The Stinging of the USS Scorpion
In the years immediately following World War II, the United States was confronted with an ill equipped submarine force unprepared to face the new challenges of the Cold War. In response to the emerging threat, the United States Navy developed the Skipjack class of nuclear powered submarines. Among the first Skipjack models was the USS Scorpion (SSN 589) and was designed primarily for anti-submarine warfare against the Soviet sub fleet. It carried a special team of Russian linguists specifically to translate intercepted Russian naval communications. It was very fast, stealthy and durable. Yet with all these strengths, the United States lost contact with the USS Scorpion on May 22, 1968. Much confusion ensued and many asked how a state of the art submarine could essentially explode on its way home; the answer is that it didn't. The USS Scorpion was sunk by a Soviet torpedo and was subsequently covered up by the United States and Soviet militaries in order to preserve the countries relationship and to avoid escalating the already passionate Cold War.On May 17, 1968, the USS Scorpion was on its way home after a three month deployment when an encrypted signal ordered the submarine to conduct surveillance and reconnaissance on
With all the information and speculation regarding the destruction of the USS Scorpion it will be impossible to know for sure what happened to the Skipjack-class submarine until the government declassifies all of the information surrounding the disaster. The three Echo-II submarines were scrambled to intercept the incoming Scorpion and engaged it 200 miles southwest of the Azores. Navy submarine codes and listen to all of our communications for a majority of the Cold War. Captain Huchthausen also recalls that when he brought the Scorpion up with Russian Admiral Pitr Navoytsev he received this response: "'Captain, you are very young and inexperienced, but you will learn that there are some things both sides have agreed not to address, and one is that event and out K-129 loss, for similar reasons" (Offley 6). "Several Russian admirals say senior Navy officials in both the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to never disclose details of the Scorpion incident and the loss of a Soviet missile sub in the Pacific two months earlier in 1968. While doing research for his book, he interviewed retired Russian Rear Admiral Viktor Dygalo, former commander of the submarine force to which K-129 was assigned. John Walker's assistance allowed the Russians to successfully break all U. One should take notice that the excuse used to explain the Russians submarine loss was the same explanation they offered to the families of USS Scorpion when it disappeared. Clearly, if the public got a hold of these two stories they would call for war. continued to use the machines to contact their submarines after they knew they were compromised was the simple assumption that the top secret key codes were still intact. Navy Spokesman Commander Thorpe said "the court's conclusion stemmed in part from records showing the Scorpion had a similar experience in 1967 with an unarmed training torpedo that suddenly started up and had to be jettisoned" (Offley 6).
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