My grandpa died on the USS Scorpion in 1968. Rest in peace John P. Burke. You'll forever live through me.

I served on submarines for 14 years. Every time I hear of the loss of another submarine, even the tales of the Thresher and Scorpion, along with the others lost since, it makes my blood run cold. The water outside tries to kill us, the fires inside try to kill us, and the cooks in the kitchen tried to kill us four times a day, but still we stood the watch.

Being a submariner in the 70’s on 637 class the scorpion and thresher sinkings always bothered me especially that all is secret, the sub-safe program greatly improved the boats safety, proud to have served subs, very demanding occupation

I was a submariner for 20 years. For a short time I tried to get transferred to the Scorpion but it didn’t work out. These sailors are my brothers. Their loss affected me then and still does. Rest In Peace my brothers.

One interesting bit of history that I'm surprised wasn't mentioned, was that this was the SECOND Scorpion (SSN-589). The first Scorpion hull was cut in half, had a missile section added to her, and was renamed the George Washington (SSBN-598), and then a second hull was laid down. A friend of mine served onboard the Washington, and many of the parts had "Scorpion" or "SSN-589" etched on them.

As a fellow submariner several of my former sub- school classmates were on the Scorpion. Fortunately I was assigned to a fleet boat after sub school. RIP my friends.

I lost 2 shipmates and friends on the Scorpion. We went to prototype together at S1C. PO Englehart and Johnson, RIP.

My step-dad who had spent 23 years in the Navy and the rest of his life in Civil Service, swore that the Scorpion had been downed by a "Crazy Ivan" maneuver, and the the thresher had been lost because of a screen on the blow valves that due to wind chill, became blocked with ice, thereby preventing the ship from blowing ballast and surfacing. She goes below her Crush depth, and was lost with all hands. A salute to all Sailors and Merchant Marines who have been lost to the Sea... ⚓🏅

My (would've been) uncle died on that sub. My mom has been wondering what happened to her 18 yr old brother her whole life. Thank you for this documentary that includes the details in what happened that traumatized her and her family, leading to the breakup of the whole fams.

I was a student at nuclear power school protype when the Scorpion went down. I had volunteered for sub duty, but after the Thresher and Scorpion went down, I opted for surface craft. For the last 50+ years I have wondered whether that was a good or bad decision. Just about every submariner I have met over the years loved sub duty. Constantly reminded me surface ships are just "targets".

Anyone who asks "how could the Navy be so negligent?" needs to remember that just a generation earlier the same Navy hadn't seen any need to actually test the torpedoes being used during a war.

My Dad served on the USS Sculpin. He says when submarines are lost, they’re considered “still on patrol”.

I served as a reactor operator on the Scorpion in 1961/1963 during the time we received the Commendation. It was an adventure.

I was 16 & living in Virginia Beach VA... "next door" to Norfolk. And I can remember how this "went down". It was weird... the Navy didn't know it was missing until the Scorpion didn't return to port as scheduled... At least that was the original "story"... The Navy had a series of hydrophone observation posts around the Atlantic. In fact one was located at Cape Hatteras, NC. Anyway, it has since become known that the hydrophones heard the sub when it imploded!! Regardless.... it was certainly a SAD day in Tidewater VA where many (most?) of the crew lived.

The wreck photos of Scorpion are startling since its stern appeared to have been rammed forward into the hull like a cork into a bottle. The propeller still on its shaft appears to have been forced out like a hydraulic shaft from its cylinder as the stern was likely pulled into the hull as the section under the sail failed. The Scorpion's fate likely began by ignoring the hard lesson that the Thresher taught before her and gambling on maintenance was deadlier than the sea itself.

The one common denominator between the two lost US Navy nuclear submarines, not meeting the Submarine Safety Program (SUBSAFE) certification. The first nuclear submarine lost, the USS Thresher, was before the program was implemented. The second nuclear submarine lost, USS Scorpion, never received the certification, but was released for duty. It’s no mystery, without testing and quality control programs in place or if the safety programs are not rigidly adhered to, critical complex system failure will occur. Remember what happened to the space shuttle Challenger when the managers disregarded the engineers warning that the cold temperatures before the launch violated the safety limits of the shuttle solid fuel rocket “O” rings. The lost of the shuttle Columbia was due to falling ice debris falling off during the launch. There were no contingencies for this possible severe ice damage scenario in NASA’s quality control plan. Once the tiles were damaged and the shuttle was in orbit, there was nothing they could do to save the crew. Soon after the shuttle program was deemed to be too dangerous and safety measures too costly to implement and the shuttle program ended.

Even though I was a surface sailor the ships I served in always took a report of a U.S. or allied submarine being in trouble very seriously. One in particular comes to mind where an automated signal broadcast from a buoy released from a sub triggered a "SUBMISS-SUBSUNK" message which started an Atlantic Fleet wide search and identification effort to find the boat. Part of the signal included a code identifying the boat. We had been involved in two other "SUBMISS-SUBSUNK" events, both were from boats actually still safe in port but somehow the buoy was triggered. This boat was very quickly confirmed to be at sea off the east coast. We all breathed a sigh of relief when the boat came close enough to the surface to clearly hear the radio traffic about a missing sub, that submarine. Her skipper decided to break radio silence and ask what the hell was going on. "We ain't lost, we're right here." Totally an accident, but it proved how serious the Navy took submarine safety after the loss of USS Scorpion. Example, my destroyer broke off from her exercise and headed at flank speed toward the known operating area of that sub, the thinking was that our sensitive acoustic gear might hear something helpful if the boat was down.

I served on the USS Sculpin SSN-590, She scared us several times. But, she always managed to get back topside. She's gone now from what I understand, taken out of service in 90 or 89' stored at Bremerton, and finally dismantled for scrap a few years later. (This is what I was told, concerning her dismantling) Fast boat, and handled like a Corvette in the water. For her time, a great achievement.

"...the US Navy never again rushed a overhaul procedure..." Regulations are written in blood.

The sub's loss is not a mystery... The military leadership ordered the sub to sea with a long list of critical problems not fixed in her very much rushed overhaul... any one of these critical problems could have sunk the boat... most certainly this is what happened... and of course no one in the military command got blamed in the coverup...

Dad served 21 years in the Silent Service from 1952-1973 on SSN and then into SSBN. He lost friends on the Thresher and the Scorpion.

11:33 the ship on the right is the U.S.S. Long Beach, the first nuclear powered surface combatant in the world: My grandfather, my last living grandparent, served on board her as a missile technician. I'm very proud of him, as well as that beautiful (though unique looking) ship.

I am a Navy veteran but never served on a sub. I met someone once who was a former submariner, who left the submarine service after the loss of the Scorpion and several of his friends. He told a group of us that the Soviets pulled a Crazy Ivan, causing a collision with the Scorpion which turned away too late. There was enough damage to cause the Scorpion to sink below the crush depth in her poor condition. Two years later, the Soviet K-108 submarine and the USS Tautog (SSN-639) collided, with damage to both subs, although both survived the encounter. Who knows?

Anyone that serves in a submarine definitely gets my upmost respect. I see older gentleman with hats or a patch on their jacket I’ll stop and shake their hand. I am utterly terrified of water, closed spaces and the deep ocean. God bless everyone of you

As part of his grant from the USN/NOA to hunt for Titanic, Robert Ballard was required to find exactly, Scorpion, and whether she was leaking radioactive materials. Ballard did so and she is listed as a hazard even though she is nearly 5 miles deep. When Ballard decided to try and find U.S.S. Nevada (the ONLY battleship to get underway during the attack), he was requested to see if Nevada was shedding radioactive materials/radiation (after she was badly damaged during the BAKER nuclear test). The USN TRIED to decontaminate Nevada but found it to be too difficult and expensive (for such and old ship) so she was sunk in the Molokai Channel, after over a year of attempted decontamination was able to only clean about 40% of the ship.

I have heard that, due to the state of general disrepair on the boat, the crew members used to refer to her as the "USS Scrap Iron", and NOT as a term of endearment.

My brother EM2 John Phillip Sturgill was aboard Scorpion when she was lost in 1968. Lots of Family's still need answers... still grieving.

Bob Ballard from the Woods Hole Institute found the USS Scorpion under the guise of searching for the Titanic since the search for the USS Scorpion was classified.

Unfortunately, in my time in the Navy, it often puts operational requirements ahead of anything else, including required maintenance, updates and repairs. My area was in aviation and the same pressure to get airborne, get sorties flown, show a high op tempo and operational readiness, take precedence above doing the maintenance and repairs sometimes. It has cost lives. Unless we are at war, prioritizing ops over safety is unacceptable.

My Grandpa was on the scorpion on February 1st 1966 and the story of that mission is amazing. My Grandpa is the reason why the crew got out of the situation they were in that day. He then later got transferred to the USS George Washington before it sank and he knew many people on the ship when it went down.

2:20 Wow, it was in overhaul for over 20 years. Quite the refit.

My dads father was James Mitchell Wells, it’s crazy bc I also married a man who’s actively surviving the navy and also on submarines…. This story is close to my heart and the navy did these men and their families very awful! Justice is deserved to these people still 😢❤

The final analysis given matches what I believe was the widely understood cause and taught in the 90's when I served on the USS OHIO. The only way that the torpedo room avoids implosion is to experience nearly instant pressure equalization which can only come about via a weapon malfunction in my view. The sub's emergency battery is unlikely to discharge that much energy over such a short period of time to accomplish that before exceeding crush depth. Same goes for the TDU theory. The US did have a Sturgeon class boat that had a WRT tank failure flood a battery well and almost cause the loss of the ship. My first Engineer served on that boat. I can't remember the name of the ship however. Shoes were melting into the decking in the torpedo room as they tried to keep things cool.

I was on Skipjack SSN 585. Towards the end of it's long life it had developed cracks in the hull aft. For last time out limited to 50 ft depth,nobody was happy. Trash disposal unit (TDU) is under a counter in the galley, basically a small torpedo tube. The best theory so far is the battery charge explosion. They were forward under the crew's rack (bedding) compartment. Not a happy thought, but very possible. The torpedo theory doesn't work because there is zero trace of external explosion. If it had happened it would be obvious

According to historical sources, Robert Ballard in 1985, was given 12 days to find Titanic, after he did a “job” for the Navy by checking the status of the reactors on both the Thresher and Scorpion…

Love to see an update on this now that Bob Ballard's mission has been declassed.

Rest In Peace to her crew.....my oldest brother was a submariner inn the Pacific with the USN during WWII

My father had Orders to the Scorpion right before her loss, but my grandfather was diagnosed with cancer and my father requested to stay on the west coast ending up in San Diego to teach. After that he was Stationed in Hawaii for the next few years. My father felt bad as I was told. I was only 3 years old at the time. I knew that he had a few friends on the Scorpion. Many years later I was in the Navy when I myself lost 23 of friends and shipments. VP-50 2 P3 Orion ASW Aircraft that collided off the cost of California. It hunts me how one little event can save one man's life yet take many more. R.I.P Shipments We have the Watch.

I was stationed at Lajes Field, Azores when the sub went missing. The following year a search was recommenced though nothing had been reported as to deficiencies. My unit helped provide transport support to the harbor where vessels came to resupply for the effort.

RIP to the crew of the USS Scorpion. Condolences from the UK

I served on the USS Point Loma AGDS2 from 77-79 , the ship was an oceanographic exploration ship that carried the DSRV Triest II a deep submersible research vehicle, we were ported at pier 13 32nd street in San Diego. We did North Atlantic cruises in 77 and 79, in 79 we actually went to the Scorpion wreckage site at which the Triest dove and recovered some debris from the site. As I remember the deepest the Triest dove during one of the dives in the Caribbean at the Bahama Blake plateau was 20,280 ft.

I know a welder who worked in the "Bremerton area". He's worked on dive-planes: they use an internal box construction with a heavy 'skin' of plate steel. Your thumb-nail shows this very build-up. The skin plate was welded in such a way a battered one could be sliced away, new steel welded in place over the box-frame core. My point: 50-75 mm thick steel plates, bent to fit and welded along the edges, has been collapsed into the box-frame construction. As seen on the thumbnail. It would take an enormous over-pressure, like close proximity to an explosion, to make the steel plates mush down like they did. There is an outside chance the hull implosion could create pressure waves that collapsed the dive-planes, but that seems unlikely. No, simply diving deep wouldn't crush the structure.

I was attending Submarine School at New London Connecticut when this happened. I was trained on a Skip Jack Trainer. Our class was formally asked if anyone wanted to non-vol from submarine duty. Non did. That Scorpion had suffered a Mad Ivan Event was the leading contender for us at the time. This was also the class when the BLOW AND GO training tower burnt down.

Prayers for the souls of the crew. Peace and strength to their families and loved ones. Back in the 60s I visited Groton, Conn. where I toured s submarine. Docked nearby was the Scorpion. I've had an affinity for that sub ever since and was heartbroken when she disappeared.

My first few weeks at sea I had nightmares that the ship sank and I end up stuck in the paint locker staring at the bottom of the ocean through the hatch. That in itself was terrifying.

You would think that maintenance of an attack submarine would be a very high priority. At the time, for Scorpion, it obviously wasn't. It's so very sad that it took the tragic loss of an entire crew to get the Navy to rethink it's priorities.

Scorpion was not Subsafe certified, otherwise this most likely would not have occurred. Skimping on critical maintenance cost the lives of 99 crew. Scorpion's keel was laid down in 1958, but from June 1943 to May 1964, Scorpion remained at Charleston for maintenance 02:20 ... I guess the Philadelphia wasn't the only ship conducting teleportation experiments.

Thanks for this video, I liked that you stuck to the few facts that there are and limited the speculation to other's observations. I was on a submarine in the 80's for 4 years

My father commanded a sister ship of the USS Scorpion and he told me the Skipjack class had a lot of issues from lack of replacement parts, to her hull and parts not being approved by SUBSAFE due to backlogging, but would not confirm or deny if the Scorpion was lost due to hostile action.

My mother in law was one of the civilians waiting in port for her husband return while there was many officials that already knew of the vessels likely demise.

Always an excellent production. Music effects and all

Frightening. I can do alot of things, being a submariner would not be one of them. My hat's off to them.

Heard many theories about what happened to them, from the torpedo theory... to being sunk by the Soviets in retaliation for one of the boats (the k-129) lost off Hawaii, and them (the Soviets) think we had done it... no matter what, may they all Rest in Peace. MM1/SS Retired here.

You’ve gotta have a serious set of balls to go on a sub. I could never. The thought of going underwater at such depths and if something goes wrong there’s very little you can do to survive. Steel coffin.

It's absolutely tragic what happened to those submariners. So much speculation and pointing fingers, but nobody ends up taking any sort of responsibility for the countless issues that plagued the Scorpion. It should have never been out to sea with the issues that were reported, and then having it be rushed through it's repairs and upgrades, with shoddy and inadequate work having been done as well as having far too many quality checks either overlooked or blatantly ignored. We can only hope and to pray that all souls on board felt nothing and their passing happened as close to instantly as possible. Otherwise, I can't even begin to imagine the sheer terror and pain they must have felt as their ship plunged to the bottom. To any of the family members who have made comments here on this video, I send to you all my most sincerest apologies for your loss as well as the ineptitude and laziness of the US NAVY Top Brass in investigating and trying to understand and explain exactly what had happened, for your sake and to hopefully prevent something similar from ever happening again. 🙏 As a proud US citizen, it disgusts me, and is so incredibly embarrassing to see something like this play out with our own military, soldiers, and leadership. 😔

Thanks for your service I'm an Army veteran those subs are an engineering masterpiece

Blinds man bluff is a fantastic read. Great story thanks for sharing

Fun fact: the discovery of the wreck of the Titanic was the publicized byproduct of a secret USN commissioned mission to map the wrecks of the Thresher and the Scorpion.

Always a great job on the videos

all my favorite channels are dropping great content today.

It’s a shame, that after 53 yrs, so much remains classified about this incident.

My fellow submariners on eternal patrol. Sad. Just sad.

Finally! Been waiting for this video.

I'm loving all the submarine content being put out. SSN 789,798,764,742 gold

I retired from the navy. My dad was a submariner. My grandmother asked at Thanksgiving one year how many people were on a submarine. I said 140 with they deployed but 70 couples when they came back. I don't think he ever forgave me for that. He knew I gave submariners props just not my gig

All of your videos are so fucking badass. I've always been an interested historian especially when it comes to world war II. The way you portray all of your content is exactly the type of stuff I look for. Never stop making content man, been a subscriber for over 2 years and I'll never stop watching and liking! 👍

Enjoyed your video and I gave it a Thumbs Up

Honor for those who lost their lives Great work Dark Seas. Rock Hard

I served on the Skipjack in squadron 62 with the scorpion and felt the loss of the 589 deeply. The trauma was heavy with all of our wives and caused stress in my marriage as well as others. We sometime fail to realize military wives are not trained or prepared to deal with these types of events. Military wives are the unsung heros of the armed forces.

As disturbing as the death of 99 sailors is, perhaps what’s worse is that whoever decided that operations take priority over crew safety isn’t even named, and likely ended up not being punished, but likely was promoted, not for the loss, but in spite of it. 🤬

Blind Man's Bluff is an excellent read. In it I learned that the nickname the crew had given the sub when it's problems started was "Scrap Iron". The batteries in these torpedoes were from a newer manufacturer as there had only been a single source up until recently, and they needed another for parts availability. The newer companies batteries were crap, they would leak electrolyte into the cells from a cracked burst membrane and they would start to get hot, hot enough to cook-off the warhead in a low-order explosion that would have been sufficient to force the hatch open, flooding the torpedo room. They were eventually all recalled from service. The acoustic traces indicated that the sub had reversed course at high speed before she sank. The scientist tasked with determining her location, and secretly getting the first images of the wreck, asked a sub commander what would cause a sub to reverse course as high speed like this one did. The reply, "hot running torpedo" meant that a torpedo could start up running and since it was not surrounded by water would overheat rapidly, causing a potential fire or explosion risk. By reversing course, the internal gyros would think it has turned off course and was on it's way back to the sub that launched it, so safeties would shut it down. But this torpedo wasn't "hot running", it was just hot, because of the leaking, improperly flooded, crappy battery and that couldn't be shut down because the motor wasn't running. It overheated and cooked off the warhead.

The theory proposed in the very good book "Blind Man's Bluff" I think is the correct one. The electric Mk 37 torpedo was, as said, prone to just startup if incorrectly handled. Reports were that the Scorpion had a wicked shimmy above a certain speed and the thin aluminium barrier between the battery and motor on the torpedo was prone to puncture or fall off if vibrated or knocked. Not mentioned is the fact the Scorpion did a sudden 180 turnabout just before it exploded and that is an emergency drill to shut down a hot running torpedo because the gyro system prevents the torpedo from coming back on the launching sub.

That year was a crazy year, to begin with. My condolences to all those families that lost loved ones I was only 4 years old when that happened :(

Hey, I love all your channels, and you're a joy to watch! As a fan and native New Englander, if you're going to keep covering US subs, I thought you might like a pronunciation tip about Groton, Connecticut! It rhymes with "rotten" or "forgotten", not "boat"! Keep up the great Dark Work!

That was interesting thank you for sharing that.

Thanks for your service.

I'm so glad there are people brave enough to do that job as my cowardly ass couldnt. I guess I understand it needs doing, and next to none of them that chose to serve us that way get anywhere near rewarded enough for it. Bless submariners everywhere.

Bad maintenance, rushed deployments, overworked crews and cold war paranoia ultimately sank her.

Thank you for the video report .

Short comments at the beginning and end pique my interest. The Navy never again rushed a service operational inspection and the CNO chose to override the inspection in order to rush returning Scorpion to service as well as save money. In my mind that points directly to the cause and culprit.

Anyone involved with sending this ship to sea without subsafe qualifications should be prosecuted.

It's almost as if, if you don't maintain equipment properly, it breaks. Who woulda thought? 🤔

All these Dark channels are great and well narrated!

You do excellent work

when there are so many maintenance & equipment related tasks that need overhaul, repair, replacement, this all leads to one final answer...it remains the fault of the Navy for not taking steps to complete those tasks; leadership.

Stunning. The Navy regs are 'written in blood'. I pray that the SCORPION submariners and their families are strong and at peace. Terrible sacrifice. I pray the USN learns and employs the learned lessons. The more dangerous the mission the greater the need for adherence to all known prophylaxis. Lord, watch over those whose lives we place at risk.

EXCELLENT VIDEO

Excellent as usual.

I believe current thinking is that a battery explosion caused an internal over-pressure that either killed or disabled the crew. The boat eventually drifted below crush depth and was lost. Retrieved pieces of the battery housing showed evidence of an explosion.

I rode an "S" girl for 7 years out of the 20 I served in the submarine force. I was my first submarine that I qualified on and I knew her frontwards and backwards. Great little sub. Fast as all get out, but noisy by today's standards. One thing I don't understand about your depiction of the USS Scorpion is using video clips of WWII submarines that clearly do not have the albacore hull design. It can't be that hard to find pictures of the "S" girls out there. Thank you for the the video and "fair winds and follows seas" for those on eternal patrol. Rest in Peace

Man I love your content

The sub my father served on the USS Haddo was the same class as the Thersher, He told me he was always worried on that boat.

Read “Scorpion Down”; it came out about 15 years ago. A very compelling argument that the sub was sunk by the Soviets in retaliation for the loss of K129 in the Pacific

As a kid in south Florida in early 1969 I found a blue book cover on the beach that was labeled with the Scorpions motif, my friends mother called the police and we gave it to them. Never heard anything after that.

I was with the Tautog from 76 to 79. It was a 637 class & a good sub. Great crew.

The pronunciation of Groton is with the first "o" as sounded in the word "rot" NOT a long 'O' sound. Rhymes with Rotten. I put the Thresher class submarine USS Flasher SSN 613 in commission. We were the first "as built" submarine with SUBSAFE as we were a sister ship to Thresher. Scorpion was sadly lacking in proper overhauls and upkeep. I had heard the the crew called her "Scrap Iron". I was still aboard Flasher and we were in port in Pearl Harbor when the report that Scorpion was over due came in. A few weeks later I was on my way to TI (Treasure Island) to get off active duty as my 4 year active was coming to an end.

The us navy should of heeded the warning signs that sub had too many problems, that sub needed a complete overhaul, doing that would of spared the lives of those precious men, God rest their souls.

There was a very hot Cold War going on under the waves and in war corners are cut and lives are lost. The crew are hero’s who gave their lives to keep us all safe. I salute the eternal patrol of the comrades in arms.

I always enjoy your videos..

I heard the torpedo theory from someone who had been stationed on the Scorpion before it sank. He said they weren’t sure where it came from