The sinking of the Titanic always reminds me of the USS Scorpion (SSN-589).
The two technological marvels of their time unexpectedly sunk and tragically drowned a lot of people.
As it happens, the two are connected–at least the discovery of their locations is.
I first heard of the USS Scorpion when I was a new Navy wife. Someone told me the haunting tale of wives and children lined up at a dock waiting for a submarine to return on its planned day and it never came.
I later realized the story was ridiculous–subs have to maintain radio silence, but they always check in before they come into port. So the families would not have been waiting.
Still, the Navy lost contact with the Scorpion on May 22, 1968, and didn’t find it’s resting location until several weeks later–owing to “increased marinelife activity.”
Chilling.
Scorpion and Titanic
They didn’t know what happened to it, unlike the USS Thresher (SSN-593) which they heard breaking up.
Theories abound, but some 20 years later, the Navy commissioned Dr. Robert Ballard to take a small submersible from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts to find it. The boat went down off the Azores.
Titanic wreckage (Wikimedia Commons)
The deep-sea submersible found the Scorpion, took photos, investigated it as best they could, and headed back to New England.
On the way, Ballard asked the Navy for permission to take a side trip to see if he could find the Titanic.
Using information he’d learned from viewing the Scorpion wreckage (heavier items sink first; debris follows currents), he went to the general area of the Atlantic Ocean where the “unsinkable” ship went down.
He found it.
Comparing the submarines
After his return, Ballard traveled to Groton, CT and asked to tour the USS Skipjack (SSN-585), sister ship to the Scorpion.
He came aboard, where he saw several old friends and he met my husband–the Chief Engineer.
My husband said it was eerie to walk the ship with Ballard–who kept stopping to point and comment: “This was missing on the Scorpion.”
Ballard brought photos and was trying to get a sense of what happened based on what remained intact on the Scorpion’s sister ship.
Many on the crew were uncomfortable with his observations.
The Navy released a report on the sinking of the Scorpion in 2009. It said two unexplained explosions in the forward compartment caused the crew to lose control of the boat. As she sank below crush depth, the boat came apart.
(For those interested, Ballard’s research determined the nuclear reactors from both the Scorpion and the Thresher are intact and pose no problems to marine life or anyone else.)
Changes as a result
Bow of sunken USS Scorpion; 3,000 feet deep (Wikimedia Commons)
After the Scorpion and the Thresher sank, the US Navy instituted far-reaching safety features on their submarines which are used to this day.
The United States has not lost a submarine since 1968–a credit to the professionalism of nuclear submarine sailors, in my opinion.
But then, I’m prejudiced. 🙂
My family has always been interested in the Titanic story, but have adamantly refused to watch the block-buster movie.
But I needed a sense of what the ship was like, and what types of clothing would have been worn at that time (for a novel I’m writing), and so I checked the film out of the library.
The movie begins with a Robert Ballard-type character hunting for the Titanic.
I called my husband to watch and he laughed–once a submariner, always a submariner.
I laughed, too. It’s amazing to me how often my research overlaps with my real life.
(Titanic artifacts were displayed at the museum in my home town one summer day.)
2021 Update
I recently met a woman who was in a prayer group when the USS Scorpion didn’t return. They prayed.
What did they pray? She wrote:
“After a long discussion about believing prayer, we finally decided on praying that someday we would know what happened. So as information came out, I clearly saw that as an answer to the prayers of a group of young wives.”
Amen.
2023 Update
The son of a man who went down on the Scorpion contacted me to say his mother sat in the car with her children in the pouring rain at Norfolk that day, not knowing why she wasn’t allowed on the pier.
She sat there for hours until someone finally told her to go home.
He thanked me for this post–“Any information helps the families left behind with questions, even all these years later.”
How technological advances designed for one purpose can solve an historical question. Click to Tweet
What do the Scorpion and the Titanic have in common? Click to Tweet
Finding a sunken boat owing to “increased marine life activity.” Click to Tweet
Fascinating background!
I was always haunted by both stories…and by the disappearance of the Wahoo during WW2. (Forest Sterling’s account of his time as a yeoman on that boat is one of the best stories of submarine service out there.)
And, of course, the Wahoo has now been found, as well.
All the mysteries will be revealed someday, eh? It’s poignant to attend Sunday services at the Navy chapel on the submarine base Pearl Harbor. They end every service with Eternal Father Strong to Save, but always sing the verse about the submariners. They remember one submarine that is “still on patrol.” Sobering.
I always took great consolation only two have not returned since the 1960’s, but my husband is not the only sailor we know with hair raising stories about not nearly making it home.