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USS Scorpion (SSN-589) 22 August 1960, off New London, Connecticut. A "GUPPY" type submarine is faintly visible in the distance, just beyond the forward tip of Scorpion's "sail".
Career
Ordered:	31 January 1957
Laid down:	20 August 1958
Launched:	29 December 1959
Commissioned:	29 July 1960
Fate:	A 1968 Court of Inquiry and a subsequent two-year effort known as the Phase II Investigation failed to determine what caused the USS Scorpion to descend below crush depth.
Struck:	30 June 1968
General characteristics
Displacement:	2,880 tons light, 3,075 tons full, 195 tons dead
Length:	76.8 meters (252 ft)
Beam:	9.7 meters (32 ft)
Draft:	9.1 meters (30 ft)
Propulsion:	S5W reactor
Complement:	8 officers, 75 men
Armament:	6 x 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes

USS Scorpion (SSN-589) was the sixth ship of the United States Navy to be named for the scorpion, hence the Scorpius constellation on her insignia. She was a Skipjack-class nuclear submarine of the United States Navy. She was one of the few American submarines to be lost at sea while not at war and is one of only two nuclear submarines the U.S. Navy has ever lost (both during peacetime). She was also the last nuclear submarine lost by the Navy; the first was USS Thresher (SSN-593), which sank in April 1963 off the coast of New England. Scorpion was declared lost on May 22, 1968.

Her keel was laid 20 August 1958 by the Electric Boat Division of the General Dynamics Corporation in Groton, Connecticut. She was launched on 19 December 1959 sponsored by Mrs. Elizabeth S. Morrison (widow of the last commander of the World War II-era USS Scorpion), and commissioned on 29 July 1960 with Commander Norman B. Bessac in command.

Assigned to Submarine Squadron 6, Division 62, Scorpion departed New London, Connecticut, on 24 August for a two-month deployment in European waters. During that period, she participated in exercises with units of the Sixth Fleet and of other NATO navies. After returning to New England in late October, she trained along the eastern seaboard until May 1961, then crossed the Atlantic again for operations which took her into the summer. On 9 August 1961 she returned to New London, and, a month later, shifted to Norfolk, Virginia. In 1962, she earned the Navy Unit Commendation.

With Norfolk her home port for the remainder of her career, Scorpion specialized in the development of nuclear submarine warfare tactics. Varying her role from hunter to hunted, she participated in exercises which ranged along the Atlantic coast and in the Bermuda and Puerto Rico operating areas; then, from June 1963 to May 1964, she interrupted her operations for an overhaul at Charleston, South Carolina. Resuming duty off the eastern seaboard in late spring, she again interrupted that duty from 4 August to 8 October to make a transatlantic patrol. In the spring of 1965, she conducted a similar patrol in European waters.

During the late winter and early spring of 1966, and again in the autumn, she was deployed for special operations. Following the completion of those assignments, her commanding officer received the Navy Commendation Medal for outstanding leadership, foresight, and professional skill. Other Scorpion officers and crewmen were cited for meritorious achievement. The Scorpion is reputed to have entered an inland Russian sea during a "Northern Run" in 1966 where it successfully filmed a Soviet missile launch through its periscope before being forced to use its high speed to flee Soviet Navy ships. Scorpion had a reputation for excellence and as a fast attack submarine it was a plum assignment for officers seeking to move up in a Navy in which submarine officers were gaining increasing clout.

On 1 February 1967, Scorpion entered the Norfolk Naval Shipyard for another extended overhaul. However, instead of the much-needed complete overhaul, she got only emergency repairs to get her back on duty as soon as possible. Operational pressures and complex and unforeseen problems created by the Submarine Safety Program (SUBSAFE) that was initiated after the 1963 loss of the USS Thresher, meant that submarine overhauls went from nine months in length to 36 months. Intensive vetting of submarine component quality required by the SUBSAFE program coupled with various improvements and intensified structural inspections -- particularly hull welding inspections using ultrasonic testing -- were issues that reduced the availability of critical parts such as seawater piping. Cold War pressures prompted U.S. Submarine Fleet Atlantic (SUBLANT) officers to hunt for ways to reduce overhaul durations. The cost of that last overhaul was nearly one-seventh of those given other nuclear submarines at the same time. This was the result of concerns about the "high percentage of time offline" of nuclear attack submarines which was estimated to be at about 40% of total available duty time.

As Scorpion's original "full overhaul" was whittled down in scope, it was decided it would not receive long overdue SUBSAFE work including remotely operated valves for shutting off seawater entering the submarine's auxiliary seawater system and valves that would have allowed Scorpion's Emergency Main Ballast Tank blow system to function. An early EMBT system was installed during Scorpion's original overhaul in 1964 but the valves were unreliable. Following a dispute between Charleston Naval Ship Yard, which claimed the system worked, and SUBLANT, which claimed it did not, the EMBT was "tagged out" or listed as unusable. The aforementioned problems with overhaul duration, that saw the Scorpion selected for a reduced experimental overhaul program, also caused all SUBSAFE work to be delayed as well during 1967.

The reduced overhaul concept Scorpion went through had been approved by the Chief of Naval Operations on 17 June 1966. On 20 July, the CNO also allowed deferral of the SUBSAFE extensions, which had otherwise been deemed essential since 1963.

During Scorpion's last six months of operational life, at least two sailors, EM2 Daniel Rogers and Radioman Chief Daniel Pettey, struggled to be released from duty aboard Scorpion due to the bad morale problems they witnessed. Rogers sought disqualification from submarine duty -- which was then allowed -- while Pettey actually attempted to transfer to the U.S. Army only to be released from Scorpion while in the Mediterranean just months before it was lost.

The USS Tallahatchie County (AVB-2) with Scorpion alongside, outside Claywall Harbor, Naples, Italy, in April 1968 (shortly before Scorpion departed on her last voyage). This is believed to be one of the last photographs taken of Scorpion.

In late October 1967, Scorpion started refresher training and weapons system acceptance tests, and was given a new Commanding Officer, Francis Slattery. Following type training out of Norfolk, Virginia, she got underway on 15 February 1968 for a Mediterranean Sea deployment. She operated with the Sixth Fleet into May and then headed west for home. Scorpion suffered several mechanical malfunctions including a chronic problem with Freon leakage from refrigeration systems. An electrical fire occurred in an escape trunk when a water leak shorted out a shore power connection.

Upon departing the Mediterranean on May 16, two men departed Scorpion at Rota, Spain. One man left due to emergency leave and the other enlisted man departed for health reasons. Scorpion was then detailed to observe Soviet naval activities in the Atlantic in the vicinity of the Azores. With this completed, Scorpion prepared to head back to Naval Base Norfolk.

For an unusually long period of time, beginning shortly before midnight on May 20 and ending after midnight May 21, Scorpion was attempting to send radio traffic to Naval Station Rota in Spain but was only able to reach a Navy communications station in Nea Makri, Greece, which forwarded Scorpion's messages to SUBLANT. Six days later, she was reported overdue at Norfolk. Navy personnel suspected possible failure and launched a search.

US Navy photo 1968 of the bow section of Scorpion, by the crew of Trieste

A public search was initiated, but without immediate success. On 5 June, Scorpion and her crew were declared "presumed lost." Her name was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 30 June. Some new reports now indicate that a large and secret search was launched 3 days before Scorpion was expected back from patrol. This combined with other declassified information lead many to speculate the the US Navy knew of the Scorpion's destruction in advance of the public search.

The public search continued, however. A team of mathematical consultants led by Dr. John Craven, the Chief Scientist of the U.S. Navy's Special Projects Division, employed the novel methods of Bayesian search theory, initially developed during the search for a hydrogen bomb lost off the coast of Palomares, Spain in January, 1968 in the Palomares hydrogen bombs incident. At the end of October, the Navy's oceanographic research ship, USNS Mizar (T-AGOR-11), located sections of the hull of Scorpion in more than 3000 meters (10,000 feet) of water about 740 kilometers (400 nautical miles) southwest of the Azores. This after the navy released sound tapes (reported as, but apparently not) from its underwater "Sosus" listening system (these tapes contained the sounds of the destruction of Scorpion). Subsequently, the Court of Inquiry was reconvened, and other vessels, including the bathyscaphe Trieste, were dispatched to the scene, collecting a myriad of pictures and other data.

Although Dr. Craven has received much credit for locating Scorpion's wreckage, Gordon Hamilton of Columbia University was instrumental, not only in acquiring the acoustic signals that were used in locating her, but also in analyzing those signals to provide a concise "search box", wherein the ruined Scorpion was finally located. Hamilton had established a quasi-legal listening station in the Canary Islands, which obtained a clear signal of what some scientists believe was the noise of her implosion as she passed crush depth. A little-known Naval Research Laboratory scientist named Chester "Buck" Buchanan, using a towed camera sled of his own design aboard the USNS Mizar finally located Scorpion after nearly six months of searching.The towed camera sled, which was fabricated by J.L. "Jac" Hamm of Naval Research Laboratory's Engineering Services Division, is currently housed in the Navy Museum, Washington Navy Yard, Washington, DC. (Buchanan had located the wrecked hull of the USS Thresher in 1964 using this same technique.)

The cause of her loss has not been fully confirmed by the USN.

The US Navy's Court of Inquiry listed one possibility as the inadvertent activation of a battery-powered Mark 37 torpedo. This acoustic homing torpedo, in a fully-ready condition and without a propeller guard, is believed by some to have started running within the tube. Released from the tube, the torpedo somehow became fully-armed and successfully engaged its nearest target — Scorpion herself. Though this is highly unlikely due to the fact that Scorpion would have maintained the ability to destroy the weapon before it reengaged. Although much has been made of claims by Dr. Craven that the SOSUS network tracked the submarine moving back onto its original course, consistent with performing a 180-degree turn in an attempt to activate safety systems in the torpedo, Gordon Hamilton -- an acoustics expert who pioneered the use of hydroacoustics to pinpoint Polaris missile splashdown locations -- has said the acoustical data is too garbled to reveal any such details.

Another problem with the torpedo theory is that Mk-37 torpedoes have activated accidentally with their Mk-46 batteries, generating so much heat the torpedo casings blistered. However, none is ever known to have damaged a boat or caused an explosion. In addition, numerous safeguards are in place that would enable the torpedomen to disable the warhead if it were launched and its anti-circular run switch also failed, allowing it to strike its mother ship, the weapon would thud harmlessly off the hull. Few torpedomen familiar with the Mk-37 have expressed confidence in the self-destruction-by-torpedo theory.

A theory later advanced is that a torpedo may have exploded in the tube owing to an uncontrollable fire in the torpedo room. The book Blind Man's Bluff documents the findings and investigation by Dr. John Craven, who surmised that a likely cause was overheating of a faulty battery (Dr. Craven later stated in the book Silent Steel that he was misquoted.) The silver-zinc battery used in the Mark 37 torpedo had a tendency to overheat, and in extreme cases, it would cause a fire that was strong enough to cause a low-order detonation of the warhead. Such a detonation may have occurred, opening the boat's large torpedo-loading hatch and causing Scorpion to flood and sink.

Dr. John Craven mentions he did not work on the Mark 37 torpedo's propulsion system and only became aware of the possibility of a battery explosion twenty years after the loss of the Scorpion. In his book "The Silent War," he recounts running a simulation with former Scorpion XO Lt. Cdr. Robert Fountain, Jr., commanding the simulator. Fountain was told he was headed home at 18 knots (33 km/h), at a depth of his choice. Then there was an alarm of "hot running torpedo". Fountain responded with "right full rudder"; a quick turn would activate a safety device to keep the torpedo from arming. Then an explosion in the torpedo room was introduced into the simulation. Fountain ordered emergency procedures to surface the boat, Dr. Craven stated, "but instead she continued to plummet, reaching collapse depth and imploding in ninety seconds — one second shy of the acoustic record of the actual event."

In Silent Steel, Fountain reveals he does not believe Scorpion was sunk by her own torpedo, and during the Court of Inquiry, physicists and engineers who carried out the simulations demanded by Dr. Craven testified that the massively complex simulations, using the crude computing power of the day, were of little value since they were so speculative. This testimony brought a rebuke from the court's members who were sufficiently persuaded by Craven's theories to list them foremost above all others. What has become apparent is that many investigators, even according to a Navy history of the investigation, were upset by Craven's devotion to his hot-running torpedo theory.

Craven--the Chief Scientist of the Navy's Special Projects Office, which had management responsibility for the design, development, construction, operational test and evaluation and maintenance of the Polaris Fleet Missile System, at the time of Scorpion's sinking the most technically advanced military system ever deployed--had long believed Scorpion was struck by her own torpedo, but revised his views during the mid-1990s when engineers testing Mk-46 batteries at Keyport, Washington, said the batteries leaked electrolyte and sometimes burned while outside of their casings during lifetime shock, heat and cold testing. Although the battery manufacturer was accused of building bad batteries, it was later able to successfully prove its batteries were no less safe than those made by other manufacturers. In fact, the batteries suspected of being unreliable were manufactured too late to have been installed in Scorpion's torpedoes.

The present-day U.S. Navy is as confused about the results of its various investigations into the loss of the Scorpion as the public. While the Court of Inquiry never endorsed Dr. Craven's torpedo theory regarding the loss of Scorpion, it released the Findings of Facts in 1993 containing Craven's torpedo theory at the top of a list of possible causes of the Scorpion's loss. The Navy failed to inform the public that both the U.S. Submarine Fleet Atlantic and the Commander-in-Chief U.S. Atlantic Fleet opposed Craven's torpedo theory as unfounded while also failing to reveal that a second technical investigation into the loss of Scorpion completed in 1970 actually repudiated claims that a torpedo detonation played a role in the loss of the Scorpion. Despite the second technical investigation, the Navy continues to attach strong credence to Craven's view that an explosion destroyed her, as is evidenced by this excerpt from a May 2003 letter from the Navy's Submarine Warfare Division (N77), specifically written by Admiral P.F. Sullivan on behalf of VADM John J. Grossenbacher (Commander Naval Submarine Forces), the Naval Sea Systems Command, Naval Reactors, and others in the US Navy regarding its view of alternate sinking theories:

1. "The first cataclysmic event was of such magnitude that the only possible conclusion is that a cataclysmic event (explosion) occurred resulting in uncontrolled flooding (most likely the forward compartments)."

Some erroneously claim VADM Grossenbacher's (and Adm. Sullivan's) determination is drawn solely from the inconclusive Findings of Fact, generated by the US Navy's Court of Inquiry into the Scorpion sinking. This is untrue, as their letter (see excerpt 2 below) explicitly mentions their review of a secondary study by the Structural Analysis Group in 1970, and a later report by Dr. Robert Ballard, whose investigative team visited the Scorpion wreck in the 1980's.

The secondary Navy investigation - utilizing an extensive photographic, video and eyewitness inspections of the wreckage in 1969 - offered an opinion that Scorpion's hull was smashed by implosion forces upon descending below crush depth. The Structural Analysis Group, which included Naval Ships Systems Command's Submarine Structures director Peter Palermo, plainly saw that the torpedo room was intact, though it had been pinched from the operations compartment by massive hydrostatic pressure. The operations compartment itself was largely obliterated by sea pressure and the engine room had been pushed 50 feet (15 m) forward into the hull by collapse pressure as well, when the cone-to-cylinder transition junction failed between the auxiliary machine space and the engine room.

The only damage to the torpedo room compartment appears to be a hatch missing from the forward escape trunk; Palermo pointed out that this would have occurred when water pressure entered the torpedo room at the moment of implosion. He also pointed out that the aft escape trunk hatch is sprung open and appears twisted, though it is still on its hinges. (This conclusion was drawn by Palermo eighteen years after the Scorpion was lost when he reviewed new and extremely clear images taken by Jason Junior and Alvin as part of a Navy-Woods Hole Oceanogaphic Institute survey of the Scorpion's wreck site.)

Palermo could not rule out sabotage or collision as "plausible" causes of Scorpion's destruction. Palermo writes that the position of the masts and other evidence possibly indicate Scorpion was near the surface "just prior to sinking." Palermo admits that a precursor signal that occurred some 22 minutes prior to the acoustic train left by Scorpion's sinking "could have been the results of an internal explosion." Palermo states that "some of the remaining 14 acoustic events do have some of the characteristics of explosions", though he qualifies this by writing that such characteristics "may" also be attributed to other sources.

An extensive, year-long analysis of Gordon Hamilton's hydroacoustic signals of Scorpion's demise was conducted by Robert Price, Ermine (Meri) Christian and Peter Sherman of the Naval Ordnance Laboratory. (All three physicists were experts on undersea explosions, their sound signatures and destructive effects. Price was also an open critic of Dr. Craven.) Their opinion, presented to the Navy as part of the Phase II investigation, was that Scorpion's death noises likely occurred at 2,000 feet (600 m) when her hull failed. Fragments then continued in a freefall for another 9,000 feet (2700 m). This appears to differ with conclusions drawn by Dr. Craven and Hamilton, who pursued an independent set of experiments as part of the same Phase II probe, demonstrating that alternate interpretations of the hydroacoustic signals were possible based on the submarine's depth at the time it was stricken and other operational conditions. Though the SAG's findings argue an explosive event is unlikely, and are highly dismissive of Craven and Hamilton's tests, they fail to present information that rules out an explosive event.

The 1970 Naval Ordnance "Letter", the intensive acoustics study of the Scorpion destruction sounds by Price and Christian, was a supporting study within the Structural Analysis Group Report. In its Conclusions and Recommendations section, the NOL acoustic study states:

"1.1.2 The first SCORPION acoustic event was not caused by a large explosion, either internal or external to the hull. The probable depth of occurrence...and the spectral characteristics of the signal support this. In fact, it is unlikely that any of the Scorpion acoustic events were caused by explosions."

The Naval Ordnance Laboratory based much of its findings on an extensive acoustic analysis of the torpedoing and sinking of the USS STERLET in the Pacific in early 1969, seeking to compare its acoustic signals to those generated by Scorpion. Price, a critic of Craven and Hamilton's analysis of the sounds emitted by the Scorpion,found the Navy's scheduled sinking of STERLET fortuitous. It is problematic, however, that the STERLET, a small World War 2 era diesel-electric submarine, was of a vastly different design and construction from Scorpion with regard to its pressure hull and other characteristics. Its sinking resulted in three identifiable acoustic signals as compared to Scorpion's fifteen, something Price could not adequately explain. The mathematical calculations Price used to arrive at his analysis--and dispute some of Craven and Hamilton's conclusions-- remain unknown to the public.

When completed, the NOL acoustics study of the Sterlet and Scorpion sinking sounds provided a highly debated explanation as to how Scorpion may have reached its crush depth by anecdotally referring to the uncontrolled and nearly-fatal dive of the diesel boat USS Chopper in January 1969:

Piecing together all the information (or suggestions) we can glean from the analysis of the hydroacoustic data, the photographs of the wreckage of SCORPION and THRESHER, and the results of the STERLET acoustic measurements, we believe the sequence of occurrences outlined below is a plausible description of what might have happened when Scorpion sank. 6.1 (Redacted) SOME UNKNOWN INCIDENT OR CHAIN OF INCIDENTS CAUSED THE SCORPION TO SINK OUT OF CONTROL. The February 1969 USS CHOPPER (SS342) mishap is an example of loss of electrical power in a submarine. It was followed by corrective action, initiation of which was delayed almost to the fatal limit by a combination of failures. Fortunately the plunge of the ship towards the bottom was halted (redacted) just before the hull reached collapse depth and the ship was able to surface, though not under control and with some damage caused by excessive pressure.

In the same May, 2003 N77 letter excerpted above (see 1. with regard to the Navy's view of a forward explosion), however, the following statement appears to dismiss the NOL theory, and again unequivocally point the finger toward an explosion forward:

2. "The Navy has extensively investigated the loss of Scorpion through the initial court of inquiry and the 1970 and 1987 reviews by the Structural Analysis Group. Nothing in those investigations caused the Navy to change its conclusion that an unexplained catastrophic event occurred."

What is known is that the bow of Scorpion skidded upon impact with the globigerina ooze on the seafloor, digging a sizable trench which created a significant hazard for the Trieste II crews attempting to maneuver close to acquire photographs and assess the wreckage with their own eyes. Much of the operations compartment had disappeared, and most of the debris field was identified as coming from the operations compartment. The sail was dislodged as the hull of the operations compartment upon which it perched disintegrated, and was lying on its port side. Oddly, one of its running lights was locked in the open position as if it had been on the surface at the time of the mishap. However, it is pointed out by submariners that this may have been left in the open position during their recent nighttime stop at Rota. One Trieste II pilot who dove upon the Scorpion said the shock of the implosion may have knocked the light into the open position.

The aft section appeared to have skidded sideways on impact, since it was less hydrodynamically-shaped — unlike the bullet-shaped torpedo room, which investigators believed would have developed a greater downward velocity. The aft section of the engine room was telescoped forward into the larger-diameter hull section.

Bow section of the sunken USS Scorpion containing two nuclear torpedoes on the sea floor. US Navy photo.

The loss of Scorpion was a traumatic event for the U.S. Navy, and attempts have been made to keep it quiet. Relatively little has been published about Scorpion(ie: some very detailed books about US Navy history make no mention of the Scorpion at all), despite the loss of the 99 men who were aboard at the time of her sinking, and despite the fact that the boat contained a treasure-trove of highly sophisticated spy gear and spy manuals, two nuclear-tipped torpedoes, and her nuclear propulsion system. The best available evidence indicates that Scorpion sank in the Atlantic Ocean on May 22, 1968 after an explosion of some type, while in transit across the Atlantic Ocean from Gibraltar to her home port at Norfolk, Virginia.

Several hypotheses about the cause of the loss have been advanced. Some have suggested that hostile action by a Soviet submarine caused Scorpion's loss (see discussion of Offley's "Scorpion Down," below). Shortly after her sinking, the Navy assembled a Court of Inquiry to investigate the incident and to publish a report about the likely causes for the sinking. The court was presided over by VADM Bernard Austin who presided over the inquiry into the loss of the USS Thresher. The panel's conclusions, first printed in 1968, were largely classified. At the time, the Navy quoted frequently from a portion of the 1968 report that said no one is likely ever to "conclusively" determine the cause of the loss. The Clinton Administration declassified most of this report in 1993, and it was then that the public first learned that the panel considered that a possible cause of the malfunction was one of Scorpion's own torpedoes. (The panel qualified its opinion saying the evidence it had available could not lead to a conclusive finding about the cause of her sinking.) However, the Court of Inquiry did not reconvene after the 1969 Phase II investigation and did not take testimony from submarine designers, engineers and physicist who spent nearly a year evaluating the data.

Released in 2006, Stephen Johnson’s Silent Steel: The Mysterious Death of the Nuclear Attack Sub USS Scorpion provides a meticulously detailed listing of every mechanical problem on the submarine cited by the Navy or mentioned in crewmen's letters, but ultimately fails to provide any explanation for Scorpion's sinking. Johnson, a critic of Dr. Craven, agrees with Navy scientists who, in 1970, gave their opinion that the sub’s hull was smashed by implosion damage and not a torpedo blast, a finding they support with their interpretation of certain evidence about the condition of the hull and hydroacoustic recordings of the disaster. Silent Steel portrays an overworked submarine denied needed maintenance and manned by a demoralized crew, a depiction contradicted by many former Scorpion enlisted men and officers, and based in part on the testimony of sailors who had applied for transfer from the boat. Johnson also enumerates many of the Navy-wide submarine maintenance issues that denied the Scorpion an overhaul and overdue safety improvements, though the Navy would maintain that virtually all necessary and vital improvements and repairs were made on the submarine before her final deployment. The Submarine Safety Program, initiated following the 1963 loss of the USS Thresher, delayed new submarine construction and sub overhauls by monopolizing skilled workers and critical spare parts. Fearing that a normal overhaul and safety work during 1967 might sideline the Scorpion for three years, it was selected for a brief experimental overhaul, but this was cancelled due to a shortage of workers. The Scorpion sank eight months after leaving Norfolk Naval Shipyard.

In 1999, two New York Times reporters published Blind Man's Bluff, a book providing a rare look into the world of nuclear submarines and espionage during the Cold War. One lengthy chapter deals extensively with Scorpion and her loss. The book reports that concerns about the Mk 37 conventional torpedo carried aboard Scorpion were raised in 1967 and 1968, before Scorpion left Norfolk for her last mission. The concerns focused on the battery that powered the torpedoes. The battery had a thin metal-foil barrier separating two types of volatile chemicals. When mixed slowly and in a controlled fashion, the chemicals generated heat and electricity, powering the motor that pushed the torpedo through the water. But vibrations normally experienced on a nuclear submarine were found to cause the thin foil barrier to break down, allowing the chemicals to interact intensely. This interaction generated excessive heat which, in tests, could readily have caused an inadvertent torpedo explosion. The authors of Blind Man's Bluff were careful to say they could not point to this as the cause of Scorpion’s loss — only that it was a possible cause and that it was consistent with other data indicating an explosion preceded the sinking of Scorpion.

In 2005, the book Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S., by former American submariner Kenneth Sewell in collaboration with journalist Clint Richmond, claimed K-129 sank 300 miles (560 km) northwest of Oahu on 7 March 1968 while launching her three ballistic missiles in a rogue attempt to destroy Pearl Harbor.

Sewell claims that the sinking of Scorpion was caused by a retaliatory strike for the sinking of K-129, which the Soviets attributed to a collision with USS Swordfish (SSN-579).

In 1995, when Huchthausen began work on a book about the Soviet underwater fleet, he interviewed Admiral Victor Dygalo, who stated that the true history of К-129 has not been revealed because of the informal agreement between the two countries' senior naval commands. The purpose of that secrecy, he alleged, is to stop any further research into the losses of Scorpion and К-129. Huchthausen states that Dygalo told him to "overlook this matter, and hope that the time will come when the truth will be told to the families of the victims."^{[citation needed]}

Ed Offley, a reporter on military affairs, has closely followed developments in information concerning the sinking of the Scorpion. His most recent article on the subject is "Buried at Sea" published in the Winter 2008 issue of the Quarterly Journal of Military History. This article summarizes the facts in the case as presented in his 2007 book Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion. In the book Offley, gathering decades of his own research, hypothesizes that the Scorpion was sunk by the Soviets, possibly in retaliation for the loss of the K-129 Golf-II ballistic missile submarine earlier that year. The book paints a picture of increasing Soviet anger at US Navy provocations (specifically close-in monitoring of Soviet naval operations by almost every US nuclear submarine). At approximately the same time, the Soviet intelligence community scored a huge boon in receiving the mechanical cryptologic devices from the USS Pueblo. These machines, combined with daily crypto keys from the John Anthony Walker spy ring, likely allowed the Soviets to monitor in real time U.S. Navy ship dispositions and communications. It is Mr. Offley's contention that the Scorpion was tracked by several Soviet Navy assets from the Mediterranean to its final operational area south of the Azores, where it was then sunk by a Soviet torpedo. Among the oral testimony relied upon by Mr. Offley are recountings of SOSUS recording documenting torpedo sounds, evasion sounds, an explosion, and eventually the sounds of implosions as the Scorpion plunged past crush depth.

Stern section of Scorpion, seen in 1986 by Woods Hole personnel

Today, the wreck of the Scorpion is reported to be resting on a sandy seabed at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in approximately 3000 m of water. The site is reported to be approximately 400 miles (740 km) southwest of the Azores Islands, on the eastern edge of the Sargasso Sea. The U.S. Navy has acknowledged that it periodically visits the site to conduct testing for the release of nuclear materials from the nuclear reactor or the two nuclear weapons aboard her, and to determine whether the wreckage has been disturbed. The Navy has not released any information about the status of the wreckage, except for a few photographs taken of the wreckage in 1968, and again in 1985 by deep water submersibles.

The Navy has also released information about the nuclear testing performed in and around the Scorpion site. The Navy reports no significant release of nuclear material from the sub. The 1985 photos were taken by a team of oceanographers working for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. The circumstances of the Woods Hole mission show the high level of secrecy the Navy attaches to Scorpion; at the time the photographs were taken, the Navy and Woods Hole both maintained that the Woods Hole team was searching for the wreckage of the noted sunken ocean liner, RMS Titanic. It was only after newspapers learned and reported that the Woods Hole team was also searching for Scorpion that the Navy admitted as much, and released some of the photographs taken during the expedition.

The U.S. Navy has periodically monitored the environmental conditions of the site since the sinking and has reported the results in an annual public report on environmental monitoring for U.S. nuclear-powered ships and boats. The reports provide specifics on the environmental sampling of sediment, water, and marine life that is done to ascertain whether the submarine has significantly affected the deep-ocean environment. The reports also explain the methodology for conducting this deep sea monitoring from both surface vessels and submersibles. The monitoring data confirm that, by the standards of the U.S. Navy, there has been no significant effect on the environment. The nuclear fuel aboard the submarine remains intact and no uranium in excess of levels expected from the fallout from past atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons has been detected by the Navy's inspections. In addition, Scorpion carried two nuclear-tipped Mark 45 anti-submarine torpedoes (ASTOR) when she was lost. The warheads of these torpedoes are part of the environmental concern. The most likely scenario is that the plutonium and uranium cores of these weapons corroded to a heavy, insoluble material soon after the sinking, and they remain at or close to their original location inside the torpedo room of the boat. If the corroded materials were released outside the submarine, their large specific gravity and insolubility would cause them to settle down into the sediment.

The following officers and men were lost with Scorpion (SSN-589).

• See USS Scorpion for other ships of the same name.
• Submarines destroyed by hot-running torpedoes: HMS Sidon (P259) – Russian submarine Kursk
• A fictitious submarine USS Scorpion was featured in the postapocalyptic Nevil Shute novel On the Beach, and the movie based upon it. The novel was published in 1957, and predated the nuclear submarine Scorpion.
• USS George Washington (SSBN-598) was originally to have been USS Scorpion (SSN-589), and began construction under that name. Before completion it was heavily modified into the first SSBN Ballistic Missile Submarine, with the addition of large hull section housing 16 Polaris A-1 missiles. The name Scorpion was reassigned to the subject of this article.
• Subject of the Phil Ochs song, "The Scorpion Departs but Never Returns" from the Rehearsals for Retirement album.

• Johnson, Stephen P. (2006). "Silent Steel: The Mysterious Death of the Nuclear Attack Sub USS Scorpion". Wiley. ISBN 0-471-26737-6.

• Sontag, Sherry; Drew, Christopher; Drew, Annette Lawrence (1998). Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage. Harper. ISBN 0-06-103004-X.

• Offley, Ed; (2007). Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion. Basic Books/Perseus. ISBN 978-0-465-05185-4.

• This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.

• USS Scorpion - Mystery of the Deep
• USS Scorpion SSN-589
• Sinking The Myths
• Loss of USS Scorpion
• Thresher-Scorpion Memorial
• World War II National Submarine Memorial - West
• World War II National Submarine Memorial - East
• US Navy photographs of the wreck in 1968
• US Navy photographs taken since 1968
• On Eternal Patrol: USS Scorpion