Lead: In April 1963, USS Thresher, a nuclear attack submarine sank in the Atlantic off Cape Cod with the loss of 129 lives.
Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.
Content: Thresher was a new class of sub designed to hunt and destroy Soviet nuclear submarines. On the final morning of it life Thresher, commanded by 36-year-old Lt. Commander John W. Harvey, a naval academy graduate, began its descent 220 miles off the Massachusetts coast. By 9:00 the vessel was approaching 1000 feet in depth as it had many times before. Shortly thereafter, a pipe burst in the engine room and icy seawater poured in creating a confusing cloud of mist. Harvey ordered the ballast tanks blown and headed for the surface. Ninety-seconds later the rushing air stopped. At that depth the air had frozen in the pipes blocking the escape valves. At this point water violated the electrical system and the main reactor shut down. Harvey then tried the battery-powered back-up motor and another attempt at blowing the ballast tanks. They froze again. Within minutes the auxiliary power was exhausted and Thresher began to drift backward and downward. The ship's last garbled message was "exceeding test depth....nine hundred north," before it imploded, collapsing in on itself because of the water pressure.
Investigation lay part of the blame to construction techniques that relied too heavily on sliver-brazing rather than full welding. The findings let to improvements in safety and naval construction procedures. The Producer of A Moment in Time is Steve Clark. At the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts. Resources:
Bentley, John. The Thresher Disaster. The Most Tragic Dive in Submarine History. Garden City, New York: Doubleday Publishing Company, 1974.
Golembeski, Dean J. "What Sank the Thresher," American Heritage of Invention and Technology (Summer 1997): 25-31.
Copyright 2002 by Dan Roberts Enterprises, LLC
