It is one of the more poignant images from the Silent Service’s Cold War days: Dozens of families huddled on a Norfolk pier in foul weather, waiting for their husbands and fathers to return from patrol aboard the USS Scorpion, a Skipjack-class attack submarine:
The 1 p.m. arrival time came and went. Eventually, the commander of a sub tender moored nearby invited the cold, wet families to wait aboard his ship.
Hours later, with no sign of the submarine, the worried families headed home.
Later that night, televisions across the U.S. broke news that broke hearts in Norfolk: The Scorpion was missing.
The boat would not return, and for forty years the families have wrestled with doubts about the fate of their family members. Two authors have recently added fuel to the speculation that the ship was a targeted by a Soviet submarine in retaliation for their own loss of a boat three months earlier in the Pacific – a loss the US had attributed to the K-129 crashing into an uncharted sea mount, adding that the Soviets had received critical assistance from a detested figure in modern naval history – the notorious spy, John Walker:
Walker… offered the Soviets a much bigger prize: the current and future codes to the military
May the ghosts of all whom Johnny Walker murdered haunt him through his life, and tear his soul to shreds when he dies.
We cannot even execute traitors any more.
Eagerness to change the subject arises from not knowledge, but from lack of knowledge about the reason for SCORPION’s loss.
A MK 37 torpedo hot run in the torpedo room due to a defect in the torpedo’s battery is the most plausible cause I’ve ever heard.
The idea that a Soviet submarine (or any other ship or group of ships) of that era could position itself (even if Walker’s traitorous acts might have enabled the Soviets to know the planned track), then detect and successfully attack is just not plausible. I find it hard to believe you would be able to find anyone with actual submarine operating experience versus the Soviets who could honestly state differently.
Read an interesting book on the K-129 that concluded it sank as a result of a KGB plot to loose one of its birds on Honolulu.
A failsafe dedicated an unauthorized launch and detonated the bird, sinking the boat in the process. The failsafe tech was, interestingly enough, donated to the USSR by the US.
Or so the book went. Questionable veracity, if you ask me. But the author did make a sound case.
Oh, and the idea of loosing a single warhead was to blame the whole thing on China, so we’d have a nuclear exchange with the ChiComs. Two birds, one stone and all that.
Whether or not Walker had anything to do with Scorpion’s loss, he should still have been shot/hanged/whatever for the crimes he committed against this country and the lives he put in jeopardy.
- SJS
Ditto for his co-conspirators.
That comment brings to mind a talk I listened to last semester from James Olson, who used to be the CIA’s chief of counter-intelligence. He was involved personally in the cases of Aldrich Ames, Clayton Lonetree, and Edward Lee Howard, and indirectly in the case of Felix Bloch. The presentation was titled, “The Traitors I Have Known.”
He said he understood why we tended to not give the death penalty in espionage related cases (damage control) but that it was a tough pill to swallow.
Offley’s book caused some discussion amongst the submariners when it came out, but mostly either credulous acceptance (“Gawrsh!”) or blunt dismissive epithets. Haven’t heard much about the other guy’s book. I ain’t too convinced but haven’t read the books either.
The cause of the loss has been argued about endlessly; I’ve seen effectively argued points for a broken trash disposal unit interlock, a torpedo hot run, a ship control problem. I met some of the family members while doing protocol work on the 35th anniversary reunion at the piers in Norfolk.
The worst part about this kind of loss is the periodic and unending poking at the scab that happens every few years. The families deserve better, but better sometimes is not possible.
Here is the corpse of the ship, what was a good fast attack boat in a tough time in the world. My midshipman cruise was in a boat of that class, and they were sleek greyhounds with real teeth.
Sailors, rest your oars.
Five minutes of correction time wasn’t enough, I guess. I swapped boat classes; Skipjacks were beautiful beasts but I was a rider on a Permit class back in the day.
The article in today’s Norfolk Pilot was rehash of old theories, mostly debunked over the past few years. I can’t begin to even articulate the anger I have towards Walker (I am a retired 6290, former RM(SS)), turn him over to some fleet guys and let them deal with him.
Chap has it right as usual, leave the scab alone.
God Bless those on eternal patrol and watch over those who keep us safe today!
John, that sounds like Kenneth Sewell’s “Red Star Rogue: The untold story of a Soviet submarine’s nuclear strike attempt on the U.S.” The writer was a subtle as a sledgehammer but offered interesting details as well as the internal KGB politics.
Another great book (involving the search for the Scorpion) is John Craven’s The Silent War: The Cold War Battle Beneath the Sea
http://www.amazon.com/Silent-War-Cold-Battle-Beneath/dp/0684872137
H.S. Normal pretty much sums up my thoughts on this, leave these families alone and stop dredging this up every few years with nothing new. The Soviets did not sink the Scorpion.
And Chap, I almost made the same mistake, thinking my 1/C cruise was on a Skipjack. I was actually on the Plunger.
I worked with a submariner that bought into the failed trash disposer theory (he was an ET on a sub in that era). And uncontrollable flooding appears (in my mind) to be the reason the hull is so intact, even at 10,000 feet down. The pressure would have equalized preventing the explosive collapse seen in other sinkings.
(disclaimer: I was a carrier sailor. That was claustrophobic enough!) Compare the pictures of the SCORPION with others of the THRESHER (sunk 5 years earlier) of the same era. The pictures I remember showed pieces of boat scattered everywhere in a large debris field, as compared to the SCORPION which is relatively intact.
Either way, they were both were tragic losses. And the official silence of the government into the investigation (albeit for secrecy) of their losses just fuels the rampant conspiracy theories that abound (and periodically revive).
And all ex navy (this is no sh*t) have hear rumors, rumors of rumors, thirty and fortieth hand rumors of rumors about the deadly games that went on under the waves, of the things that went bump when there shouldn’t have been anything to bump into, of move and counter move. It all makes for good bedtime reading I suppose. I’m just glad all those nonsensical “duck and cover” drills from grade school days (60s) were for naught. All because there were submariners (and the rest of the military) willing to risk themselves to keep the other guys in check.
Lex,
Scorpion is on the bottom with her masts and antennae raised (indicating the problem occurred while she was at periscope depth). See the link in Chap’s remarks. Her stern is broken off from hitting the bottom, and is several hundred feet from the remainder of the hull on the bottom. It is not believed to be the cause of her sinking. There is a crack in the bottom of her hull in the vicinity of the Torpedo Room. This is immediately below the Trash Disposal Unit and leads to the possibility she flooded from the TDU (hence the interlocks failure possibility), the seawater ran into the Battery Well (located under the Torpedo Room), caused a fire and either a torpedo explosion or battery explosion which caused her to sink. The crack could also mean a Hot Run and subsequent explosion of a Mk 37 Torpedo in the Torpedo Room, as they were susceptible to that eventuality and were a primary reason the Mk 37s were later removed from service.
Bottom Line: Chap and H.S.Normal are correct. We don’t know why she went down. Soviet activity is highly unlikely to be the culprit. One of the three scenarios quoted is most likely. The deformations in the framing visible in the plane surfaces photos Chap has linked are due to the small amounts of air in the foam (styrofoam like material) internal to the plane surfaces collapsing after the steel yields to the external sea pressure at 10,000 feet.
Johnny Walker is a despicable person, dragging his entire family into the trap made by his ego. But even his traitorous conduct isn’t enough to allow the Soviets to find Scorpion in the Atlantic Ocean, even if she was at periscope depth and could be seen,without massive amounts of luck which their ships failed to acquire in large measure throughout the Cold War.
We thought and trained like they were ten feet tall and bulletproof during the Cold War. After the Soviet Union collapsed, we determined that it was WE who were ten feet tall and bulletproof. Scorpion fell victim to a force much stronger than the Soviets or even the United States Navy. The Sea took her because her proficiency and luck were not equal to the unforgivable forces of Mother Nature, and the insidious ability of water to follow any path into the people tanks, and snuff out the lives of valiant Seamen whose boat remains small, in God’s vast ocean.
I echo Chap in saying “Rest Your Oars”. And I pray to one day join those Men on Eternal Patrol.
Subsunk
I can’t speak for the details, but while following the threads from the Wiki article on the Scorpion, I discovered the Thresher and mention of the SUBSAFE program:
In the Navy, with hundreds of ships, and a limited amount of resources to apply to them, it takes dramatic changes in scheduling, material procurement, and programs to modernize and upgrade systems quickly onboard ships, and they have to be applied in an intelligent manner. Although I am not perfectly familiar with the timeline required to implement the SUBSAFE program in the 60s, I can assure you it is unlikely the program was “disregarded” in a rush to get another submarine available to meet its commitments. It is more likely that Scorpion was scheduled for a shipyard availability in which some SUBSAFE improvements would have been accomplished and simply had not had all of them completed by the time she sank. It is also unclear whether any of these systems would have prevented the loss of Scorpion. As I say, the scenarios indicate possibilities and likelihoods, but none of them lend themselves to successfully reaching the surface, even in a SUBSAFE configured ship, especially if it undergoes a torpedo or battery well explosion.
SUBSAFE is a program which changed material conditions on the ships, as well as the maintenance procedures and the philosophy behind those procedures to assure quality parts were used, quality was designed into the ships’ systems, and the personnel maintaining these systems, testing them, and operating them were properly trained in the need to be sure of their equipment and their operating and maintenance practices.
It was a major change in philosophy, and while it would not have taken 5 yrs to make changes immediately improve conditions on Scorpion, not all changes to these ships could be made within a single Intermediate Maintenance Availability. Design changes were required. Some changes required installation of new reserve air bottles, large valves, larder piping, etc… welding in of new larger diameter steel piping, instead of soldering them as was the practice in 1963 (Thresher). The changes in maintenance practices required written procedures with inspection points for certain systems, and the training and qualification of inspectors onboard the tender and the ships. The major changes would have required a shipyard to make them, and likely would have been scheduled in the normal shipyard rotation at the time, which was a 5 yr overhaul periodicity. Since Scorpion was also a new ship, she would have likely been deployed just before this overhaul, but significant portions of the upgrades may have been accomplished already.
I’m sure there is someone out there who could identify these facts for us, and if it was 10 yrs ago, I could have done so myself.
But I doubt the Scorpion’s loss was due to a disregard of the SUBSAFE program just to get her out on patrol quicker, or to more easily fit some enhanced maintenance program at the expense of submarine safety. We just don’t work that way. Not since World War II even.
An explosion of some sort onboard a submarine tends to make a mess of the internals. Witness the Kursk and the attendant loss of life and impressive damage done in the compartments closest to the explosion, while the Engineroom remained intact, apparently.
Good thoughts, maybe, but Wikipedia is wrong again.
Subsunk