Search For The Titanic Was a Cover For Secret Cold War Sub Missions
Almost unbelievable, but still, here it is: <snip>
When Bob Ballard led a team that pinpointed the wreckage of the liner in 1985 he had already completed his main task of finding out what happened to USS Thresher and USS Scorpion.
Both of the United States Navy vessels sank during the 1960s, killing more than 200 men and giving rise to fears that at least one of them, Scorpion, had been sunk by the USSR.
Dr Ballard, an oceanographer, has admitted that he located and inspected the wrecks for the US Navy in top secret missions before he was allowed to search for the Titanic.
Times Online has the full story.
BTW, the pic above is the USS Scorpion, it was the sister ship to the first sub I served on. They were part of the Skipjack class of boats and they were pigs, but I say that with love and with fond memories.
It’s so cool that you were a submariner!
Weren’t you the one that wrote that some Shrimps sound like Sizzling Bacon on the Sonar?
yep, i was a bubblehead for about 10 years. Saw and did some really cool things. Sometimes I miss it.
Went into an old submarine in Sydney last year, it’s incredible how guys like you managed to work and live inside such a cramped boat like that.
Yeah, it’s a different lifestyle even compared to the rest of the naval fleet. But you do get used to it after a while. You’re usually too busy standing watch, tracking bad guys, playing war games, running drills and drills and more drills, eating, sleeping, cleaning, eating again, standing watch again, watching movies….
You get the idea.
I feel lucky to have found such a wealth of info.
Michael,