Titanic search was cover for secret Cold War subs mission

Times Online ^ | 5/24/08 | Lewis Smith

[Dawnsblood]

The man who located the wreck of the Titanic has revealed that the discovery was a cover story to camouflage the real mission of inspecting the wrecks of two Cold War nuclear submarines.

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.

Only once he had used his new underwater robot craft to map the submarine wreck sites was he able to use it to crisscross the North Atlantic seabed to pinpoint the last resting place of the luxury liner. It meant he had only 12 days to find the Titanic.

“I couldn’t tell anybody,” he said. “There was a lot of pressure on me. It was a secret mission. I felt it was a fair exchange for getting a chance to look for the Titanic.

“We handed the data to the experts. They never told us what they concluded – our job was to collect the data. I can only talk about it now because it has been declassified.”

[John123]

giving rise to fears that at least one of them, Scorpion, had been sunk by the USSR.

And?

[al baby]

must read reply s later

[cripplecreek]

The Titanic truth movement tells the REAL truth.

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=af07

[fkabuckeyesrule]

....and they never found Jack Dawson.

[KoRn]

They left this part out of the movie. It would have certainly added some excitement. lol

[NonValueAdded]

"Dr Ballard’s visual examination of the [Scorpion] wreck site showed that the most likely cause of its destruction was being hit by a rogue torpedo that it had fired itself."

Acquired by its own torpedo but how did that torpedo also arm itself?

[Diogenesis]

USS Scorpion (SSN-589)

[Walkingfeather]

That guy is a tool....

This caught my eye though....

“Dr Ballard’s visual examination of the wreck site showed that the most likely cause of its destruction was being hit by a rogue torpedo that it had fired itself.”

One problem.... why was it firing a torpedo? This vessel was on the way home when it got re tasked to check out some soviet ship movements. An article I read last week said Walker the spy had compromised the comm codes and set a trap for her.

[BallyBill]

I heard this on TV one night in bed and thought I must be dreaming. It was a sort of throw away comment about funding for the search. I forgot all about it till now.

[null and void]

...and how can he be so sure it was the Scorpion’s own torpedo?

[mad_as_he$$]

1. I call BS.

2. Ballard is a notorious gas bag within the research community.

3. Scorpion sunk near the Azores a long way from the Titanic.

4. Thresher did sink off New England and one could argue it is on the way to Titanic. But....

[Bender2]

Re: The Titanic truth movement tells the REAL truth.
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=af07

From there: This site is dedicated to exposing the truth about the government's involvement in the sinking of the Titanic. Specifically, that they did it (and by "they" I mean Jews).

Gadzooks, crip, do you really buy this horse hockey?

[cripplecreek]

Gadzooks, crip, do you really buy this horse hockey?

Nope but you should take another close look and watch the movie.;~)

[Dawnsblood]

That site and the videos there are parodies meant to point fun at the “Loose Change” kooks ie the 9/11 troofers.

[75thOVI]

This is one of the most poorly kept secrets around. I heard Ballard talk at the Mystic Marinelife Aquarium when I was living in New London and he mentioned the stop by the Scorpion at the time. It's not mentioned in his book, but it's never really been a secret.

[JimRed]

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.

Makes it sound like he needed permission to search for something in international waters. Pay for it yourself and you don't even have to tell anyone what you're up to. But when you take their funding you play by their rules.

[Bender2]

I did watch it and if done as a joke, it is not funny. But it does remind me of that famous quote from another unfunny person: “I do believe that it’s the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel.”

[Pontiac]

Related post

New evidence suggests Soviets may have sunk the sub Scorpion 40 years ago

[Portcall24]

If you read a book called Blind Mans Bluff they describe how a tiny piece of membrane in the batteries broke down and created a hot running torpedo. A great read by the way. I had always heard a valve was incorrectly installed in the Thresher.

[Lancey Howard]

....and they never found Jack Dawson.

They weren't looking for him. He wasn't on the passenger list.

[Leisler]

Woods Hole gets buckets of money from the Navy, and it's not because the Navy is interested in deep water sponges and cute photos.

The story I heard was the torpedo battery design was poor, such that there was a risk of it overheating or maybe starting up the torpedo such that the drill was to get it overboard. That the torpedo would go active and start searching for the nearest contact, and out in the middle of nowhere that would be the sub.

Do torpedoes then have to be sensored ‘on’, or could you just push them out in a dead sensor/seek setting?
Did we have wire guided torpedoes then? I don't think so.

[Jambe]

Not true.

[j_tull]

It’s not that the valves were incorrectly installed. The changes in the design of submarine seawater and ballast control systems were profound as the the result of the loss of Thresher. Biggest problem, air compressed in to high pressure air banks was not thoroughly dried. The rapid decompression that occurs during a main ballast tank blow is a significant endothermic event. When the air is not dry, ice forms in the curves and narrow parts of the pipe. When the air passages ice up, no air flows, if the MBTs ain’t dry, and you can’t get more air into them, you ain’t coming up, especially if you are taking on water.

[Bubba_Leroy]

Dr Ballard’s visual examination of the wreck site showed that the most likely cause of its destruction was being hit by a rogue torpedo that it had fired itself.

I can understand how a visual examination could show that it was destroyed by a torpedo, but how the hell could you tell whose torpedo it was?

[sailor4321]

Ours say “Made in USA”?

[Rebelbase]

Watch the video. Ice melts faster than metal.

[Rebelbase]

“If you read a book called Blind Mans Bluff they describe how a tiny piece of membrane in the batteries broke down and created a hot running torpedo.”

Center fuel tank theory?

[Rebelbase]

Wow. Unreal how treacherous Walker was.

“John Anthony Walker, Jr. (born July 28, 1937 in Washington D.C.)[1] is a former Warrant Officer and communications specialist for the U.S. Navy convicted for selling his services as a spy to the Soviet Union from 1968 to 1985, the height of the Cold War era.[2] Walker pleaded guilty in late 1985 as part of a plea arrangement whereby he offered testimony on co-conspirator Jerry Whitworth, provided details of his espionage activities and negotiated more lenient treatment for his son, Michael Walker.[2] During his time as a spy, Walker helped the Soviets decipher over two hundred thousand classified encrypted naval messages,[citation needed] organizing a spy operation that The New York Times reported in 1987 “is sometimes described as the most damaging Soviet spy ring in history.”[3]”

[Sub-Driver]

Ballard has spent too much time in the pub. It’s all BS.

[Traveler59]

Not true.

Please elaborate. I've shown the passage from Blind Mans Bluff to two submariners (attack subs) and they've both said the description is entirely plausible.

-Traveler

[Nateman]

... giving rise to fears that at least one of them, Scorpion, had been sunk by the USSR...

I served on a nuclear sub between 1983 to 1987. I never heard anybody even speculate that it was attacked.

[Walkingfeather]

Yeah the declassification of this information could very well lay the death of those sailors at the feet of john walker.

[null and void]

Fixed your typo:

Ours say “Made in USA China”?

[The Spirit Of Allegiance]

^

[Non-Sequitur]

Did we have wire guided torpedoes then? I don't think so.

The standard submarine torpedo in the late 60's was the Mark 37, Mod 2 which was, I believe, wire guided.

[Leisler]

Cool. Thx.

[sig226]

It wasn’t a hot running torpedo, it was on fire. They theorized that the battery was one of a defective lot (records were lost) and the fire caused by the defective membrane was hot enough to set off a low order detonation.

The chapter on the search for the Scorpion was worth the price of the book by itself, but the whole book is excellent.

[sig226]

The Navy found Scorpion in 1968 and dove on it with the Trieste II.

[Know et al]

giving rise to fears that at least one of them, Scorpion, had been sunk by the USSR.
And?

And the U.S. gubmint will cover up the cause if it was anything other than an accident.

[Interesting Times]

Thresher ping.

[Know et al]

Why would they use a live and armed torpedo in a training exercise? Why did they not have a way to disarm the rogue torpedo? Why did they not have counter measures. If the sub looked like it was run through a shredder, how could they have any idea about the cause of the sinking? Something doesn't smell right.

[ApplegateRanch]

Q: What do these have in common?

John Anthony Walker, Jr

his son, Michael Walker

John Walker Lind

A: They all need a short drop off a tall scaffold.

[sailor4321]

Maybe that’s why it was defective!

[tlb]

>>>I can understand how a visual examination could show that it was destroyed by a torpedo, but how the hell could you tell whose torpedo it was?

Internal blast pattern outward, or not.

[mad_as_he$$]

Thanks for the memory jog. I had forgotten that one. Makes the story even less plausible.

[Vinnie]

Beat me,
‘Assembled in Mexico from US and Chinese parts”

[metesky]

Great book! After I read it I passed it along to an old submariner pal of mine and he had high praise for it.

[null and void]

Yours is better.

[Nailbiter]

One very enlightening book.