I!
Black Clouds Shroud
Watery Grave Of Sub
KUITOltS NOTE: IP! newt
man Michael G. Si-hoftcld re
turned Thursday night from a
flight over the Atlantic nhere
the search is being conducted
fur the nuclear submarine
Thresher. This it his story.
Ily MICHAEL G. SCHOFIKI.D
I'niled Press International
BOSTON (UPIl A constant
drizzle ran down Ihe windows of
the Navy P2V Neptune patrol
bomber droning over the storm
tossed Atlantic.
Black squall clouds hung like
a shroud over the watery grave
of the nuclear submarine Thresh
er and the 129 men aboard.
Below the plane we saw a small
armada of warships searching for
bits of wreckage of the doomed
sub. Visibility was near zero at
times in the cold, damp fog and
intermittent rain squalls and hail.
Ilattlc Mountainous Waves
The ships, bobbing like corks,
battled mountainous 30-foot waves
and gusty, 60-knot winds to hold
station in a tight search pattern
about 275 miles due east of Bos
ton. The black weather was like the
pessimism of the crew of the
P2V assigned to Patrol Squadron
10 at Brunswick. Maine Naval Air
nation, ineir pessimism was
there even before Navy Secretary
Fred H. Korth ruled the Thresher
and all aboard lost.
Lt. ijgi Thomas Vigorito. 26, of
Brooklyn, N.V., tactical navigator
on the bomber noted that some
of the search ships were heeling
as much as 50 degrees from port
to starboard.
Anchor Chain Useless
"No ship has an anchor chain
7,000 feet long," he said, remark
ing on the water depth in the
search area.
"It's bad enough when you have
to look for something like this."
said Lt. ijgl Herbert Ducey, "but
it's downright grim with weather
conditions like this."
Ducey, 25, of Maplewood, N.J.,
is another navigator aboard the
plane piloted by Lt. Cmdr. Harley
O. Wilbur, 36. of Rochester, Mich
The search for the Thresher
and the submariners went on.
In the distance, two deep-sea
fishing trawlers, sails flapping in
the breeze, made their way slow
ly carrying men who seek sus
tenance and their livelihood from
the same sea.
Bathyscaph May Solve
Cause Of Sub Sinking
P5A BATHESCAPH 2-24-2 .Ithoi
SAN DIEGO, Calif. (UPI'-The
Navy held hopes today the bathy
scaph Trieste could determine the
cause of the Thresher disaster, if
the submarine is found.
No rescue operation could be
attempted by the deep-sea diving
craft, but it will carry one movie
camera and three still cameras
as an aid in determining what
caused the disaster. The Navy
said it also would take along ra
diation measuring equipment.
The Trieste crew worked
around the clock to ready it for
shipment on the dock landing ship
Defiance.
The i:i,2S0-ton ship, which will
carry the Trieste on a football
field-sized open deck designed for
landing craft, is expected to de
part late Sunday or early Monday.
The Navy said the 4,900 nautical
mile trip to New London, Conn.,
by way of the Panama Canal will
take 10 days.
There was little hope the Tri
este would be of use in the search
for the missing submarine as it
has practically no mancuvcrabil
ity except up and down. But if
the Thresher is found wrecked on
the ocean bottom, the Trieste
could make observations, take
photographs and be of aid in de
lermining what caused the tragic
mishap. '
The 60-foot Trieste could 'easily
reach the 8,400-foot depth where
the Thresher presumably sank.
Ihe deep-diving craft made a
record 35.800 descent in the Pa
cific in I960.
The research vessel can remain
submerged for 48 hours. Two win
dows are designed to provide vis
ual observation of the ocean and
the craft also is equipped with a
mechanical aim for picking up
ocean specimens, mercury-vapor
Mood lamps and a telephone for
talking with persons on the sur
face.
CROWD RUNS RAMPANT
MANAGUA, Nicaragua tUPl
Four persons were killed and at
least nine others injured Friday
when a crowd of spectators
pushed onto a road during a mo
torcycle race.
USS Skylark, rescue vesstl accompanying th Thresher,
had lair contact at 9 a.m.
i
lOOFt
ZOOFt.
300ft
fOOFi.
Thresher mode shallow and intermediate
test dives April y.
300 feet greatest depth from which a mnn
has escaped.
Thresher was making deep dive "in excess
of 400 feet" when lost.
Man's greatest penetration of the ocean
depths mode in experimental vessel, the
Trieste, Jan.23, I960. Reached 35,800 feet
with two men aboard.
1,000 feet depth capability
of diving bell. No rescue ever
made at this depth.
8,400 feet ocean floor
where Thresher went
down.
-1 :
i
By BOYD LEWIS iS-4 shot out of the waves directly
NEW YORK i SEA 'The sea under the bow of the Paulding.
has embraced the Thresher withTnere was a grinding crash. Ihe;
merciful finality. j submarine rolled over and dis-
Only those who lived through I ap!x'ar 'm s.gm. ine fau.a-
A-,t ..!,., tl.A Vn.v
handful of " "V" T . .7 1 T
10 a nan, auwn at uie neau uui
HERALD AND NEWS. KlamtUi Falls. Ore.
.Sunday, April 14. ISM
PAGE S-A
Thresher Disaster Recalls 1927 Sub Sinking
Piccard Ready To Probe Sea
LAUSANNE, Switzerland (UPIl
Veteran underwater explorer Dr.
Jacques' Piccard said today he
would be "ready and willing. H
asked, to man the bathyscaph
Trieste in a search for the wreck
age of the submarine Thresher.
"There is no question but thai l
would drop everything and go to
help man the Trieste for this
search, if the U.S. Navy asked me
to," Piccard told UP1 in an inter
view. "So far, however, I have
received no such invitation..
"In any case the Navy has sev
eral fully qualified pilots who are
perfectly able to handle the Tri
este without me."
Piccard said he felt the hathy
scaph, in which he set a world
depth diving record in Uie Pacilic
last year, would be "invaluable"
in the search for the Thresher,
which disappeared off Cape Cod
Wednesday with 12!) men aboard.
trugglcd to save
men in the torpedo room of the
S-4 on the bottom off Providence-
town, Mass., 35 years ago last
December, can truly understand
why tiie Thresher's (ate must be
ailed "merciful."
Such a one was this writer.
then a rciuirter out of Boston
for the United Press. To have
lived through those frantic hours
when divers sought vainly to car
ry air to the men faintly tapping
tapping . . . tapping in the
sunken hull: to have lived through
those painful, wintry months of
frustrating salvage efforts after
ill hope of life was cone; to have
lived through weeks of painstak
ing trial and naval inquiry to
have lived through this is to re
member "S-4" as the svmbol of
mighty ordeal.
And this is why one must say
the Thresher's silent final plunge
to the Atlantic deeps took her to
a mercilul end.
The Thresher closed its log on
u test run: so did the S-4. Ihere
1 similarity ends.
The S-4, carrying 40 officers,
men and civilian engineers, was
making s)ccd tests along a mea
sured milo course on the tip of
Cape Cod. She had two peri
scopes, one of which was fixed
on black and white wooden tar
gets which visitors to the Cape
can still sec lowering over the
ciunes. The other was supposed
to be used to scan the horizon
for shipping, which was not
scarce near the entrance to that
famous fishing port.
The S-4 ran the mile and lilted
its bow to the surface. Unseen
by the men of Ihe S-4 control
room was a Coast Guard de
stroyer. an ancient four-stack
"tin can" which the Navy had
turned over lo the Coast Guard to
hunt rum runners, for it was then
the time of Prohibition.
The Paulding's watch officer
spotted a suspicious motorboat
.scuttling just inside the Cape.
Ihe destroyer put on full speed
ahead, black smoke pouring from
its funnels.
Moments later the bow of the
afloat.
Naval salvage crews were mo
bilized. Tugs headed for the scene
towing great pontoons. Divers
were summoned from N a v v
Yards at Charleston, Mass., and
Brooklyn.
A bald Navv eagle with the
wings of a flier on his chest
Capt. Finest King, later to be
Chief of Naval Operations, was in
direct charge of the salvage task
force from the tug Falcon. A
Navy commander named Edward
Ellsburg, later to gain fame
clearing the ports of Eritrea in
World War II and as a writer oi
sea fiction, also was flown
Newspaper reporters, slill and
newsreel cameramen and a small
army of the curious swarmed
down the winding highways ot
the Cape that sub-zero 17th of
December. 1 hailed a cab outside
my office in Boston and said
1 want to go to Provincetown
as fast as possible."
The Portuguese fishermen be
came our ferrymen on the grim
run out to Ihe salvage scene. At
$100 a trip it was belter than
hauling in cod.
The first divers down found the
S-4 resting 105 feet deep, a deep1
gash near her conning tower.
At first there was no sign nf life
Then at midnight came a call
from Cmdr. Ellsburg for some of
us to get out to the Falcon.
Three of us chartered a lobster-
man and chugged across the
black pit of the harbor to the f'al
con, where Ellsburg revealed that
he had been down in a diver's
suit, had heard faint Morse code
like tapping on the wall of the
forward torpedo room and had got
ten to the surface with difficulty
after his suit sprang a leak.
Navy oflicers estimated six
-mvT W, wH
DEATH SUB ARISES Flag flew at half-mast on fvte hulk of the S-4 in Charleston
Navy Yard in March, 1928, She had been brought to the surface three months after
the disaster.
men were in the forward torpedo
room. Their air could hold out at
most about three days.
Divers went down in relays in
frantic, futile efforts to get an
air hose into the torpedo room be
fore the air became poisonous.
The sea was choppy and bitterly
cold. One after another the
brawny divers were hauled out
with the "bends" and were placed
in the t alcon s decompression
chamber to get the deadly nitro
gen bubbles out of their veins
The taps went on for a while,
steadily fainter and more errat
ic. By the third day there were no
taps and there was no more hope.
The S-4 job had become mere sal
vage.
Eventually the salvage crewsj
got great chain slings under the!
hull and wrapped them around
the sunken pontoons. On a bright
day just three months from the
sinking, Ihe pontoons were
pumped dry and Uie S-4 was
brought to the surface.
I stood on the after deck ot
the tug Sagamore with my watch
in hand. The sea boiled and the
rusted bow of the S-4 broke the
surface. I looked at my watch.
It was three months to the min
ute since the submarine had gone
down.
Ask about daily
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