Chasing Ghosts

You know, you just have to love a good conspiracy theory. Sure, most of them are ridiculous but, at their very best, they are also infinitely entertaining. Really, if we were all going to be honest with ourselves, a conspiracy theory is just as irresistible as a warm chocolate chip cookie, fresh from the oven. They persist because they explain something which is not readily explainable and, more importantly, assign responsibility and blame to someone or something for what, in reality, amounts to a random act of chance. Besides which, conspiracy theories empower people by allowing them to believe that they were smart enough to figure out a plot so nefarious and subtle, the rest of us missed it. Some people even manage to make comfortable livings out of milking a conspiracy theory for all it's worth . . . von Danaaken, I'm looking at you.

This, however, isn't about ancient astronauts, or even a good conspiracy theory. It's about a rather sad one, and one that really serves no other purpose than to keep old wounds from healing. I'm talking about the loss of USS Scorpion.

For those of you who don't, ahem, have the benefit of having quite as many miles on their odometers as others of us, perhaps some explanation is in order. Scorpion was a Skipjack-class fast attack submarine that was lost with all hands southwest of the Azore Islands at the end of May in 1968. She was the second nuclear-propelled boat that the US Navy lost, the first being Thresher five years earlier. Unlike Thresher, however, no one really knows why Scorpion sank. Thresher, after all, was on a post-overhaul shakedown when she was lost, and there were witnesses. Scorpion, on the other hand, was returning from an operational deployment to the Mediterranean and was alone. Well, almost alone, but we'll get to that in a minute.

While no one really knows why the boat was lost, that hasn't stopped the conspiracy theororists, of course. Mysteries, after all, tend to breed such theories. The favourite theory out there postulates that Scorpion was deliberately sunk by the Soviets. The question, naturally, then becomes exactly why the Soviets would do that. Really, short of starting a general war on a whim, there isn't much reason to run around sinking nuclear submarines at random.

Okay some more history is needed here in order to make sense of this theory, so hang on. In 1967, in the Pacific Ocean, the Soviets had lost a Golf-class missile submarine - off hand, I don't recall the project number (Soviet, and now Russian, submarines are known by "project" numbers, in addition to name), but I believe it was K-129. Anyway, that particular class of boats were conventionally-powered, and were armed with SLBMs. Now, no one knows exactly why that submarine sank, either, though there is, of course, a conspiracy theory for that one, too.

In short, the theory about the loss of K-129 holds that the crew had gone "rogue," and were attempting to launch their missiles at Pearl Harbour. Again, exactly why they would want to do that remains unexplained, but perhaps they were only trying to finish what the Japanese started, granted twenty-six years too late. Anyway, one idea holds that the boat suffered some sort of mechanical casualty while trying to launch her missiles (or should I say "he," since Russians refer to ships in the masculine?) which flooded one or more tubes, which then flooded the boat. A twist on that, and one actually favoured by many Russians, is that the boat was rammed and sunk by an American submarine in order to prevent the launch.

Right, couple of problems with that. First, the Golf-class boats were unable to fire their missiles while submerged. Those boats had to be on the surface in order to launch and, since the missile tubes were in the boat's sail, that automatically precludes flooding as the proximate cause of loss. You can't actually flood something when the thing you're trying to flood isn't in the water . . . That some sort of casualty occured is obvious; the boat did sink, after all. But, since there were no distress calls from K-129 and no survivors, the exact cause of her loss will never be known, Glomar Explorer notwithstanding.

Second, even if we were to accept the idea that the crew of K-129 had gone off the deep end and decided to start a nuclear war for shits and giggle, and that a US submarine then sank her to prevent that, why would the US boat ram her? Kiddies, we're not talking about the family sedan getting into a fender-bender here. Collisions at sea tend to be much more catastrophic than that and, really, the only flooding you want to have happen on a submarine is in the ballast tanks. Flooding inside the pressure hull can quickly get out of control and put the boat on the bottom for a permanent visit. And, in a collision, there is really no way you can predict what the resulting damage will be. Besides which, why ram when a torpedo will do the job?

Anyway, the theory goes that the Soviets were, shall we say, perturbed over the loss of K-129, and blamed the Americans. How does that relate to the loss of Scorpion? Simple, my young padawans . . .

At the time Scorpion left the Med to return to her homeport in Norfolk, about the 20th of May, the Soviets were holding a naval exercise near the Azores. As she was the only boat in the vicinity, Scorpion was diverted to go an monitor those exercises. As we now know, thanks to John Walker and his family of douchebags, the Soviets were reading the Navy's message traffic, and were aware of Scorpion's presence. Now, this is where it gets good. Still being ticked about K-129, the Soviets then decided to sink Scorpion in retaliation. The best part of this is that, following the sinking of the boat, there entailed a forty-one year mutual effort on the part of the US and the Soviet Union/Russia to suppress that information.

Yeah. And Santa Claus really does climb down every chimney in the world on December 24th to deliver presents to all the good boys and girls of the world.

A conspiracy, of course, in order to be successful, depends on everyone involved keeping their mouth shut. The problem being, the more people who are in on the conspiracy, the less likely it becomes to remain a secret. In this case, we're being asked to believe that not only the entire naval establishments of the United States and the Soviet Union/Russia have made a "gentleman's agreement" to sit on the true cause of Scorpion's loss, but the diplomatic and intelligence establishments of both nations are in on it as well. Oh, and throw our Congress in there as well, since an incident like that would have to be briefed to at least the ranking members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, the Intelligence Oversight Committees, and their staffs.

Right. Not very likely now, is it?

I recently read a book entitled Scorpion Down, in which that theory is laid out in its entirety. I have to say, it makes for good fiction, but . . . In order to have a sustainable theory, you've really got to get your facts straight. As an example, the book states that the Navy knew Scorpion was missing and started a search for her . . . at a time when she hadn't even left the Mediterannean yet. In point of fact, at the time the author of the book states that the Navy started searching for her, Scorpion was tied up to a tender at the submarine base in Rota, Spain. In that case, it seems the "search" would have been a simple matter of someone walking over to the rail and looking to see if she was still there . . .

Again, no one knows exactly why Scorpion sank. One theory advanced by the Board of Inquiry was that there was a failure of the TDU, the trash disposal unit. Think of it as a mini-torpedo tube. About the size of a trash can, a TDU does exactly what the name implies. When a boat is at or near periscope depth, garbage is stuffed into the TDU and then ejected overboard. This theory postulates that there was some sort of mechanical casualty to the unit, which resulted in uncontrolled flooding of the boat. Possible, since the unit pierces the hull and, if the inner and outer doors were somehow both open at the same time, or there was a catastrophic failure of the seals, the sea would be allowed to enter. There is also the fact that Scorpion was, by the Navy's own admission, in a poor material state. Due to operational tempos, she had missed a much-needed overhaul period, so a casualty like that can't be ruled out.

Another theory advanced by the Board of Inquiry was that Scorpion had suffered what's known as a "hot run" with one of her torpedoes. Simply put, a hot run is when a torpedo starts running while it is still in the torpedo tube or, worse, in its rack or loading tray. The only thing you can do is fire the thing as quickly as possible, and then make a one-hundred and eighty degree turn to get away from the thing.

Now, the type of torpedo carried by Scorpion, the Mk. 37, was notorious for suffering hot runs. It was fueled by two volatile chemicals, which were separated by a thin foil strip. That strip had a nasty habit of degrading unexpectedly, allowing those chemicals to mix and starting the weapon's motor. This was not news to anyone who handled those weapons.

There actually exists evidence to support the hot run theory. Scorpion's loss was recorded by the SOSUS net in the Atlantic, and that sound data proved key in locating the wreck. According to the recordings, there is the sound of a torpedo being launched from Scorpion, followed by the boat making a radical one-hundred and eighty degree turn . . . then the sound of an explosion and, approximately fifteen seconds later, the boat breaking up. Compelling but, in the absence of survivors or on-scene witnesses, not conclusive.

The conspiracy theororists, of course, latch on to those recordings as "proof" of their assertions. After all, there is the noise of a torpedo running in the ocean; therefore, it has to be a Soviet torpedo. The problem being that, if the SOSUS net had recorded a Soviet torpedo, then it would also have recorded the Soviet submarine that launched it, and the noise of a Soviet boat is conspicuosly lacking from the data. And, with all due apologies to the author of Scorpion Down, there is just no way that a SOSUS technician in Guam, in a different ocean on the other side of the world, heard Scorpion being sunk.

Okay, why have I wasted so much time on this? Simply because perpetuating this myth concerning Scorpion is incredibly cruel to the families of the lost crew. It is bad enough that they lost their husbands, sons and brothers in that tragedy. But continually hitting them over the head with a baseless theory that ascribes hostile intent not only to the alleged perpetrators, but to the Navy and the country those men served, does absolutely nothing but keep tearing that wound open. Leave it alone, already. Take off the tin-foil hats and just leave those people alone.