The Thresher’s last dance. Part 1
This story is fiction, based on an actual event. I obviously don’t know what everyone thought,or every single step, I wasn’t there. This is conjecture. I will break it into multiple parts, for ease of posting. And it’s an emotional subject for most of us submariners.
“Only a little while longer, and we can head back to port”, thought theReactor Operator.
He was on the crew of the Thresher, and they were running “Sea Trials” to make sure the Navy’s new submarine met her criteria. They were very interested. You see, the Thresher was not just a new boat(submarines are boats), but she was the first in her class. Diving deeper and faster, she was to herald in a new era of attack submarines.
Topside was the Skylark. She was there “just in case” being a submarine rescue ship. And she monitored what was going on with communications from the submarine through the “gertude”.
“Lot of good that’s gonna be”, he thought. The oceans deeper here than we can go. “Then again, we had some problems earlier in port, and it never hurts to have someone around in case we need a jump start”. Then he laughed thinking about AAA coming out to jump start a sub.
Checking his panel for abnormalities, he heard, “Maneuvering, Con. We are commencing the Recoverability Trial. All ahead full”.
He always wondered at All Ahead. We only have one propeller. I guess the Navy just wants to be uniform with the ships that had multiple propellers.
“Con, Maneuvering. Answering ahead full”.
Well, some more “Angles and Dangles”, those are always fun. He didn’t tell anyone, but around 35 degrees, he started to get nervous. The brainstarted saying funny things when the bulkheads (walls) started to become the deck (floor).
They were going to simulate losing hydraulics while going fast and deep. His brain almost ran through his submarine quals as he remembered the hydraulics controlling the “planes”. With no hydraulics, the planes went to the down position because of gravity. Thus the submarine would be screaming towards the ocean bed, till her crew recovered hydraulics with the emergency pumps. Not a problem for this crew. Plenty of school learning while the boat was built, and plenty of practice working as a crew in the last few months.
“JAM DIVE” squawked the 1MC throughout the sub.
Watchstanders throughout the sub raced around performing various arcane actions. From an outside perspective, it looked like chaos. But to someone that knew what was going on, it was a beautiful ballet. Each step choreographed just as much as a Broadway show. More so than the Broadway show in fact. You see, this is the last ballet the crew and civilian yard workers will ever perform. Because today, April 10, 1963, The USS Thresher, hull number SSN-593 performs her last ballet. The last dance with Davey Jones. And her only audience, the USS Skylark, hull number ASR-20 is the closest rescue/witness available. And they might as well be on the other side of the moon.