At about 0530 on a cold drizzly morning
a bunch of duty people and all the non-quals the duty chief could lay
his hands on were rousted out from their warm blankets on the living
barge at the end of drydock #1 at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard,
Kittery, Maine. They were told to hustle over to where this nuc boat
was getting underway to handle lines. As usual with things “Navy”
the boat which was supposed to move out at 0700 got delayed the line
handlers stood around in the damp wind while things got straightened
out. At about 0800 the boat finally moved out with shipyard riggers
lifting off the brow and the wire rope lines forward. The
disgruntled wet crew from the living barge walked back over to get
some breakfast and start a new week in the shipyard. It was Monday,
9 April 1963.
Their boat the USS Dogfish (SS-350) was
undergoing an overhaul. It was torn apart in the basin of drydock
#1. On Wednesday of that week things seemed different. There were
clumps of shipyard workers standing around, not working. Some folks
seemed to be moving about with some urgency. Then as the day wore on
the word spread that the Thresher, that boat that got underway on
Monday was missing while on sea trials. As the day turned to evening
the shipyard turned from a general quiet to near silence as there was
no work being done.
The next day at quarters, the crew of
the Dogfish were officially notified to the missing boat but the news
was hardly a surprise. At noon each division met on either the work
barge or the living barge and were told by their division officers
that if anyone wanted to 'non-vol' and obtain a transfer out of
submarines that request would be honored with no question. With the
official announcement that the Thresher was lost in water much deeper
than her crush depth and there was no hope of survival, the shipyard
and the Navy turned to the task of dealing with the relatives of the
crew and the shipyard workers that perished. It was a daunting task
that turned into a real job of problem solving. Many crew didn't
have wills and many of the wills hadn't been updated. Insurance
policies sometimes listed ex-wives as beneficiaries. Several members
of the Dogfish crew along with other sub crews (Tinosa and John
Adams) were tasked with clearing out the Thresher crew lockers in the
barracks. The general rule in packing the personal effects for
shipment was that if we would not want our parents or relatives to
receive an item it didn't get packed. These were mostly cigarettes,
books, magazines and the like.
As the week wore on into the following
week memorial services were scheduled. Planned mostly by faith,
Catholic, Protestant and so forth the little chapel at the shipyard
was used. When it was realized that there were more people attending
than the chapel could hold the services were moved outside to the
bridge and conning tower shears of the Squalus memorial. Some crew
members of the boats in the yard served as ushers and gofers for the
arrangements and services. It was a very sad time.
As a new graduate of submarine school I
reported to Dogfish in March of 1963. I can still remember clearly
being well aft and helping handle #4 line as Thresher went on sea
trials as well as the events of the following weeks. Some things kind
of blur together but the memory of the feeling is still there.
Upon returning from a Western Pacific
Deployment in June of 1968 I took my leave of another diesel boat (USS Sterlet SS-392)and
made my way to Galesburg, Illinois where for the first time in my
life I met my fiance's family. I got there on the first of June and
we were married on the 8th. It was during that week that
the story of the loss of the USS Scorpion broke. I asked my wife to
be if she still wanted to go through with the wedding as I would be
sticking with the Submarine Force as a 20 year career. I stayed with
submarines until retiring in 1982; she is still with me. I got the
better deal. But I never, ever handled lines for a submarine getting
underway. Superstition I guess.
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------------- Be Well Oldsubs
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