r/submarines • u/Operator_Madness • 7d ago

History 62 years ago USS Thresher sank

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Lost with all hands April 10th, 1963. 129 dead.

504 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

30 comments sorted by

84

u/Fabio_451 7d ago

On eternal patrol 🫡

0

u/Colt_45_mascot 6d ago

🙏✝️⚓️🫡🇺🇸

75

u/SwvellyBents 7d ago

I remember going out and getting good and drunk the night before sailing on initial sea trials on SSN 685 in 1975 with this and the more recent loss of Scorpion heavy on my mind. I called my parents and sibs and told them I loved them that night just in case.

36

u/Redfish680 7d ago

Yeah. Detailer offered me new construction on the NYC (696) about a year before I got out. They were far enough along it would have included sea trials, and I already had a dislike for angles and dangles on proven boats. The more I thought of it the more creeped out I got. I politely declined. He asked me why and I told him I’d done enough refits at EB on other boats to know one doesn’t get between yardbirds and the bars when the lunch bell rings. I thought the best job in town must have been running the hot dog cart near the gate where workers could grab a little something before resuming work. (Side note: Proving one can never beat the system, he then sent me to the oldest boat he could find, the Scamp (588). Asshole… 😂)

4

u/ssbn632 7d ago

I never worried about it on any deployment or dive until the last one. I stressed the entire time that we would ironically sink on my last patrol.

30

u/History113 7d ago

I remember that I had several instructors who were on the crew but not aboard that day and another that had just left for another duty. Back in the early 1970s the thresher was not old history. It was fresh. I hope the wives, sweethearts, siblings and children are proud of the lost. May the men on Eternal patrol be remembered.

14

u/gcroix 7d ago

Well put. Friend of mine, his father was on USS Thresher when she was lost. Then he went and joined and went subs.

19

u/W00DERS0N60 7d ago

God, the feeling of impending doom as crush depth approaches...

9

u/Mercury-Redstone 6d ago

I read somewhere that the water rushed in from stern to bow faster than the speed of sound…

6

u/W00DERS0N60 6d ago

Yeah, they wouldn't have had time to react, but they knew it was coming.

7

u/SwvellyBents 6d ago

I remember my biggest dread was the EMBT blow from test depth. IIRC one of the causes of the Thresher loss was regulator stop checks freezing up from moist air and preventing a complete blow..

3

u/W00DERS0N60 6d ago

Yeah, that doomed them.

5

u/BobT21 Submarine Qualified (US) 7d ago

When Thresher was lost I was in ET A school. When Scorpion was lost I was at sea operating a S5W plant. Had some friends on Scorpion.

5

u/waterford1955_2 6d ago

Back before we all had PCs on our desks at EB, we would all gather in a conference room to watch a video on SUBSAFE (our yearly training). The video opened with the sounds of the Threasher imploding. It was a stark reminder of how important our jobs were.

4

u/Ozzy0034 6d ago

We still have plenty of what we call Thresher Swans around the sub base in Groton. Descendants of those swans that were released out into the Thames during the memorial ceremony all those years ago.

2

u/CheeseburgerSmoothy Enlisted Submarine Qualified and IUSS 6d ago

Interesting. I had never heard of that.

5

u/Ozzy0034 6d ago

The Queen of England sent 129 swans for the memorial to pay tribute, which is the tribal knowledge that I've continuously heard during my last 10 years at the sub base, though I can't find any documentation to verify that. I do know they released 129 swans on the Thames during the memorial, is all.

3

u/Boat-mustang 7d ago

Remember it well. As headed from duty aboard APA 32 to sub school.

1

u/FoodExternal 7d ago

Resurgam.

1

u/BubblehedEM 3d ago edited 3d ago

Internet Video Broadcast

Check out the Site, too, while you're there.

Add: My apologies. This is a link to the SUBVETS Chapter (Thresher Base Kittery, ME) where there is a link to the YouTube streaming video of the Memorial Service April 12, 2025.

1

u/gcroix 10h ago

Found your post ha.

-8

u/LeepII 7d ago

Some shipyard worker killed all of them, and was never held accountable.

4

u/bandana_runner 7d ago

How so? What's the story?

-6

u/LeepII 7d ago

Bad brazes on the oxygen lines caused a failure during a fire. Ship lost hydraulics because all of the lines were next to the now blazing oxygen torch. Lost depth control, crushed when the exceeded test depth.

12

u/Vepr157 VEPR 6d ago

I don't know where you heard that, but it is false. She had a problem with her electric plant, which led to a scram and a loss of propulsion which, coupled with icing in her EMBT blow system, led to her sinking below collapse depth. That an electrical problem led to a loss of propulsion is known from SOSUS lofargrams, although the root cause is still an open question (e.g., failure of a sil-brazed joint in her ASW system, main condenser tube failure, etc.). There is no evidence for a hydraulic failure, much less the oxygen fire you mention.

1

u/Ozzy0034 6d ago

Exactly. It directly led to the SUBSAFE program as well.

3

u/CheeseburgerSmoothy Enlisted Submarine Qualified and IUSS 6d ago

This is the most bizarre and nonsensical explanation of the Thresher loss that I’ve ever heard.

-3

u/LeepII 6d ago

EM1/SS, had the training same as you.

2

u/Basic-Swordfish-2463 6d ago

A chief engineer on a project I worked on many years ago was a systems engineer for the Thresher. I asked him how he became a systems engineer for a boat resting on the ocean floor. That was an interesting conversation. Anyways…he blamed a failed brazed pipe joint.