-powered attack submarines in the United States Navy. Her loss at sea during deep-diving tests in 1963 is often considered a watershed event in the implementation of the rigorous submarine safety program SUBSAFE.The contract to build...
, which sank on 10 April 1963 off the coast of
New EnglandNew England is a region of the United States. It is located at the northeastern corner of the US, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean, Canada and the state of New York, consisting of the modern U.S...
.
Service history
Scorpion's keel was laid 20 August 1958 by the
Electric BoatWhile most boats on the water today are powered by diesel engines, and sail power and gasoline engines are also popular, it is perfectly feasible to power boats by electricity too....
Division of the
General DynamicsGeneral Dynamics Corporation is a U.S. defense conglomerate formed by mergers and divestitures, and as of 2008 it is the fifth largest defense contractor in the world. The company has changed markedly in the post-Cold War era of defense consolidation. The company has four main business segments:...
Corporation in
Groton, ConnecticutGroton is a town located on the Thames River in New London County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 39,907 at the 2000 census.Groton is the home of the Electric Boat Corporation, which is the major contractor for submarine work for the United States Navy, and the Navy's SUBASE New...
. She was
launchedThe ceremonies involved in naming and launching naval ships are based in traditions thousands of years old.-Methods of launch:There are three principal methods of conveying a new ship from building site to water, only two of which are called "launching." The oldest, most familiar, and most widely...
on 19 December 1959, sponsored by Mrs. Elizabeth S. Morrison (daughter of the last commander of the
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
-era
USS ScorpionThe USS Scorpion , a Gato-class submarine, was the fifth ship of the United States Navy to be named for the scorpion, an arachnid having an elongated body and a narrow segmented tail bearing a venomous sting at the tip....
, which had been lost with all hands in 1944), and
commissionedShip commissioning is the act or ceremony of placing a ship in active service, and may be regarded as a particular application of the general concepts and practices of project commissioning. The term is most commonly applied to the placing of a warship in active duty with its country's military...
on 29 July 1960 with Commander Norman B. Bessac in command.
1960 – 1967
Assigned to Submarine Squadron 6, Division 62,
Scorpion departed
New London, ConnecticutNew London is a seaport city and a port of entry on the northeast coast of the United States.It is located at the mouth of the Thames River in New London County, southeastern Connecticut.The city is home to Connecticut College, Mitchell...
, on 24 August for a two-month deployment in European waters. During that period, she participated in exercises with units of the Sixth Fleet and of other
NATOThe North Atlantic Treaty Organization ); ), also called "the Atlantic Alliance", is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on April 4, 1949...
navies. After returning to
New EnglandNew England is a region of the United States. It is located at the northeastern corner of the US, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean, Canada and the state of New York, consisting of the modern U.S...
in late October, she trained along the eastern seaboard until May 1961, then crossed the Atlantic again for operations which took her into the summer. On 9 August 1961 she returned to New London, and, a month later, shifted to
Norfolk, VirginiaNorfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 234,403 as of the 2000 census, it is Virginia's second-largest incorporated city behind its eastern neighbor, Virginia Beach....
. In 1962, she earned the
Navy Unit CommendationThe Navy Unit Commendation of the United States Navy is an award that was established by order of the Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal on 18 December 1944...
.
With Norfolk her home port for the remainder of her career,
Scorpion specialized in the development of nuclear
submarine warfareNaval warfare is divided into three operational areas: surface warfare, air warfare and underwater warfare. The latter may be subdivided into submarine warfare and anti-submarine warfare as well as mine warfare and mine countermeasures...
tactics. Varying her role from hunter to hunted, she participated in exercises which ranged along the Atlantic coast and in the
BermudaBermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, it is situated around 1,770 kilometres northeast of Miami, Florida, and 1,350 kilometres south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada...
and
Puerto RicoPuerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is a self-governing unincorporated territory of the United States located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of the Virgin Islands...
operating areas; then, from June 1963 to May 1964, she interrupted her operations for an overhaul at
Charleston, South CarolinaCharleston is a city in Charleston County, South Carolina in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It is the largest city and county seat of Charleston County. The city was founded as Charlestown or Charles Towne, Carolina in 1670, and moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of...
. Resuming duty off the eastern seaboard in late spring, she again interrupted that duty from 4 August to 8 October to make a transatlantic patrol. In the spring of 1965, she conducted a similar patrol in European waters.
During the late winter and early spring of 1966, and again in the autumn, she was deployed for special operations. Following the completion of those assignments, her commanding officer received the Navy Commendation Medal for outstanding leadership, foresight, and professional skill. Other
Scorpion officers and crewmen were cited for meritorious achievement. The
Scorpion is reputed to have entered an inland Russian sea during a "Northern Run" in 1966 where it successfully filmed a Soviet missile launch through its periscope before being forced to use its high speed to flee Soviet Navy ships.
Scorpion had a reputation for excellence and as a fast attack submarine it was a plum assignment for officers seeking to move up in a Navy in which submarine officers were gaining increasing clout.
Overhaul
On 1 February 1967,
Scorpion entered the
Norfolk Naval ShipyardThe Norfolk Naval Shipyard, often called the Norfolk Navy Yard and abbreviated as NNSY, is a U.S. Navy facility in Portsmouth, Virginia, for building, remodeling, and repairing the Navy's ships. It's the oldest and largest industrial facility that belongs to the U.S. Navy as well as the most...
for another extended overhaul. However, instead of the much-needed complete overhaul, she received only emergency repairs to get her back on duty as soon as possible. Operational pressures and complex and unforeseen problems created by the Submarine Safety Program (
SUBSAFESUBSAFE is a quality assurance program of the United States Navy designed to maintain the safety of the nuclear submarine fleet; specifically, to provide maximum reasonable assurance that subs' hulls will stay watertight, and that they can recover from unanticipated flooding.SUBSAFE covers all...
) that was initiated after the 1963 loss of the
USS ThresherThe second USS Thresher was the lead ship of her class of nuclear-powered attack submarines in the United States Navy. Her loss at sea during deep-diving tests in 1963 is often considered a watershed event in the implementation of the rigorous submarine safety program SUBSAFE.The contract to build...
, meant that submarine overhauls went from nine months in length to 36 months. Intensive vetting of submarine component quality required by the SUBSAFE program coupled with various improvements and intensified structural inspections - particularly hull welding inspections using ultrasonic testing - were issues that reduced the availability of critical parts such as seawater piping. Cold War pressures prompted U.S. Submarine Fleet Atlantic (SUBLANT) officers to hunt for ways to reduce overhaul durations. The cost of that last overhaul was nearly one-seventh of those given other nuclear submarines at the same time. This was the result of concerns about the "high percentage of time offline" of nuclear attack submarines which was estimated to be at about 40% of total available duty time.
As
Scorpion's original "full overhaul" was whittled down in scope, it was decided it would not receive long-overdue SUBSAFE work.
Scorpion would not receive a new, central valve control system; in the event of an emergency, her crew would have to scramble around the engine room to find and manually operate large valves. Crucially,
Scorpion would not receive a fix for the same emergency system that did not work on the
Thresher, the submarine whose loss was the reason for the existence of the SUBSAFE program. On that ship a pipe leak at depth prompted an emergency shutdown of the submarine's nuclear reactor; powerless, the
Thresher could still have surfaced if the Emergency Main Ballast Tank blow system worked. It did not. (Later, dockside tests on
Threshers sister ship Tinosa
proved that the EMBT system did not work at test depth; moisture in the high-pressure air flasks froze the valves shut.) Following a dispute between Charleston Naval Ship Yard, which claimed the EMBT system worked as-is, and SUBLANT, which claimed it did not, the EMBT was "tagged out" or listed as unusable. The aforementioned problems with overhaul duration, that saw the Scorpion
selected for a reduced experimental overhaul program, also caused all SUBSAFE work to be delayed as well during 1967.
The reduced overhaul concept Scorpion
went through had been approved by the Chief of Naval OperationsThe Chief of Naval Operations is the highest ranking officer in the United States Navy and is a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The CNO reports directly to the Secretary of the Navy for the command, utilization of resources and operating efficiency of the operating forces of the Navy and of...
on 17 June 1966. On 20 July, the CNO also allowed deferral of the SUBSAFESUBSAFE is a quality assurance program of the United States Navy designed to maintain the safety of the nuclear submarine fleet; specifically, to provide maximum reasonable assurance that subs' hulls will stay watertight, and that they can recover from unanticipated flooding.SUBSAFE covers all...
extensions, which had otherwise been deemed essential since 1963.
During Scorpion's
last six months of operational life, at least two sailors, EM2 Daniel Rogers and Radioman Chief Daniel Pettey, struggled to be released from duty aboard Scorpion
due to the bad morale problems they witnessed. Rogers sought disqualification from submarine duty – which was then allowed – while Pettey actually attempted to transfer to the U.S. Army only to be released from Scorpion
while in the Mediterranean just months before it was lost.
Loss
Disappearance
In late October 1967, Scorpion
started refresher training and weapons system acceptance tests, and was given a new Commanding Officer, Francis Slattery. Following type training out of Norfolk, VirginiaNorfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 234,403 as of the 2000 census, it is Virginia's second-largest incorporated city behind its eastern neighbor, Virginia Beach....
, it got underway on 15 February 1968 for a Mediterranean SeaThe Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by the Levant. The sea is technically a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it...
deployment. It operated with the Sixth FleetSixth Fleet or 6th fleet may mean:* United States Sixth Fleet* IJN 6th Fleet, Imperial Japanese Navy* Luftflotte 6...
into May and then headed west for home. Scorpion
suffered several mechanical malfunctions including a chronic problem with FreonFreon is DuPont's trade name for chlorofluorocarbon and hydrochlorofluorocarbons. In other countries the same family of chemical compounds are called Isceon, Ledon, Frigen, Kaltron, Flugene, Forane, Fridohna, Frigedohn, Algofrene, Asahiflon, Daiflon, Flon, Genetron, Kaiser, Isotron, Racon, Ucon,...
leakage from refrigeration systems. An electrical fire occurred in an escape trunk when a water leak shorted out a shore power connection.
Upon departing the Mediterranean on 16 May, two men departed Scorpion
at Rota, Spain. One man left due to emergency leave and the other enlisted man departed for health reasons. Scorpion
was then detailed to observe Soviet naval activities in the Atlantic in the vicinity of the Azores. With this completed, Scorpion
prepared to head back to Naval Base Norfolk.
For an unusually long period of time, beginning shortly before midnight on 20 May and ending after midnight 21 May, Scorpion
was attempting to send radio traffic to Naval Station Rota in Spain but was only able to reach a Navy communications station in Nea MakriNea Makri , also Nea Makris is a town located in the northeastern part of Attica and the peninsula.- Town layout :The street system is gridded aligning within Petalies Gulf connecting the Aegean Sea to the east...
, Greece, which forwarded Scorpion's
messages to SUBLANT. Six days later, it was reported overdue at Norfolk. Navy personnel suspected possible failure and launched a search.
The search
A public search was initiated, but without immediate success and on 5 June, Scorpion
and her crew were declared "presumed lost." Her name was struck from the Naval Vessel RegisterThe Naval Vessel Register is the official inventory of ships and service craft in custody of or titled by the United States Navy. It contains information on ships and service craft that make up the official inventory of the Navy from the time a vessel is authorized through its life cycle and...
on 30 June. Some recent reports now indicate that a large and secret search was launched three days before Scorpion
was expected back from patrol; this combined with other declassified information led many to speculate the US Navy knew of the Scorpion's destruction before the public search was launched.
The public search continued with a team of mathematical consultants led by Dr. John Craven, the Chief Scientist of the U.S. Navy's Special Projects Division. They employed the methods of
Bayesian search theoryBayesian search theory is the application of Bayesian statistics to the search for lost objects. It has been used several times to find lost sea vessels, for example the USS Scorpion...
, initially developed during the search for a hydrogen bomb lost off the coast of Palomares, Spain in January, 1966 in the Palomares B-52 crash. At the end of October, the Navy's oceanographic research ship, USNS Mizar
(T-AGOR-11), located sections of the hull of Scorpion
in more than 3000 meters (10,000 ft) of water about 740 kilometers (400 nautical miles) southwest of the AzoresThe Azores is a Portuguese archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, about from Lisbon and about from the east coast of North America. The two westernmost Azorean islands actually lie on the North American plate...
. This was after the navy had released sound tapes from its underwater "SOSUSSOSUS, an acronym for SOund SUrveillance System, is a chain of underwater listening posts across the northern Atlantic Ocean near Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom—the GIUK gap. It was originally operated by the U.S. Navy for tracking Soviet submarines, which had to pass through the...
" listening system which contained the sounds of the destruction of Scorpion. Subsequently, the Court of Inquiry was reconvened, and other vessels, including the bathyscapheA bathyscaphe is a free-diving self-propelled deep-sea diving submersible, consisting of a crew cabin similar to a bathysphere, but suspended below a float rather than from a surface cable, as in the classic bathysphere design....
Trieste II
Trieste II ' was the successor to Trieste — the United States Navy's first bathyscaphe purchased from its Swiss designers. The original Trieste design was heavily modified by the Naval Electronics Laboratory in San Diego, California and built at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard...
, were dispatched to the scene, collecting a myriad of pictures and other data.
Although Dr. Craven received much credit for locating the wreckage of Scorpion
, Gordon Hamilton — an acoustics expert who pioneered the use of hydroacoustics to pinpoint Polaris missile splashdown locations — was instrumental not only in acquiring the acoustic signals that were used in locating the vessel, but also in analyzing those signals to provide a concise "search box" wherein the wreck of the Scorpion
was finally located. Hamilton had established a listening station in the Canary Islands, which obtained a clear signal of what some scientists believe was the noise of the vessel's pressure hull imploding as she passed below crush depth. A little-known Naval Research Laboratory scientist named Chester "Buck" Buchanan, using a towed camera sled of his own design aboard the USNS Mizar
, finally located Scorpion
after nearly six months of searching. The towed camera sled, which was fabricated by J.L. "Jac" Hamm of Naval Research Laboratory's Engineering Services Division, is currently housed in the Navy Museum, Washington Navy Yard, Washington, DC. (Buchanan had located the wrecked hull of the USS Thresher
in 1964 using this same technique.)
Wreckage
It would appear that the bow of the Scorpion
skidded upon impact with the globigerina oozeThe Globigerinida are a common group of foraminiferans that are found as marine plankton . They produce hyaline calcareous tests, and are known as fossils from the Jurassic period onwards. The group has included more than 100 genera and over 400 species, of which about 30 species are extant...
on the seafloor, digging a sizable trench which created a significant hazard for the Trieste II
crews attempting to maneuver close to acquire photographs and assess the wreckage with their own eyes. Much of the operations compartment had disappeared, and most of the debris field was identified as coming from the operations compartment. The sail was dislodged as the hull of the operations compartment upon which it perched disintegrated, and was lying on its port side. One of Scorpions running lights was locked in the open position as if it had been on the surface at the time of the mishap, although it may have been left in the open position during the vessel's recent nighttime stop at Rota. One
Trieste II pilot who dived on the
Scorpion said the shock of the implosion may have knocked the light into the open position.
The aft section appeared to have skidded sideways on impact, since it was less hydrodynamically efficient than the bullet-shaped torpedo room, which investigators believed would have developed a greater downward velocity. The aft section of the engine room had telescoped forward into the larger-diameter hull section.
Observed damage
The secondary Navy investigation – using an extensive photographic, video and eyewitness inspections of the wreckage in 1969 – offered the opinion that Scorpions hull was smashed by implosion forces as it sank below crush depth. The Structural Analysis Group, which included Naval Ships Systems Command's Submarine Structures director Peter Palermo, plainly saw that the torpedo room was intact, though it had been pinched from the operations compartment by massive hydrostatic pressure. The operations compartment itself was largely obliterated by sea pressure and the engine room had telescoped forward into the hull by collapse pressure, when the cone-to-cylinder transition junction failed between the auxiliary machine space and the engine room.
The only damage to the torpedo room compartment appeared to be a hatch missing from the forward escape trunk; Palermo pointed out that this would have occurred when water pressure entered the torpedo room at the moment of implosion. He also pointed out that the aft escape trunk hatch was sprung open and appeared twisted, though it was still on its hinges. This conclusion was drawn by Palermo eighteen years after the Scorpion
was lost, when he reviewed new and extremely clear images taken by Jason Junior and DSV AlvinAlvin is a 16-ton, manned deep-ocean research submersible owned by the United States Navy and operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. The craft was built by General Mills' Electronics Group in the same factory used to manufacture breakfast...
as part of a Navy-Woods Hole Oceanographic InstitutionThe Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, nonprofit research and higher education facility dedicated to the study of all aspects of marine science and engineering and to the education of marine researchers. Established in 1930, it is the largest independent oceanographic research...
survey of the Scorpions wreck site.
Palermo could not rule out sabotage or collision as "plausible" causes of destruction. Palermo writes that the position of the masts and other evidence possibly indicate
Scorpion was near the surface "just prior to sinking." Palermo admits that a precursor signal that occurred some 22 minutes prior to the acoustic train left by the sinking "could have been the results of an internal explosion." He further states that "some of the remaining 14 acoustic events do have some of the characteristics of explosions", though he qualifies this by writing that such characteristics "may" also be attributed to other sources.
Acoustic evidence
An extensive, year-long analysis of Gordon Hamilton's hydroacoustic signals of the submarine's demise was conducted by Robert Price, Ermine (Meri) Christian and Peter Sherman of the Naval Ordnance Laboratory. All three physicists were experts on undersea explosions, their sound signatures and destructive effects. Price was also an open critic of Dr. Craven. Their opinion, presented to the Navy as part of the Phase II investigation, was that the death noises likely occurred at 2,000 feet (600 m) when the hull failed. Fragments then continued in a freefall for another 9,000 feet (2700 m). This appears to differ with conclusions drawn by Dr. Craven and Hamilton, who pursued an independent set of experiments as part of the same Phase II probe, demonstrating that alternate interpretations of the hydroacoustic signals were possible based on the submarine's depth at the time it was stricken and other operational conditions. Though the Structural Analysis Group (SAG) findings argue an explosive event is unlikely, and are highly dismissive of Craven and Hamilton's tests, they failed to present information that ruled out an explosive event.
The 1970 Naval Ordnance "Letter", the intensive acoustics study of the
Scorpion destruction sounds by Price and Christian, was a supporting study within the SAG report. In its Conclusions and Recommendations section, the NOL acoustic study states:
The Naval Ordnance Laboratory based much of its findings on an extensive acoustic analysis of the torpedoing and sinking of the
USS SterletUSS Sterlet , a Balao-class submarine, was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for the sterlet, a small sturgeon found in the Caspian Sea and its rivers, whose meat is considered delicious and its eggs are one of the world's great delicacies, caviar.Her keel was laid down on 14 July...
in the Pacific in early 1969, seeking to compare its acoustic signals to those generated by Scorpion. Price, a critic of Craven and Hamilton's analysis of the sounds emitted by the Scorpion, found the Navy's scheduled sinking of
Sterlet fortuitous. Nonetheless
Sterlet was a small World War 2 era diesel-electric submarine of a vastly different design and construction from
Scorpion with regard to its pressure hull and other characteristics. Its sinking resulted in three identifiable acoustic signals as compared to
Scorpion's fifteen, something Price could not adequately explain. The mathematical calculations Price used to arrive at his analysis – and dispute some of Craven and Hamilton's conclusions – remain unknown to the public.
When completed, the NOL acoustics study of the
Sterlet and
Scorpion sinking sounds provided a highly debated explanation as to how Scorpion may have reached its crush depth by anecdotally referring to the uncontrolled and nearly-fatal dive of the diesel submarine
USS ChopperUSS Chopper , a Balao-class submarine, was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for the chopper, a fish common in the rivers of the Mississippi Valley. Her keel was laid down by the Electric Boat Company in Groton, Connecticut. She was launched on 4 February 1945 sponsored by Mrs. G. S...
in January 1969:
In the same May, 2003 N77 letter excerpted above (see 1. with regard to the Navy's view of a forward explosion), however, the following statement appears to dismiss the NOL theory, and again unequivocally point the finger toward an explosion forward:
Secrecy
At the time of her sinking, there were 99 crewmen aboard
Scorpion. The boat contained a treasure-trove of highly sophisticated spy gear and spy manuals, two nuclear-tipped torpedoes, and a nuclear propulsion system. The best available evidence indicates that
Scorpion sank in the
Atlantic OceanThe Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about 106.4 million square kilometres , it covers approximately one-fifth of the Earth's surface and about one-quarter of its water surface area. The first part of its name refers to the Atlas of Greek...
on 22 May 1968 at approximately 1844Z after an explosion of some type, while in transit across the
Atlantic OceanThe Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about 106.4 million square kilometres , it covers approximately one-fifth of the Earth's surface and about one-quarter of its water surface area. The first part of its name refers to the Atlas of Greek...
from
GibraltarGibraltar is a self-governing British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula and Europe at the entrance of the Mediterranean overlooking the Strait of Gibraltar. The territory covers and shares a land border with Spain to the north...
to her home port at
Norfolk, VirginiaNorfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 234,403 as of the 2000 census, it is Virginia's second-largest incorporated city behind its eastern neighbor, Virginia Beach....
.
Several hypotheses about the cause of the loss have been advanced. Some have suggested that hostile action by a Soviet submarine caused
Scorpion's loss (see discussion of Offley's "Scorpion Down," below). Shortly after her sinking, the Navy assembled a Court of Inquiry to investigate the incident and to publish a report about the likely causes for the sinking. The court was presided over by VADM Bernard Austin who presided over the inquiry into the loss of the USS
Thresher. The panel's conclusions, first printed in 1968, were largely classified. At the time, the Navy quoted frequently from a portion of the 1968 report that said no one is likely ever to "conclusively" determine the cause of the loss. The Clinton Administration declassified most of this report in 1993, and it was then that the public first learned that the panel considered that a possible cause of the malfunction was one of
Scorpion's own torpedoes. (The panel qualified its opinion saying the evidence it had available could not lead to a conclusive finding about the cause of her sinking.) However, the Court of Inquiry did not reconvene after the 1969 Phase II investigation, and did not take testimony from a group of submarine designers, engineers and physicists who spent nearly a year evaluating the data.
Present location
Today, the wreck of the
Scorpion is reported to be resting on a sandy seabed at the bottom of the
Atlantic OceanThe Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about 106.4 million square kilometres , it covers approximately one-fifth of the Earth's surface and about one-quarter of its water surface area. The first part of its name refers to the Atlas of Greek...
in approximately 3000 m of water. The site is reported to be approximately 400 miles (740 km) southwest of the Azores Islands, on the eastern edge of the
Sargasso SeaThe Sargasso Sea is a region in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by ocean currents. It is bounded on the west by the Gulf Stream; on the north, by the North Atlantic Current; on the east, by the Canary Current; and on the south, by the North Atlantic Equatorial Current...
. The U.S. Navy has acknowledged that it periodically visits the site to conduct testing for the release of nuclear materials from the nuclear reactor or the two nuclear weapons aboard her, and to determine whether the wreckage has been disturbed. The Navy has not released any information about the status of the wreckage, except for a few photographs taken of the wreckage in 1968, and again in 1985 by deep water submersibles.
The Navy has also released information about the nuclear testing performed in and around the
Scorpion site. The Navy reports no significant release of nuclear material from the sub. The 1985 photos were taken by a team of oceanographers working for the
Woods Hole Oceanographic InstitutionThe Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, nonprofit research and higher education facility dedicated to the study of all aspects of marine science and engineering and to the education of marine researchers. Established in 1930, it is the largest independent oceanographic research...
in
Woods Hole, MassachusettsWoods Hole is a census-designated place in the town of Falmouth in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. It lies at the extreme southwest corner of Cape Cod, near Martha's Vineyard and the Elizabeth Islands...
. The circumstances of the Woods Hole mission show the high level of secrecy the Navy attaches to
Scorpion; at the time the photographs were taken, the Navy and Woods Hole both maintained that the Woods Hole team was searching for the wreckage of the noted sunken ocean liner,
RMS TitanicThe RMS Titanic was an Olympic-class passenger liner owned by British shipping company White Star Line and built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, United Kingdom...
. It was only after newspapers learned and reported that the Woods Hole team was also searching for
Scorpion that the Navy admitted as much, and released some of the photographs taken during the expedition.
Environmental monitoring
The U.S. Navy has periodically monitored the environmental conditions of the site since the sinking and has reported the results in an annual public report on
environmental monitoringEnvironmental monitoring describes the processes and activities that need to take place to characterise and monitor the quality of the environment...
for U.S. nuclear-powered ships and boats. The reports provide specifics on the environmental sampling of
sedimentSediment is any particulate matter that can be transported by fluid flow, and which eventually is deposited.Sediments are most often transported by water transported by wind and glaciers...
, water, and marine life that is done to ascertain whether the submarine has significantly affected the deep-ocean environment. The reports also explain the methodology for conducting this deep sea monitoring from both surface vessels and
submersible***Also see Submersible drilling rig for offshore drillingA submersible is a commerical or non-military midget submarine with limited service range and is typically transported to its area of operation by a surface vessel or large submarine....
s. The monitoring data confirm that, by the standards of the U.S. Navy, there has been no significant effect on the environment. The nuclear fuel aboard the submarine remains intact and no
uraniumUranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table that has the symbol U and atomic number 92. Besides its 92 protons, a uranium nucleus can have between 141 and 146 neutrons. The most common uranium isotopes are U-238 and U-235 . A uranium atom has...
in excess of levels expected from the fallout from past atmospheric testing of
nuclear weaponA nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion...
s has been detected by the Navy's inspections. In addition,
Scorpion carried two nuclear-tipped
Mark 45 anti-submarine torpedoes (ASTOR)The Mark 45 anti-submarine torpedo was a weapon of the United States Navy designed for submarine launch against high-speed, deep-diving enemy submarines. This electrically-propelled 19-inch torpedo was 227 inches long and weighed 2,400 pounds...
when she was lost. The warheads of these torpedoes are part of the environmental concern. The most likely scenario is that the plutonium and uranium cores of these weapons corroded to a heavy, insoluble material soon after the sinking, and they remain at or close to their original location inside the torpedo room of the boat. If the corroded materials were released outside the submarine, their large specific gravity and insolubility would cause them to settle down into the sediment.
Theories about the loss
The cause of her loss has to date not been fully confirmed by the USN and various possibilities have been raised.
Accidental activation of torpedo
The US Navy's
Court of InquiryA Naval Board of Inquiry is a type of investigative court proceeding conducted by the United States Navy after the occurrence of an unanticipated event that adversely affects the performance, or reputation, of the fleet or one of its ships or stations.- Convening the board :Depending on the...
listed as one possibility the inadvertent activation of a battery-powered
Mark 37 torpedoThe Mark 37 torpedo is a torpedo with electrical propulsion, developed for the US Navy after World War II. It entered service with the US Navy in the early 1950s, with over 3,300 produced. It was phased out of service with the US Navy during the 1970s, and the stockpiles were sold to foreign...
. This acoustic homing torpedo, in a fully-ready condition and without a propeller guard, is believed by some to have started running within the tube. Released from the tube, the torpedo then somehow became fully-armed and successfully engaged its nearest target —
Scorpion herself. This is considered highly unlikely due to the fact that
Scorpion would have maintained the ability to destroy the weapon before it reengaged. Although much has been made of claims by Dr. Craven that the
SOSUSSOSUS, an acronym for SOund SUrveillance System, is a chain of underwater listening posts across the northern Atlantic Ocean near Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom—the GIUK gap. It was originally operated by the U.S. Navy for tracking Soviet submarines, which had to pass through the...
network tracked the submarine moving back onto its original course, which would be consistent with performing a 180-degree turn in an attempt to activate a torpedo's safety systems, Gordon Hamilton has said that the acoustical data is too garbled to reveal any such details.
Another problem with the torpedo theory is that numerous safeguards are in place that would enable the torpedomen to disable the warhead if it were launched and its anti-circular run switch also failed, allowing it to strike its mother ship without detonating, in which case the weapon would thud harmlessly off the hull. Few torpedomen familiar with the Mark 37 have expressed confidence in the self-destruction-by-torpedo theory.
In
Silent Steel, Fountain reveals he does not believe
Scorpion was sunk by her own torpedo, and during the Court of Inquiry, physicists and engineers who carried out the simulations demanded by Dr. Craven testified that the massively complex simulations, using the crude computing power of the day, were of little value since they were so speculative. This testimony brought a rebuke from the court's members who were sufficiently persuaded by Craven's theories to list them foremost above all others. What has become apparent is that many investigators, even according to a Navy history of the investigation, were upset by Craven's devotion to his hot-running torpedo theory.
Explosion of torpedo
A later theory was that a torpedo may have exploded in the tube, caused by an uncontrollable fire in the torpedo room. The book
Blind Man's BluffBlind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage , published in 1998 by Sherry Sontag, Christopher Drew, and Annette Lawrence Drew, is a non-fiction book about U.S. Navy submarine operations during the Cold War...
documents findings and investigation by Dr. John Craven, who surmised that a likely cause could have been the overheating of a faulty battery (Dr. Craven later stated in the book
Silent Steel that he was misquoted.) The Mark 46 silver-zinc battery used in the Mark 37 torpedo had a tendency to overheat, and in extreme cases could cause a fire that was strong enough to cause a low-order detonation of the warhead. If such a detonation had occurred, it might have opened the boat's large torpedo-loading hatch and caused
Scorpion to flood and sink. However, while Mark 46 batteries have been known to generate so much heat that the torpedo casings blistered, none is known to have damaged a boat or caused an explosion.
Dr. John Craven mentions that he did not work on the Mark 37 torpedo's propulsion system and only became aware of the possibility of a battery explosion twenty years after the loss of the
Scorpion. In his book
The Silent War, he recounts running a simulation with former
Scorpion Executive officerAn executive officer is generally a person responsible for running an organization, although the exact nature of the role varies depending on the organization.-Administrative Law:...
LCDR Robert Fountain, Jr. commanding the simulator. Fountain was told he was headed home at 18 knots (33 km/h) at a depth of his choice, then there was an alarm of "hot running torpedo". Fountain responded with "right full rudder", a quick turn that would activate a safety device and keep the torpedo from arming. Then an explosion in the torpedo room was introduced into the simulation. Fountain ordered emergency procedures to surface the boat, stated Dr. Craven, "but instead she continued to plummet, reaching collapse depth and imploding in ninety seconds — one second shy of the acoustic record of the actual event."
Craven, who was the Chief Scientist of the Navy's Special Projects Office, which had management responsibility for the design, development, construction, operational test and evaluation and maintenance of the Polaris Fleet Missile System - at the time of
Scorpion's sinking the most technically advanced military system ever deployed - had long believed
Scorpion was struck by her own torpedo, but revised his views during the mid-1990s when engineers testing Mark 46 batteries at Keyport, Washington, said the batteries leaked electrolyte and sometimes burned while outside of their casings during lifetime shock, heat and cold testing. Although the battery manufacturer was accused of building bad batteries, it was later able to successfully prove its batteries were no more prone to failure than those made by other manufacturers. In fact, the batteries suspected of being unreliable were manufactured too late to have been installed in
Scorpion's torpedoes.
Malfunction of Trash Disposal Unit
During the 1968 inquiry, Vice Admiral Arnold F. Shade testified that he believed that a malfunction of the trash disposal unit (TDU) was the trigger for the disaster. Shade theorized that the sub was flooded when the TDU was operated at periscope depth and that other subsequent failures of material or personnel while dealing with the TDU-induced flooding led to the sub's demise.
Enemy action
Some writers suggest that
Scorpion was sunk by a Soviet submarine, possibly in retaliation for the sinking of
Soviet submarine K-129K-129 was a Project 629A diesel-electric powered submarine of the Soviet Pacific Fleet, one of six Project 629 strategic ballistic missile submarines attached to the 15th Submarine Squadron based at Rybachiy Naval Base, Kamchatka, commanded by Rear Admiral Rudolf A. Golosov...
. See "Books" below, on the books
Red Star Rogue,
Scorpion Down, and
All Hands Down.
US Navy conclusions
The results of the U.S. Navy's various investigations into the loss of the
Scorpion are inconclusive. While the Court of Inquiry never endorsed Dr. Craven's torpedo theory regarding the loss of
Scorpion, its
Findings of Facts released in 1993 carried Craven's torpedo theory at the head of a list of possible causes of the
Scorpion's loss.
The Navy failed to inform the public that both the U.S. Submarine Force Atlantic and the Commander-in-Chief U.S. Atlantic Fleet opposed Craven's torpedo theory as unfounded and also failed to disclose that a second technical investigation into the loss of
Scorpion completed in 1970 actually repudiated claims that a torpedo detonation played a role in the loss of the
Scorpion. Despite the second technical investigation, the Navy continues to attach strong credence to Craven's view that an explosion destroyed her, as is evidenced by this excerpt from a May 2003 letter from the Navy's Submarine Warfare Division (N77), specifically written by Admiral P.F. Sullivan on behalf of VADM John J. Grossenbacher (Commander Naval Submarine Forces), the Naval Sea Systems Command, Naval Reactors, and others in the US Navy regarding its view of alternate sinking theories:
Some erroneously claim VADM Grossenbacher's (and ADM Sullivan's) determination is drawn solely from the inconclusive Findings of Fact, generated by the US Navy's Court of Inquiry into the
Scorpion sinking. This is untrue, as their letter (see excerpt below) explicitly mentions their review of a secondary study by the Structural Analysis Group in 1970, and a later report by Dr.
Robert BallardThis article is about the United States oceanographer. For the French lutenist of the same name see Robert Ballard.Robert Duane Ballard is a former commander in the United States Navy and a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island who is most noted for his work in underwater...
, whose investigative team visited the
Scorpion wreck in 1985 using the search for
TitanicThe RMS Titanic was an Olympic-class passenger liner owned by British shipping company White Star Line and built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, United Kingdom...
as a cover since the visit was part of a recently declassified mission to visit the
Scorpion as well as the
ThresherThe second USS Thresher was the lead ship of her class of nuclear-powered attack submarines in the United States Navy. Her loss at sea during deep-diving tests in 1963 is often considered a watershed event in the implementation of the rigorous submarine safety program SUBSAFE.The contract to build...
nuclear sub which was lost off the coast of
Cape CodCape Cod, often referred to as simply the Cape, and called Cape of Keel by early Norse explorers, is a peninsula in the easternmost portion of the state of Massachusetts, in the Northeastern United States. It is coextensive with Barnstable County...
,
MassachusettsThe Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. Most of its population of...
Silent Steel
Released in 2006, Stephen Johnson’s
Silent Steel: The Mysterious Death of the Nuclear Attack Sub USS Scorpion provides a meticulously detailed listing of every mechanical problem on the submarine cited by the Navy or mentioned in crewmen's letters, but ultimately fails to provide any explanation for
Scorpion's sinking. Johnson, a critic of Dr. Craven, agrees with Navy scientists who, in 1970, gave their opinion that the sub’s hull was smashed by implosion damage and not a torpedo blast, a finding they support with their interpretation of certain evidence about the condition of the hull and hydroacoustic recordings of the disaster. Silent Steel portrays an overworked submarine denied needed maintenance and manned by a demoralized crew, a depiction contradicted by many former
Scorpion enlisted men and officers, and based in part on the testimony of sailors who had applied for transfer from the boat. Johnson also enumerates many of the Navy-wide submarine maintenance issues that denied the
Scorpion an overhaul and overdue safety improvements, though the Navy would maintain that virtually all necessary and vital improvements and repairs were made on the submarine before her final deployment. The Submarine Safety Program, initiated following the 1963 loss of the USS Thresher, delayed new submarine construction and sub overhauls by monopolizing skilled workers and critical spare parts. Fearing that a normal overhaul and safety work during 1967 might sideline the
Scorpion for three years, it was selected for a brief experimental overhaul, but this was canceled due to a shortage of workers. The
Scorpion sank eight months after leaving Norfolk Naval Shipyard.
Blind Man's Bluff
In 1999, two
New York Times reporters published
Blind Man's Bluff, a book providing a rare look into the world of nuclear submarines and
espionageEspionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, as the legitimate holder of the information may change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
during the
Cold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state of political conflict, military tension, and economic competition existing after World War II , primarily between the USSR and its satellite states, and the powers of the Western world, including the United States...
. One lengthy chapter deals extensively with
Scorpion and her loss. The book reports that concerns about the Mk 37 conventional torpedo carried aboard
Scorpion were raised in 1967 and 1968, before
Scorpion left Norfolk for her last mission. The concerns focused on the battery that powered the torpedoes. The battery had a thin metal-foil barrier separating two types of volatile chemicals. When mixed slowly and in a controlled fashion, the chemicals generated heat and electricity, powering the motor that pushed the torpedo through the water. But vibrations normally experienced on a nuclear submarine were found to cause the thin foil barrier to break down, allowing the chemicals to interact intensely. This interaction generated excessive heat which, in tests, could readily have caused an inadvertent torpedo explosion. The authors of
Blind Man's Bluff were careful to say they could not point to this as the cause of
Scorpion’s loss — only that it was a possible cause and that it was consistent with other data indicating an explosion preceded the sinking of
Scorpion. Notably, the authors cite examples of hot running torpedo incidents that had occurred on other US submarines prior to the loss of
Scorpion. (Although none of those incidents caused the loss of a submarine.)
Red Star Rogue
In 2005, the book
Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S., by former American submariner Kenneth Sewell in collaboration with journalist Clint Richmond, claimed
K-129 was sunk 300 miles (560 km) northwest of
OahuOahu or Oahu , known as "The Gathering Place", is the third largest of the Hawaiian Islands and most populous of the islands in the State of Hawaii. The state capital Honolulu is located on the southeast coast...
on 7 March 1968 while attempting to launch her three ballistic missiles, in a rogue attempt to destroy
Pearl HarborPearl Harbor is a harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
.
Sewell claims that the sinking of
Scorpion was caused by a retaliatory strike for the sinking of
K-129K-129 was a Project 629A diesel-electric powered submarine of the Soviet Pacific Fleet, one of six Project 629 strategic ballistic missile submarines attached to the 15th Submarine Squadron based at Rybachiy Naval Base, Kamchatka, commanded by Rear Admiral Rudolf A. Golosov...
, which the Soviets had attributed to a collision with
USS Swordfish (SSN-579)USS Swordfish , a , was the second submarine of the United States Navy named for the swordfish, a large fish with a long, swordlike beak and a high dorsal fin....
.
In 1995, when
Peter HuchthausenPeter A. Huchthausen was a Captain in the United States Navy and the author of several maritime books.-Naval career:The son of the late Chaplain and Mrs. Walther A...
began work on a book about the Soviet underwater fleet, he interviewed former Soviet Admiral Victor Dygalo, who stated that the true history of K-129 has not been revealed because of the informal agreement between the two countries' senior naval commands. The purpose of that secrecy, he alleged, is to stop any further research into the losses of either
Scorpion or
K-129. Huchthausen states that Dygalo told him to "forget about ever resolving these sad issues for the surviving families."
Scorpion Down
Ed Offley, a reporter on military affairs, has closely followed developments in information concerning the sinking of the
Scorpion. His most recent article on the subject is "Buried at Sea" published in the Winter 2008 issue of the
Quarterly Journal of Military History. This article summarizes the facts in the case as presented in his 2007 book
Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion
. In the book Offley, gathering decades of his own research, hypothesizes that the
Scorpion was sunk by the Soviets, possibly in retaliation for the loss of the
K-129K-129 was a Project 629A diesel-electric powered submarine of the Soviet Pacific Fleet, one of six Project 629 strategic ballistic missile submarines attached to the 15th Submarine Squadron based at Rybachiy Naval Base, Kamchatka, commanded by Rear Admiral Rudolf A. Golosov...
Golf-II ballistic missile submarine earlier that year. The book paints a picture of increasing Soviet anger at US Navy provocations (specifically close-in monitoring of Soviet naval operations by almost every US nuclear submarine). At approximately the same time, the Soviet intelligence community scored a huge boon in receiving the mechanical cryptologic devices from the
USS PuebloUSS Pueblo is a Banner-class technical research ship which was boarded and captured by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on 23 January 1968 in what is known as the Pueblo incident or alternatively as the Pueblo crisis or Pueblo affair...
. These machines, combined with daily crypto keys from the
John Anthony WalkerJohn Anthony Walker, Jr. was a retired United States Navy Chief Warrant Officer and communications specialist convicted of spying for the Soviet Union from 1968 to 1985, at the height of the Cold War...
spy ring, likely allowed the Soviets to monitor in real time U.S. Navy ship dispositions and communications. Offley contends that the
Scorpion was tracked by several Soviet Navy assets from the Mediterranean to its final operational area south of the Azores, where it was then sunk by a Soviet torpedo. Among the oral testimony relied upon by Offley are recountings of
SOSUSSOSUS, an acronym for SOund SUrveillance System, is a chain of underwater listening posts across the northern Atlantic Ocean near Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom—the GIUK gap. It was originally operated by the U.S. Navy for tracking Soviet submarines, which had to pass through the...
recording documenting torpedo sounds, evasion sounds, an explosion, and eventually the sounds of implosions as the
Scorpion plunged past crush depth.
All Hands Down
This book was written by Kenneth R. Sewell, a nuclear engineer and a U.S. Navy veteran who spent five years aboard the
USS ParcheTwo U.S. Navy submarines have borne the name "Parche" , for a butterfly fish, Chaetodon capistratus.* USS Parche , a Balao class diesel electric submarine which served during World War II....
(SSN-683), a fast attack submarine.
This book attempts to link the sinking of the USS
Scorpion with the
USS PuebloUSS Pueblo is a Banner-class technical research ship which was boarded and captured by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on 23 January 1968 in what is known as the Pueblo incident or alternatively as the Pueblo crisis or Pueblo affair...
incident, the
John Anthony WalkerJohn Anthony Walker, Jr. was a retired United States Navy Chief Warrant Officer and communications specialist convicted of spying for the Soviet Union from 1968 to 1985, at the height of the Cold War...
spy ring, and
Cold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state of political conflict, military tension, and economic competition existing after World War II , primarily between the USSR and its satellite states, and the powers of the Western world, including the United States...
Soviet aggression, The thesis of this book is that action off the
Canary IslandsThe Canary Islands are a Spanish archipelago which, in turn, forms one of the Spanish Autonomous Communities and an Outermost Region of the European Union. The archipelago is located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the disputed border between Morocco and the...
was the direct cause of the sinking. This book purports that this is supported by motives in the Soviet Navy following the sinking of the
Soviet submarine K-129 (Golf II)K-129 was a Project 629A diesel-electric powered submarine of the Soviet Pacific Fleet, one of six Project 629 strategic ballistic missile submarines attached to the 15th Submarine Squadron based at Rybachiy Naval Base, Kamchatka, commanded by Rear Admiral Rudolf A. Golosov...
, which caused the Russian Navy to trap a US submarine.
The bait for this trap would be strange military operations and furtive naval maneuvers in the Atlantic, accompanied by countermeasures that would only seemingly be defeated by the deployment of a nuclear submarine. With information from spying by Walker, the position and arrival time of the
Scorpion was known by the Russians, and its sinking followed the springing of the trap. The book claims the
Scorpion was sunk by a Ka-25 helicopter equipped with anti-submarine torpedoes, which took off from one ship and landed on a different one. This was so that no one, other than the aircrew of the helicopter would notice one torpedo missing.
The book then purports a cover-up by American and Soviet officials, to avoid public outrage and an increase in Cold War tension.
See also
- Submarines destroyed by hot-running torpedoes: and Russian submarine K-141 Kursk
K-141 Kursk was an Oscar-II class nuclear cruise missile submarine of the Russian Navy, lost with all hands when it sank in the Barents Sea on August 12, 2000. Kursk, full name Атомная подводная лодка "Курск" [АПЛ "Курск"] in Russian, was a Project 949A Антей...
.
- USS George Washington (SSBN-598)
USS George Washington , the lead ship of her class of ballistic missile submarines, was the third ship of the United States Navy to be named for George Washington, first President of the United States, and the first of that name to be purpose-built as a warship.-Construction and launching:Her keel...
was originally to have been USS Scorpion (SSN-589), and began construction under that name. Before completion it was heavily modified into the first SSBN Ballistic Missile Submarine, with the addition of large hull section housing 16 PolarisThe Polaris missile was a two-stage solid-fuel nuclear-armed submarine-launched ballistic missile built during the Cold War by Lockheed Corporation of California for the United States Navy. It was designed to be used as part of the Navy's contribution to the United States arsenal of nuclear...
A-1 missiles.
External links