Search For RMS Titanic Was a Cover Story

wiredog writes "According to National Geographic, Robert Ballard's search for the RMS Titanic in 1985 was a cover operation for the real search: They were looking for the USS Thresher and USS Scorpion, two US nuclear submarines that sank during the Cold War." ABC News also has a story on this two-fer undersea search.

Comments

Old News

[Major Blud]

I remember hearing about this quite a few years ago, so this really isn't ground breaking news. I wish I could name a source....probably the Discovery Channel. I saw the special on the National Geographic Channel about this last night. The part that amazes me is that Ballard was able to keep his French partner in the dark about searching for the Scorpion.

Re:Project Jennifer

[inviolet]

The U.S. government has used false pretenses to cover up secret submarine recovery operations before. In Project Jennifer, the CIA got Howard Hughes to build the Glomar Explorer, ostensibly to mine undersea minerals but actually to try and recover a sunken Russian submarine. The project failed to recover much of the submarine, which broke apart as it was being pulled to the surface. However, two Russian nuclear missiles were recoverd.

Probably the most interesting thing about that mission was the real reason behind it...

The Russian sub had left its assigned patrol area without leave. It surfaced and may have attempted a rogue missile launch against Hawaii. A failsafe or tamper-proofing or other failure caused the missile to self-destruct inside the launch tube. The sub then sank.

In the salvage effort the Americans weren't aiming to learn anything about Soviet nuclear sub construction. Rather, they wanted to prove (to the Russians) the suspicion that the sub's officers had gone rogue. This information was a powerfully upsetting revelation to the Russian military command, because it meant they did not have reliable control over their boomers.

John Craven, one of the guys who worked on the salvage project eventually wrote a tell-some book about it. Fascinating stuff.

Re:Doesn't Compute

[CrimsonAvenger]

There were several factors that sank her, too many for here.

Realistically, it reduces to two things:

1) When the Main Seawater Pipe shears, the boat sinks. Period. The engine room has too much volume to be lifted to the surface by any combination of blowing ballast and driving up, even ignoring that you lose the main engines when the MSW shears.

2) The High Pressure Air system iced up. The air in the tanks wasn't dry enough, and when it expanded, it froze out until the pipes were blocked. Which pretty much prevented blowing ballast.

One soul actually called the depth every 50 ft as they sank, no panic just steady data. He knew what was coming!

Everyone who goes down in one of the boats knows. There's always the chance of taking the Thresher and Scorpion out of Port and Starboard when you go down, and any sane sailor knows it. Any experienced sailor knows how many times his boat has come closer than he'd like to doing it (mine, once while I was on it, once before that), and worries every time he goes down.

Re:Doesn't Compute

[CrimsonAvenger]

Don't like answering myself, but it occurred to me that "Port and Starboard" was not self-explanatory.

Used in that way, it refers to watchstanding. Normally, a Sailor stands one watch in three. Occasionally, for whatever reason, you find yourself standing one watch in two. Which means you are Port and Starboard with the other guy who stands your watch while you sleep.

The Thresher and Scorpion are on a Port and Starboard watch at the bottom, waiting for someone to come along and put them on a three-watch rotation...