A retired U.S. Navy submarine commander has won a lawsuit forcing the Navy to release its report on what happened to the USS Thresher, a nuclear-powered attack submarine that sank during diving tests in 1963. The loss of the submarine has never been fully explained, and the Navy has never released the report on the sub’s sinking.
USS Thresher was the first of its class, a new type of fast, deep diving attack submarine. The Thresher-class
subs used a streamlined hull designed for fast underwater travel. With a
torpedo-like hull design and a S5W nuclear reactor, the Thresher
class could make 20 knots on the surface and 30 knots underwater—the
reverse of World War II-era submarines designed to spend most of their
time on the surface. The submarines were 278 feet long, 31 feet wide,
and carried Mk. 37 homing torpedoes for use against surface and
subsurface targets, SUBROC anti-submarine torpedoes, and sea mines.
On April 9, 1963, the Thresher was 220 miles east of Cape Cod, conducting diving tests. It was the first submarine to use the new HY-80 steel alloy, and the Navy was eager to determine how deep the new design could safely dive. At 9:13 a.m., while at a depth of 1,300 feet, the submarine radioed the submarine rescue ship USS Skylark, waiting above:
“Experiencing minor difficulties. Have positive up angle. Am attempting to blow (ballast tanks). Will keep you informed.”
But Thresher never surfaced, and the Navy later found the sub in six pieces on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. All 129 personnel on board were killed. People have come up with many theories about how the sub sank, including blaming the faulty welds that failed during the tests, shorting out the sub’s critical electrical systems and sapping its power.
Capt. Jim Bryant, a retired Navy submarine officer, wanted to see the Navy’s 1,700-page report on the Thresher’s sinking, but the Navy refused to release it. So Bryant, Stars and Stripes reports, sued the Navy, and last month a federal judge ordered the service to release it in 300-page chunks.
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