The Thresher’s last dance. Part 14
*ENGINEERING,SCORPION*
Cheng (Sub talk for Chief ENGineer) walks, checking his spaces, looking at the equipment but mostly talking to the officers and the watch standers. Anyone that’s ever been in command knows the equipment is important, but the men more so. Admiral Rickover himself not only not only was instrumental in creating the Naval Nuclear Power Program, but he personally interviewed EVERY SINGLE prospective officer in the program.
Mostly, Cheng was reassuring himself. It was his job to worry, he WAS the Chief Engineer, in charge of all in Engineering Department, men and equipment. He and the other department heads (Weaps, Comms, Supply, Med, etc.) were only subordinate to the CO and XO. Scorpion had had some problems recently, it was a highly complex machine operating in a dangerous environment. A Freon leak in the refrigeration systems, an electrical fire in the escape trunk, various equipment tagged to be looked at once in port, and she was operating with a depth restriction due to incomplete SUBSAFE upgrades (lessons learned from Thresher). Really, nothing more or less than had happened in any sub of the fleet. He heard the men gripe about not going straight to “the barn”, but soldier’s and sailor’s gripe, it’s their escape in highly stressful environments.
It wasn’t just the Scorpion that had had some problems. So far, 1968 had been a bad year for submarines across the globe.
INS Dakar was lost to the Israeli Sea Corp 25 January. On her way to port, she had periodically transmitted. But the transmissions ceased. The Dakar was lost with all hands, no known cause, no known location.
The Minerve S647 was lost to the French Navy 27 Jan. One hour from pulling into port, she radioed her status. She never made it to port. She hasn’t been found.
And more recently, K-129 was lost to the Soviets. 24 Feb she made a test dive and a listening station picked her up reporting completion to base. She submerged, never to be seen again.
This would not happen to the Scorpion, Cheng would see to that.
*ENGINEERING, SCORPION*
The ensign standing an “under instruction” watch at EOW (Engineer of the Watch, pronounced ee-ow) was tired. Physically tired, mentally tired. He swore his bones were tired. After long hours at nuke school was even longer hours at nuke prototype, studying and even standing watch simulating a submarine on land. After nuke prototype, do you think he could take a break or get a pat on the back? No. He was assigned to the Scorpion….. all 252 foot, 3 thousand tons of her. There were other NUBs onboard (sub talk for Non Useable Body, someone that sucks down oxygen but provides no useful output.), but NUBs were usually put with senior crew, to break them in. How was he going to lead these men, when they had years of experience at what they were doing. And it showed in the way they stood their watches. They made their reports, talked about everything from nuclear power to what they were going to do when they made port, and still scanned their equipment with the ease that could only come from hours and hours, days after days, of doing their jobs.
After all, the Scorpion was not a new vessel out on trials, like the Thresher. Her keel had been laid 10 years before. Numerous missions, racking up hour upon hour, mile upon mile. She was as safe as she could be, operating in a hostile environment.
Author’s Note: I highly recommend reading about Admiral Rickover.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_G._Rickover
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49068823
French Minerve submarine is found after disappearing in 1968
Thanks to d.kaufman for finding this article