Nuclear Subs, a Top Secret Mission, and the Discovery of the Titanic

In ‘This Week in History,’ the Navy sends a scientist and his team to investigate two sunken subs—what they discover will change oceanography forever.

The bow of the Titanic is seen during a dive at the resting place of the ship's wreck, in July 1986. WHOI Archives/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution/Handout via Reuters

“Are you in control?”

It was 9:14 a.m. on April 10, 1963. Lt. Cmdr. Stanley W. Hecker, commander of the USS Skylark, awaited a response from the nuclear submarine, USS Thresher. The Skylark, a submarine rescue ship, was accompanying the submarine during a test run. The submarine had recently undergone an overhaul, and it was protocol for a rescue vessel to follow a submarine while it tested its capabilities. About 90 minutes before, Lt. Cmdr. John Wesley Harvey relayed to Hecker that he was taking Thresher to “test depth”—approximately 1,300 feet.

All seemed to go well until 9:12 a.m. when Thresher relayed it was attempting to return to surface, apparently experiencing difficulties. After two minutes of silence, Hecker requested Thresher’s bearing. There was no response. There was indeed cause for alarm. “Are you in control?” The question was asked several more times without response.

At 9:17 a.m. a garbled transmission came through. The only distinct words from Thresher were “test depth.” Hecker and the crew of the Skylark suddenly heard a terrifying sound only seconds later. It was the sound, as Hecker described it, of “a ship breaking up.”

U.S. Navy photo of the bow section of Scorpion, by the crew of bathyscaphe Trieste II in 1968. Public Domain

About 220 miles off the coast of Cape Cod in waters as deep as 8,400 feet, “the lead ship of the world’s most advanced class of nuclear submarines” was lost with all 129 hands. The U.S. Navy immediately began a massive search and rescue operation, using ships, planes, and submarines. It was not until late June when the Navy sent the bathyscaphe Trieste, its only submersible capable of reaching such depths, that the main debris field of the Thresher was located.

About five years later, on May 22, 1968, and about 400 miles southwest of the archipelago Azores, the nuclear submarine USS Scorpion sank under mysterious circumstances. According to the U.S. Navy, an explosion sank the Scorpion. The theories ranged from a faulty torpedo to an attack by a Soviet submarine. However, and wherever the explosion originated, the submarine sank approximately 10,000 feet to the bottom of the ocean with all 99 hands. It was located in October 1968 by the Navy’s research ship, Mizar.

Ballard’s Beginnings

Robert Ballard first witnessed the sinking of a submarine when he was just a child. This submarine was the Nautilus from the film portrayal of Jules Verne’s novel “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.” Although a fictional story, it nonetheless had a real-life impact on Ballard, leaving him forever fascinated with oceans.

Growing up in San Diego, Ballard lived in the vicinity of the Pacific Ocean and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. Living around the ocean and oceanographers led him to pursue a career in oceanography. He earned his degree in physical sciences from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Before, during, and after earning his degree, he worked for North American Aviation’s Ocean Systems Group and General Motors’s Defense Research Laboratories Sea Operations Department.

Before the 1960s had ended, Ballard had moved across the country to begin working at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts as a research associate for the institution’s Ocean Engineering Department. While a research assistant, he earned his doctorate in marine geology and geophysics in 1974 from the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island.

A FAMOUS Start

During this time, Ballard joined a U.S.-French deep sea expedition called the French-American Mid-Ocean Undersea Study (FAMOUS). The objective of the project was to survey an area 9,000 feet deep along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The area was located approximately 400 miles southwest of the Azores, near the site of the sunken Scorpion.

Ballard and the Americans rode the titanium sphere submersible Alvin, which promised to be capable of reaching a depth of 12,000 feet (this expedition put that theory at least somewhat to the test). The Alvin was placed aboard the research vessel (RV) Lulu, and the Lulu was towed to the location by the RV Knorr. Another RV towed the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory’s Light BEhind Camera (LIBEC), which was capable of suspending “high-intensity electronic flash lamps well above the ocean bottom, making it possible to shoot 120-foot-wide sections of the seafloor.”

HOV (Human Occupied Vehicle) Alvin, with ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) Jason Jr. attached, descends to the ocean bottom to the resting place of the Titanic's wreck in July 1986. WHOI Archives/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution/Handout via Reuters

WHOI built a camera sled for the project. Furthermore, the U.S. Navy permitted the expedition to use its top secret Sonar Array Survey System (SASS) to survey the ocean floor. After a combined 44 dives between the Americans and French, the oceanographers discovered a volcanic seafloor emitting lava, reaching temperatures of 750 degrees.

Ballard, at this point an associate scientist with WHOI, led two more expeditions. An expedition in 1977 discovered hydrothermal vents in the ocean floor of the Galapagos Rift, and, in 1979, he led the U.S.-French expedition that discovered hydrothermal fluids spewing from the East Pacific Rise now termed “black smokers.” These expeditions had revolutionized deep-sea research by its capability of scanning the ocean floor and capturing images.

A Dual Mission

By 1983, Ballard was promoted to senior scientist, working within WHOI’s Department of Applied Ocean Physics & Engineering. The scientist wanted to develop remotely operated vehicles (ROV) that could reach extreme depths without risking the lives of scientists. Shortly after his promotion, he founded WHOI’s Deep Submergence Laboratory and, after receiving funding from the Navy (WHOI received most of its funding from the Navy at the time), developed his first ROV. This unmanned ROV was named Argo, after the ship from Greek mythology.

The Navy had its reasons for wanting such technology. Two of those reasons were the Thresher and the Scorpion. The Navy wanted to conduct an up-close investigation of the submarines. It was a perfect opportunity for Ballard’s ROV. Ballard, however, had another wreck in mind: the Titanic.

Considering the discovery of the Titanic an impossibility, the U.S. Navy agreed to allow Ballard use the Navy-funded instruments and vessels to search for the Titanic for a limited period of time, but only after undertaking the top secret mission of investigating the Thresher and Scorpion wrecks. With this permission, but with limited time to investigate, Ballard knew who to contact: the French.

Another American-French Expedition

Although the investigation of the Thresher and Scorpion would be solely conducted through the Office of Naval Research, the search for the Titanic would be an American-French expedition led by WHOI and the French National Institute of Oceanography (IFREMER). IFREMER, led by Ballard’s friend, Jean-Louis Michel, boarded RV Le Suroit and sailed west across the Atlantic Ocean. The French team had about a month of ship time.

Starting on July 1, 1985, and using a sonar system designed and built by Michel that mapped the ocean floor in black-and-white “shadow graphs,” the French scientists began scouring a 100-square-mile area Ballard believed was home to the Titanic wreckage. Ballard believed that the Titanic had left a debris trail, and if its debris could be found, then it only followed that it would lead to the Titanic.

Over the course of the month of July and into early August, the French team surveyed approximately 75 percent of the area without any luck. Meanwhile, Ballard and his team aboard RV Knorr had successfully located and investigated the wrecks of the Thresher and Scorpion, providing the U.S. Navy with valuable images. The results of the investigation and the Navy’s report would remain classified for decades.

Ballard’s Discovery

WHOI's Robert Ballard during the return to the Titanic wreck in July, 1986. WHOI Archives/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution/Handout via Reuters

The Knorr, having investigated the Scorpion last, sailed to Ponta Delgada, Azores, and picked up three scientists from the French team, including Michel, to join them in the search. By Aug. 22, with Ballard’s Argo on board, the Knorr arrived at the 100-square-mile location to search the final 25 percent. Along with Argo, the team used the WHOI-built Acoustic Navigated Geological Undersea Surveyor (ANGUS), which had actually first been used during Project FAMOUS.

With about 25 square miles to slowly cover depths reaching approximately 2.5 miles, 12 days of ship time available, and bad weather soon approaching, Ballard and his team had no time to lose. As the first week went by with no luck, it seemed that the once “unsinkable” ship had now become “unfindable.”

With the Americans and the three French oceanographers hoping against hope and racing against time, they continued searching in 24-hour shifts each day watching the seafloor through Argo’s video camera. Suddenly, at 1:00 a.m. during this week in history, on Sept. 1, 1985, a large piece of debris stood out on the ocean floor. It was a massive boiler. The Titanic, having rested for more than 73 years on the floor of the North Atlantic, at 12,400 feet deep and approximately 350 nautical miles off the coast of Newfoundland, was discovered.

The port bow railing of the Titanic lies in 12,600 feet of water about 400 miles east of Nova Scotia, Canada, in a file photo. Reuters

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