Regardless that the historical record contains thousands of reports from seamen who have survived violent seaquake encounters, few people today are aware of the rare hazard these events pose for ships, low-flying aircraft, and sea life—especially whales. Even if the average person were to read the eyewitness accounts (1), would they believe them? After all, wouldn’t our Navy know and tell us if such a seaquake danger existed?

             Maybe.

             What if an undersea quake could sink a nuclear submarine, causing a radiation leak along our shoreline; or split a supertanker open, dumping a million gallons of crude onto our beaches; or be classified top secret for some unknown military reason?

            Under such circumstances, would our Navy tell us the truth about the danger?

A case in point is the $40 million nuclear attack submarine USS Scorpion that mysteriously sank in the North Atlantic near the seismically volatile Azores Islands on 22 May 1968, taking ninety-nine brave sailors to the bottom with her. Did a seaquake play a part in this tragic loss?

A panel of high-ranking naval officers conducted an investigation (2) in which they ruled that there was not enough evidence to determine cause. Their only conclusion was that the US Navy was not accountable in any way.

But the facts suggested otherwise.

Scorpion had entered the repair yard at Norfolk, Virginia, in February 1967 for a refueling and repair of her mechanical, electrical, and hydraulic defects. The workers began by cutting open her hull amidships to remove the nuclear reactor and install a new fuel core. But on 5 June, before they could finish refueling her, Israel launched a surprise attack against its Arab neighbors. Even though the shooting war ended six days later, the showdown in the Mediterranean among US, French, and Soviet navies threatened to start World War III. 

Every officer in the US Navy knows the lesson from Pearl Harbor. The last place you want your expensive nuclear attack submarine when war breaks out is sitting in a repair yard where the enemy can easily destroy her and the repair facilities too. That’s why the Commander of Submarine Force Atlantic (COMSUBLANT) issued orders to quickly finish refueling the sub and splash her back in the water without fixing what was broken.

The yard did not install the new emergency seawater shutoff valves Scorpion desperately needed. Nor did they fix the same emergency blow system that had failed on the nuclear submarine USS Thresher, which sank mysteriously in April 1963. The SUBSAFE overhaul Scorpion needed would just have to wait until the threat of war lessened.

When the boatyard finally dropped Scorpion back into the water in October, she had a new fuel core and 109 unfilled repair orders. Civilian contractors, with the help of Scorpion’s crew, would have to finish the repairs with the submarine tied alongside a maintenance ship in the relative safety of the harbor. If war did break out, the mechanically troubled Scorpion could ease out to the continental shelf and hide on the bottom.

Conflict, confusion, and bitterness reigned supreme. The civilian repairmen didn’t like the crew in their way all the time. The crew criticized the civilians’ work and kicked their tools around. Fights broke out in the cramped companionways. Many of Scorpion’s enlisted maintenance personnel requested transfers, while others wanted to leave the submarine force entirely. Her Engineer Officer, Electrical Officers, and Assistant Engineer submitted letters of resignation. They had had enough. To make matters even worse, a shortage of experienced submarine officers forced the Navy to name a rookie as the new captain. Jack Forrester, the Navy’s youngest, most inexperienced commander, did the best he could to improve the crew’s morale while trying to get the troubled boat prepared for her next mission.

Due to a mix-up and the ill temper among the workers, no one repaired the chronic hydraulic problems she had with her diving planes, the wing-like structures that controlled her steering. As a result, in November, while in the Caribbean Sea on a shakedown cruise, she suddenly and violently began to corkscrew in the water, scaring the bejesus out of everyone. This was the third time hydraulic steering problems had come close to sinking her. In 1960, the diving flaps on her stern planes jammed twice in the dive position while operating 200 feet below the surface. In those incidents, she was able to recover just before reaching crush depth by running full astern.

When she returned from her shakedown, the boatyard jerked her out to fix her steering. They found salt water in her hydraulic oil so they drained and flushed the system. Scorpion went back in the water on 14 February 1968.    

The next day, the US Navy ordered Scorpion, still suffering from scores of mechanical, electrical, and hydraulic problems, to depart Norfolk and head due east for the Mediterranean Sea where tensions with the Soviet Union were the worst they’d been since the start of the Cold War in the mid-1940s.

Unbelievably, over 1,500 gallons of hydraulic oil gushed from Scorpion the first week after leaving Norfolk. She also experienced rudder failure on 19 February. Many thought the captain should have turned the sub around and gone back home, but her crew was able to resolve her rudder problem and patch the leak enough to make the submarine base at Rota, Spain. She spent another week tied up at the docks in Rota undergoing emergency repairs before finally heading for the Strait of Gibraltar.

By the time she reached the Mediterranean, her crew had renamed her USS Scrapiron.

As added proof of Scorpion’s many problems, on 23 March 1968, her new skipper mailed a shocking emergency request for repairs to the commander of the US Atlantic Fleet, warning the Navy that his submarine might suffer a tragic disaster if not repaired soon (3). He was particularly concerned about a series of leaking valves that had supposedly caused COMSUBLANT to restrict her operating depth to just 300 feet, 900 feet less than other Skipjack-class submarines.

After three months of hanging around the Navy’s bases in the Mediterranean, Scorpion started hobbling back due west for home. On 21 May, she sent a message saying her estimated time of arrival at Pier 22 in Norfolk was one o’clock the afternoon of 27 May.

A bitter wind blew hard the night before, followed at daybreak by drizzling rain that swelled to a torrential downpour by ten o'clock in the morning. Cold, wet, and miserable, the families of the crew awaited the sub’s arrival. At seven o’clock that evening, the Navy informed them that a minor problem had delayed Scorpion.

            This was a cruel lie.

            Five days earlier, operators at secret underwater listening stations off the coasts of Newfoundland, Bermuda, and the Canary Islands had recorded the violent implosions of Scorpion’s hull and informed the office of the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO). Fearful that Scorpion’s condition might leak to the public, the CNO’s office kept the news quiet. The admirals needed time to figure out how best to deal with the press, and make sure nobody blamed them for the tragedy.

To say that Scorpion’s operating condition had been scandalous would be a gross understatement.

Several months before her sinking, syndicated newspaper columnists Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson had began publishing a series of embarrassing news stories about the defective HY80 steel used by Scorpion’s builder, the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics Corporation. Ultrasonic testing had discovered flaws in twenty percent of the steel shipped to the company’s submarine yards while the sub was under construction. Bumis Steel, one of Electric Boat’s biggest suppliers, told the press that it had permission to inspect its own shipments without any outside quality control checks. To defend this practice, Admiral H. D. Jackson, Vice Commander of the Naval Ship Systems Command, issued a follow-up press release on 23 May 1968 saying it was standard procedure for steel companies to inspect their own shipments (4). The representative of Bumis issued a statement that afternoon saying that the defects in its steel plates were not so dangerous (5). What Jackson and the Bumis representative didn’t know was that Scorpion, built with defective Bumis steel, had crashed to the seafloor one day before they gave their statements.

There were other reasons for the CNO’s office to initiate a cover-up. 

Shortly after Scorpion vanished, the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy hired an expert to look over Scorpion’s maintenance records. The committee wanted to know how thoroughly the Navy had inspected Scorpion’s hull for welding defects (6). The congressmen were curious because during the 1963 congressional testimony on the loss of USS Thresher, Admiral Hyman Rickover, the father of nuclear submarines, had flatly stated that the HY80 steel was prone to considerable weld cracking and fatigue failure. The problem was that cutting open a nuclear submarine to check for busted welds and signs of fatigued metal cost about the same as building a new one.

Obviously, since the Navy had not repaired Scorpion’s leaking hydraulic system, they had certainly not cut her open to look for cracked welding.

There were other problems to sort out, too.

The contingency plan—spelling out what to do in the event of the sudden loss of a nuclear submarine—called for the Navy to conceal the true location of the wreckage in case the reactor was leaking radiation near another country’s fishing grounds. The Navy could hide the location of the wreckage for only a few months, lest the secrecy convince the public that the reactor was indeed leaking. The admirals also needed time to fabricate a new location far from any earthquake-prone areas in case the public started worrying that a future seismic event might someday crack the reactor and poison the fish their families eat.

The contingency plan established the procedure. All the admirals had to do was find a suitable location to fraudulently declare as the new wreck site; counter negative publicity over the defective steel; deal with the congressional investigation into faulty welding; and hope and pray that the letter written by the sub’s deceased skipper never reached the light of day.

Five months later, in October 1968, the Navy finally announced that the search team had found Scorpion’s wreckage—270 miles south of where she’d actually gone down. To explain that location, the admirals lied again, saying they’d sent Scorpion at the last minute to spy on several Soviet ships near the Canary Islands, 500 miles south of her planned route home.

In February 1969, four months after publicizing the wreck’s false location, the Navy lied to the press for the umpteenth time and said the nuclear reactor was not leaking.

The news media bought all the lies; less than convinced, however, were the commercial sea captains familiar with the earthquake volatility of the North Atlantic near the Azores. These veteran seamen were certain the US Navy knew that Scorpion had sailed into one of the most earthquake-prone spots on Earth. They were making bets that the downed sub was actually resting on the seafloor inside the Azores Triple Junction, where the tectonic boundary of the North American Plate intersected with the Eurasian and African Plates. Any vessel traveling from the Strait of Gibraltar to the submarine base at Norfolk would have passed directly over this dangerous seismic zone.

The commercial captains had good reason to be suspicious. Nine months after Scorpion went down and in the same general area, a violent seaquake slammed into the oil tanker Ida Knudsen (7) knocking her crew off their feet. The primary (P) waves from the quake’s focal point in the oceanic crust crossed the rock/water interface and entered the water as compressional waves, slamming into the tanker’s bow at the same moment a wave lifted it. The bow shot up much faster than the stern, twisting the ship's framework and causing it to shudder violently when it slammed back down. Although the event lasted only ten seconds, it severely damaged both machinery and hull. The sudden vertical acceleration smashed the tables and desks in the chartroom and radio station, tore loose compasses and other permanently mounted instruments, collapsed almost everything in the wheelhouse, and even ripped Ida Knudsen’s doors off their hinges. The vertical jerking bent the signal mast and the radar scanner, broke the crossbars, and even ruptured the tanker’s oil pipes.

Ida Knudsen drifted for hours with a bent propeller shaft before the crew got her patched up enough to hobble back to Lisbon, Portugal, where she was dry-docked and surveyed. Her hull, machinery, and other equipment had sustained considerable damage, and because of extreme bends and cracks in her girders, the ship had lost a substantial portion of her structural strength. The seismic shocks had buckled and twisted her hull from bow to stern, torn her hull platings from the bulkheads, hull frames, and girders, and caused all the wing tanks to leak. The seaquake even ripped the bottom platings away from the girders, as though she had sailed over an underwater mine explosion.

The Portuguese surveyors condemned the oil tanker as a total loss.

The quake’s epicenter was twelve miles from the ship. Had it been directly under Ida Knudsen, she would have joined the list of vessels rumored to be lost in the infamous Bermuda Triangle. Several boats much farther from the epicenter also felt the shocks with varying intensity. Toubkal, 112 miles away, shook violently for a full minute. Farther out in the Atlantic, 130 miles from the Ida Knudsen, the oil tanker Esso Newcastle reported a severe vertical shock.

If you had walked into any local harbor, fuel dock, union hall, bar, or other place where commercial seamen gathered, you would have heard that Scorpion had met the same fate as Ida Knudsen. What the sailors couldn’t understand was why hundreds of newspapers around the world were publishing stories about what might have caused Scorpion’s mysterious sinking, but none of them printed a single word about the destruction of a 32,000-ton oil tanker in the same general area. The sailors were all saying the same thing: If the newspapers had published the two stories side by side, folks would know exactly why the nuclear submarine sank.

Were they right? Did shock waves from an underwater earthquake sink Scorpion? If so, when did the Navy learn the truth? And, why have they kept it a secret for so long?

The best way to find out what admirals are thinking after a serious accident is to follow the money they spend on research. In Scorpion’s case, the Navy sponsored an extensive study of the seafloor along the North-Atlantic Ridge between latitudes 36.300N and 37.000N where Scorpion actually went down. The French Navy joined the effort. They had recently lost two submarines in the Mediterranean due to undersea earthquakes and were just as anxious to understand the seismic processes behind the sinkings. The two navies called the effort the French-American Mid-Ocean Undersea Study, shortened to Project FAMOUS (8). 

The French and American navies both secretly agreed with the commercial ship captains that an undersea earthquake had sunk Scorpion. How this sinking might have happened is neither complicated nor newly discovered. The US Navy and its allies have known of this monumental hazard to shipping since a 1919 seaquake shook six heavy battleships of Admiral Hugh Rodman’s Pacific Fleet (9). Furthermore, historical records reveal that seaquake shock waves have slammed into more than sixty US Navy ships since hitting Rodman's heavy dreadnoughts.

The real question is why these naval powers classify seaquakes as top-secret phenomena, steadfastly refusing to inform the public of the danger.

The answer might be . . .

 

 

 

To reserve a paperback copy for $15 or a digital copy for $7, send an email to dwms07@gmail.com. You will be contacted for payment and shipping instructions when SEAQUAKE is released.

 

 

 

 

 

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

 

February 1969

Naval Research Laboratory

Washington, D.C.

 

What Captain George Hayward was planning to do in the next few weeks could end in one of two ways. Either he would be disgraced in a general court-martial or he would receive the admiral’s star he'd dreamed about for more than twenty years.

After graduating from the US Naval Academy in 1948 with a bachelor’s degree in underwater acoustics, Hayward attended the Naval Postgraduate School, where he earned a master’s degree in applied geophysics. He spent the next four years at sea before the Navy promoted him to commander and ordered him to report to the Office of Naval Research (ONR). His first assignment was to help install secret underwater hydrophone stations in the Bahamas and off Cape Hatteras. In 1955, after the stations were up and running, ONR transferred him to the underwater weapons testing facility at Mono Lake, California. Hayward's job at Mono was to help ordnance personnel figure out the right depth and distance from shore to detonate five tons of TNT. The ultimate goal was to develop a mathematical model for generating artificial tsunami waves. To conceal the purpose of the heavy blasting, the Navy told the press that they were setting off artificial earthquakes to understand how to predict real ones (10).

The tsunami research was a continuation of an effort begun in 1944 in New Zealand. Dubbed Project Seal (11), the original concept was to flood a targeted city with a forty-foot wall of water, clearing the way for troops to storm ashore and overrun local defenses. In the scaled-up plan, underwater nuclear mines would replace the five-ton charges used to develop the model.

Generating tsunami waves was not Project Seal’s only objective. In 1942, drilling engineer Leo Ranney had suggested to the Navy that he could level Japanese cities just by setting off large underwater explosions a few miles offshore along several major tectonic faults that passed under the Japanese islands (12). He was confident that shock waves from the explosion would transfer down the faults and trigger massive earthquakes under several key industrial areas. The US Navy debated the feasibility of Ranney’s proposal and decided it needed more research. Since similar tectonic faults ran under New Zealand, this country became the obvious choice for conducting scaled-down tests.

The Navy selected Professor Thomas Leech at Auckland University to oversee the project. However, P. W. Burbidge, an Auckland physics professor, heard about the work and became alarmed by the idea of using atom bombs to trigger earthquakes and tsunamis. In an attempt to stop the project, Burbidge published a rather lengthy article in the Wellington Evening Post exposing and condemning Leech’s effort (13). The negative publicity limited Project Seal’s development in New Zealand, making the Mono Lake testing necessary.

Hayward remained at Mono Lake until 1962, when Rear Admiral Thomas Dawson, the new Chief of Naval Research, promoted him to Captain and moved him back to Washington to work on Blue Sky research (14).

Blue Sky was an ambitious undertaking. The Navy was determined to create and exploit catastrophic natural disasters, using them as weapons of war. They wanted to know how to seed clouds so they could turn enemy roads into mudholes and snow flurries into blizzards. They wanted to know how to steer hurricanes and typhoons into an opponent’s harbors and industrial areas. They even wanted to know how to knock out an enemy’s communication satellites by exploding nuclear bombs inside the Van Allen Radiation Belt sixty miles above Earth.

Another goal of Blue Sky was to learn how to create artificial seaquakes to use as secret weapons against enemy ships and submarines during peacetime. The plan was to bury nuclear mines in the seafloor at certain defensive choke points, in the deep trenches along transform faults, in the valleys along mid-ocean ridges, and in the concave summits of extinct undersea volcanoes. Acoustic or magnetic detectors would detonate the device whenever a submarine or surface ship entered the kill zone. The trick was to explode the mines in a manner that would fool an enemy into believing that Mother Nature had destroyed their ship.

Dawson assigned the task of figuring it all out to his newly promoted captain.

Hayward began by trying to work out mathematical equations that he could use to predict the intensity of waterborne compressional waves generated by earthquakes of a given magnitude and depth. Once he had the basic equations, he could then estimate the intensity of compressional waves from nuclear explosions in a range of yields and at various depths below the rock/water interface. In this fashion, he would be able to predict the diameter of the kill zone. The key to success was to keep the blast yield as low as possible and still disable the ship. Excessive yield would only generate bubble pulses, giving away the energy source.

The first full-scale test of Captain Hayward’s low-yield nuclear mines took place on 10 March 1963, when the Navy set off a device inside the Northern Mid-Atlantic Ridge 1,200 miles east of St John’s, Newfoundland. He showed his brilliance again in 1964 when the Navy buried an underwater nuclear mine at the base of a steep volcanic mountain along the Central Mid-Atlantic Ridge just south of the equator. Both explosions mimicked natural earthquakes on nearby seismographs. 

However, six months into his Blue Sky effort, Captain Hayward became convinced that he could do an even better job of clandestinely sinking enemy ships by using mechanical resonance—the scientific principle that explains how an opera singer’s voice shatters a wineglass. Resonance occurs when a mechanical object or system absorbs great amounts of energy from an external source. If the frequency of an external vibration matches the object’s natural frequency of free vibration, the external vibrations add their energy to that of the object. Too much added energy causes violent vibrations and even catastrophic failure in structures, including bridges, buildings, ships, and airplanes—a phenomenon known as resonant disaster.

Captain Hayward envisioned several hundred large underwater transducers mounted along the top of a wedge-shaped submarine. The sub would maneuver under an enemy’s merchant ship, adjust its powerful transducers to match the vessel’s natural hull frequency, and begin transmitting perfectly timed pulses toward the vessel. The pulses would combine with the ship’s own mechanical oscillations and cause it to shake with ever-increasing amplitude. Within seconds, resonant vibrations would open large cracks in the target’s hull, disable its electronic equipment, and might even cause the vessel to break apart. Those onboard would not hear or feel an explosion; they would only feel God-awful vibrations as their ship tore itself apart around them. The vibrations might even resonate with the beating of their hearts, killing them within seconds.

Hayward had become familiar with Nikola Tesla’s work on mechanical resonance during his academic studies. In one experiment, Tesla had used a small mechanical oscillator to feed perfectly timed vibrations into the steel frame of a ten-story building under construction in New York City. The metal columns and beams continuously absorbed the energy from the oscillator until the entire structure was shaking so ferociously that it was ready to break apart. Hayward knew the same resonance principle would apply to a steel ship, especially if rust and a few decades of pounding in a heavy sea had loosened it and weakened its structural strength.

He also knew that the sprung mass of a steel vessel would act like a giant tuning fork, quickly absorbing waterborne vibrations tuned to match the ship’s own natural hull frequency. So affective was the resonance principle that a mechanical ship would even "pick out" its resonance frequency from a field of wideband seismic noise, rejecting frequencies not resonant with its sprung mass. Under the right circumstances, intense subsonic waves from his array of transducers would shake a steel ship so violently that its beams, crossmembers, and hull platings would crack, just as Tesla’s oscillator would have cracked the building’s metal frame had he not stopped it in time.

Hayward even developed a second approach in which the transducers would have ram-like cylindrical pistons at their centers. Powerful electromagnets would shove the piston outward at very high speeds, displacing large amounts of water and producing a shock wave. An electromechanical system would aim each high-output transducer individually so that a shock wave from each would merge at a preset distance into a single shock front of enormous destruction. The system could fire every few seconds, like a machine gun, as long as the ship could supply the electromagnetic rams with ample current. Such a weapon could easily destroy smaller enemy warships operating in coastal waters, and knock out incoming torpedoes as well. The problem was developing an accurate means of aiming and firing several hundred transducers at the right time to ensure that the energy came to focus on the target.

Although he was confident in his work, Hayward was hesitant to present his new weapon systems until he received some assurance that, if the Navy accepted his designs, he would get the promotion to admiral that he so desperately wanted. He could only hope that what was now happening around him was his big chance, and not some kind of trap the Navy had set for him.

The USS Scorpion had vanished eight months earlier on her way home from the Mediterranean Sea. As soon as Hayward had heard that she’d been near the earthquake-volatile Azores Islands, the idea popped into his mind that perhaps an undersea earthquake had sunk the submarine.

When Scorpion failed to arrive at Norfolk on time, the Navy had launched a massive search and found nothing. The admirals admitted several months later that secret hydrophone stations had recorded a series of implosive sounds at the time Scorpion went down. Knowing that the signals were from the dying sub, they had hired a team of civilian experts to review the recording and tell the search team where to start looking. Navy vessels had then combed the selected area for two months and supposedly found nothing. That’s when Admiral Dawson asked Hayward to double-check the coordinates provided by the civilians.

Hayward was apprehensive. He saw problems with the timing of the signals, making him suspect the Navy had altered the tapes. Equally puzzling was why Admiral Dawson was asking him to double-check the civilians when better-qualified Sound Surveillance System experts were readily available.

Hayward had no choice. If he wanted his promotion, he had to play along. But rather than trying to figure out how the Navy had altered the tapes, Hayward picked a random spot on the seafloor thirty miles west of the civilians’ position so his coordinates would be close to theirs. He waited a few days and turned in his report.

He was shocked when the Navy issued a press release the following week stating that the USNS Mizar had found Scorpion’s wreckage precisely where Hayward had said it would be.

Admiral Dawson sent for Hayward four days later. He wanted to congratulate him and offer a follow-up assignment.

Hayward recalled the meeting: The two exchanged kind remarks for a few minutes, then Dawson spread twenty photographs of the wrecked Scorpion across his desk and motioned for Hayward to have a look.

Hayward studied the pictures for several minutes without commenting. He was again suspicious. Mizar’s towed camera had supposedly snapped over ten thousand photographs. Why was Admiral Dawson showing him so few?

Two pictures caught his immediate attention. One was a mosaic of Scorpion’s sail. The other was a picture of the intact sail. He leaned in and picked up the two pictures. “Do you have a magnifying glass?”

Admiral Dawson reached into his drawer, took a magnifier out, and handed it to Hayward. “What do you see?”

“I’m just curious,” Hayward replied. “Why would the cartographer make a mosaic when they had a picture of the intact sail?”

 

 

Admiral Dawson glanced at the two pictures in Hayward’s hand.

“Good question,” he said.

Hayward stared through the glass at the intact sail and said, “Her number-two periscope and VLF loop antenna are extended, and her starboard running light cover is open. She was probably cruising on the surface at night when her troubles began.”

“I agree.”

Hayward suddenly jerked his head back from the two pictures. “Admiral, is this meeting on the QT?” he asked.

“Captain, what you say will never leave this room.”

Hayward laid the picture of the intact sail down in front of Admiral Dawson and handed him the glass. “Take a hard look here,” he said, tapping his index finger on the top of the sail. “Some fool at the Naval Photographic Center has added a dark shadow to the crown. This makes it look like her periscope and loop antenna run down outside the sail instead of inside. That’s impossible! If those tubes ran outside, the water rushing around the sail at half-throttle would have ripped them off five minutes into her first launch.”

Dawson’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll be damned!”

“And look at the angle of the lighting. The crown of the sail should be lit up, not black.”

“Yeah… I see what you mean.”

“And look closely at the seam between the side that's facing the camera and the side hidden from view. It looks like someone added the back side.”

“You really think so?”

“Yes, sir,” Hayward said, as he spread the photos in front of Dawson. “Take a look at the top of the sail in both pictures. You see the difference?”

“Yes… the antenna and scope are coming out of the middle of the sail in the mosaic, but not in the intact sail.”

“Now look closely at the picture of the crown in the bottom layer of the mosaic.”

Dawson stared at the photos. “What am I looking for?” he asked.

“The cartographer used the intact sail to form the bottom layer of the mosaic.”

“I’ll be damned,” Dawson said slowly. “But why?” he asked.

“Likely to cover-up the real reason she sank.”

“Cover-up…?”

“If the CNO's office wanted you to know why Scorpion went down, they’d give you the facts and nothing but the facts. On the other hand, if they wanted to confuse you, they’d hand you a few facts blended with fabricated clues.”

“I still don’t follow your thinking.”

“Suppose the sail and its crown are intact, but you got a picture showing the crown blown away. What are you gonna look for?” Hayward asked.

“Evidence of an explosion?”

“You got it. You’d think the blast that blew the sail apart, sank the sub. You’d never be able to develop a solid theory to fit the fabricated evidence, so you'd give up believing the mystery was unsolvable.”

Dawson chuckled. “But it’s not me they’re trying to fool,” he said. “They want you to go over these pictures and her maintenance record and write a report on why you think she sank.”

Hayward smiled, then stood and walked around behind his chair, waving his index finger as a signal to hold the conversation. Thirty seconds went by, then he said, “Okay… now I got it. The CNO’s office is thinking of releasing these pictures to the press. They want me to examine them to see if I can sort out what happened. They’re betting if I can’t figure it out with these twenty pictures, then the Soviets, along with everyone else, will be stumped too.” 

“No one hinted anything like that to me,” Dawson said. “But it does sound about right. You should feel honored.”

Still smiling, Hayward said, “Admiral, there’s no compliment when the bullshit is so obvious.” He then picked up the picture of Scorpion’s tail and stared at it, wondering where he’d find the intended deception. Her port diving plane and most of her upper rudder were intact, but her starboard diving plane, lower rudder, prop shaft, and propeller appeared to be missing. “How does the Navy explain the missing shaft and propeller?” he asked.

 

 

Dawson turned around in his swivel chair and lifted a thick report from his credenza. “I was wondering about that myself until I read the Court of Inquiry’s report last night. I marked the page. Here it is,” he said, as he opened the report and set it in front of Hayward.

Hayward slid the report closer and started scanning the marked section.

“A lot of people at the Pentagon were wondering about the missing shaft until this report came out,” Dawson said.

Hayward read the Court’s scenario aloud:

 

“On impact, the ship breaks apart. The sail is probably separated from the ship at this time. The main sections of the hull probably bounced and skipped before coming to their resting place. A considerable amount of debris is spilled out during this process. The main shaft, either on initial impact or shortly thereafter, is thrown clear with screw still attached. The stern section slews around and finally comes to rest on its starboard side. During this movement, or perhaps on initial impact with the bottom, the starboard stabilizer and stern plane snap off, separated, and are thrown clear.”

 

Hayward chuckled and looked up. “I disagree with the last sentence,” he said. “The starboard plane came off when the ship was near the surface. The question is: Did it separate at the hull or break in the middle?”  

“What about forward momentum when the bow slammed into the bottom?” Dawson asked. “Could momentum tear off the starboard plane?”

“If there was enough forward momentum to snap off the starboard plane, it would have at least bent the upper rudder forward. But look,” Hayward said, pointing to the rudder in the image. “It’s straight up and down, proving the momentum was negligible.”

Dawson nodded slowly. “Hmm… my guess was the starboard plane snapped off when she hit bottom.”

“Admiral, these images were handpicked to mislead. Notice how they reveal only partial truths. The angles are also odd. Even the shadows don’t match the lighting.”

“You’ve got an eye for this sort of thing,” Dawson said.

“Look closely at the deep gash above the port plane. Hayward pointed to the area. “I’d bet it was created when the shaft was ejected.”

Admiral Dawson changed the subject. “Do you think the Soviets were involved?”

“There’s no torpedo damage.”

“What about her reactor. You think it’s still intact?”

“I doubt it,” Hayward said, shaking his head while pointing to another picture showing the submarine twisted into a steel lump amidships. “Her reactor compartment, machinery space, and engine room squished together like an accordion when she hit the bottom.”

The room was silent as both men looked at the photos. Hayward spoke first. “I’d say shock waves from an undersea earthquake struck Scorpion’s stern planes, causing her starboard plane to separate. The current then washed the broken plane into the spinning propeller, snapping off a blade or two,” he said with an emphatic nod. “That’s the way I see it.”

Dawson’s eyes suddenly grew wide and he looked straight at Hayward. “Captain, it’s not my duty to say you’re right or wrong. The CNO wants your opinion, not mine. But I will say this… testimony at the Court of Inquiry revealed that the search boat found a section of bent metal lying on the bottom several miles before they came upon the main wreckage (15). Maybe it was the starboard plane or the broken propeller blade?"

Hayward smiled. “Here’s something else—when the prop cut into the plane, the hard jolt snapped most of the bolts holding her shaft in place, explaining why the prop and shaft are missing.”

“I think you've got something, Captain. But, whatever you do, don’t mention any doctored photos outside my office. Let me ask around first and see if I can find out what’s going on. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

Dawson stuffed the pictures into a large portfolio filled with Scorpion’s maintenance records. “Write it the way you see it,” he said, sliding the package across his desk toward Hayward.

“Can I borrow the Court of Inquiry’s report?”

“Yes, but remember the CNO wants your opinion, not the Court’s.”

“No problem, but I do have one more question. Does the CNO really want the truth?”

Dawson rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and shrugged. “You’ve got until the end of March,” he said.

 

 

***

 

Scorpion’s maintenance record stunned Hayward. Rather than a few insignificant defects, he found two letters suggesting that a catastrophic hull failure in Scorpion’s tail section was inevitable.

The sub’s captain, Commander Jack Forrester, had mailed the first letter from Augusta Bay, Sicily, on 23 March 1968, just eight weeks before the sub sank. In it, he informed the Commander in Chief of the Atlantic Fleet that Scorpion would not be able to continue her mission unless the Navy replaced her propeller and remedied the severe vibrations in her tail section. He also requested replacement of the bilge valves, noting that they were leaking and allowing outside water pressure to push directly against the pumps inside the hull.

In the second letter, written before Scorpion had departed Norfolk, the boat’s Engineering Officer, who had resigned, told Commander Forrester that large spiderweb cracks were visible to the naked eye in Scorpion’s tail just forward of her propeller, where the shaft exited the stern.

Documents in her maintenance file also revealed that the sub had been plagued for years by severe shuddering in her tail section when at operational depth. The shuddering would have caused the stern planes to flap up and down like the wings of a small airplane in a storm. This would have induced both metal and welding fatigue, and made it easier for the seaquake to do its damage.

  The Navy must have known about Scorpion’s problems, including the threat of a catastrophic hull failure. They had replaced her five-bladed propeller with a seven-bladed one, no doubt hoping to reduce the shuddering. However, the new prop didn’t help much since Scorpion’s real problem was a misaligned shaft. Aligning the shaft of a submarine is difficult. The thrust bearings and the couplings that hold the shaft in place mount to the pressure hull. As the boat dives to operational depth, the increasing water pressure distorts the hull and displaces the thrust bearing. The distortion creates a misalignment at a particular depth, causing the shaft to wobble dangerously. The only way around the problem is to pass through the critical depth quickly.

Since a 15,000-horsepower engine had powered Scorpion’s driveshaft, even a slight vibration could create a cyclic stress-strain response in the HY80 steel in the stern planes, and in the same area where her Engineering Officer had noted the spiderweb cracks. This was the same spot where the long gash appeared in the picture of her tail section. It was obvious to Hayward that the constant shaft wobble had caused microstructural deformities in the metal, leading to the spiderweb fatigue cracks and ultimately to catastrophic failure in the welding of her starboard plane.

The maintenance file also contained a report indicating that before the repair yard hauled her out for refueling, Scorpionwas taking in 3,000 gallons of seawater every hour due to her wobbly shaft and its defective seal. Maintenance personnel had replaced the seal before she left Norfolk, but the Court of Inquiry learned that the sub was still taking in more than 400 gallons per hour (16) even with the new seal installed. Such a large inflow of water was dangerous, especially considering that her skipper had warned in his letter that the leaking sea valves in the engine room could cause the bilge pumps to fail. Hayward also felt that the ever-present tremor in her propeller shaft could have easily destroyed the replacement seal by the time she neared the Azores.

The report by the investigative committee indicated saltwater had entered Scorpion’s hydraulic system but did not say when the saltwater intrusion had occurred. Hayward’s best guess was that the saltwater had entered at least a year before the yard hauled the ship out for repair. Hayward could imagine salt water in his car’s hydraulic braking system. The brakes would likely fail within a month or two. But the Court of Inquiry’s discussion of salt water in Scorpion’s hydraulic system was misleading and illusive, as though the members of the Court were purposely trying to underplay the seriousness of saltwater contamination. The report stated that hydraulic control components made from 2014-T6 series aluminum alloy often failed due to stress and saltwater corrosion cracking. It then said most of Scorpion’s hydraulic components were made from the defective 2014-T6 alloy but that certain control valves were made of 6061-T6 alloy, a superior rustproof grade. The problem was that a sealed hydraulic system is like a chain, no stronger than its weakest link.

The Court also stated that NAVSHIPS had recently established a program to replace all 2016-T6 alloys with titanium and a program for continuing improvements in diving plane reliability. Establishing a program to fix the hydraulic system after Scorpion had crashed to the bottom was like closing the barn door after the horse was already dead. Besides, why was it necessary for NAVSHIPS to switch to titanium and improve diving plane reliability? It seemed to Hayward that the design of the stern diving planes, and the hydraulic system that operated them, were both serious problems that the Court of Inquiry purposefully glazed over. 

Scorpion was one of the US Navy’s six Skipjack-class submarines. In Hayward’s opinion, all six suffered from the same critical design flaw: The Navy had built these boats with two large horizontal diving planes affixed at the end of a tear-shaped hull. That meant that eighty percent of the high-speed maneuvering stresses came to focus on the welds and supports that held the stern planes in place. Skipjacks were the fastest attack subs ever built and the first to feature a single screw with wide, unsupported diving planes at the stern. Other submarine designs with similar stern layouts included strong external bracing to support the dive planes and prevent fast vertical maneuvers from over-stressing the welded seams. These braces generated noisy turbulence at high speeds, but sub designers had previously considered them essential for supporting the stern planes. In Hayward’s opinion, the Navy had made a terrible mistake when it did away with these external supports.

The way it looked to Hayward, the Navy should have deactivated Scorpion, rather than send her on a mission. But such embarrassment would have been far too great for the admirals to bear. Instead, two weeks before the sub left Norfolk on her final assignment, the Commander Submarine Force Atlantic (COMSUBLANT) restricted Scorpion to a maximum diving depth of 300 feet, much less than the 1,200-foot limit of other Skipjack-class submarines. It was a feeble attempt to prevent additional cyclic strains and stresses on her already fatigued-cracked stern and her corroded hydraulic system.

Hayward reasoned that the vibrations in her shaft had been relatively minor when the sub left to join the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea. Otherwise, Commander Forrester would have written his letter before leaving Norfolk. The mailing of Forrester’s letter from Sicily only six weeks before the sub went missing meant that Scorpion’s troublesome vibrations and steering problems had intensified during the trip across the Atlantic.

Even more incriminating, Scorpion’s stern had been involved in a collision near Naples, Italy, five weeks before the disaster. Her crew had tied her alongside USS Tallahatchie County, foolishly placing a garbage barge with low freeboard between the two boats to hold them apart. One evening when the wind and waves picked up, Scorpion’s stern crashed into the barge and sank it. Had this collision weakened the starboard plane? Or, maybe caused unseen damage to her hydraulic system?

The thoughts going through Hayward's mind were shocking. Heads will roll at Naval Headquarters if what I am about to report ever leaks to the public, he thought. But then again, maybe there was a way the Navy’s top brass could ensure that his discoveries would always remain buried.

He needed to schedule an emergency meeting with Admiral Dawson.

 

 

To reserve a paperback copy for $15 or a digital copy for $7, send an email to dwms07@gmail.com. You will be contacted for payment and shipping instructions when SEAQUAKE is released.

 

 

 

CHAPTER TWO

 

March 1969

Naval Research Laboratory

Washington, D.C.

 

Admiral Dawson smiled as Hayward entered his office in uniform. The admiral wore a dark blue business suit, white shirt, and light blue tie.

“How’s your report coming along?” Dawson asked, pointing to a leather chair next to his desk.

Hayward sat down and took a deep breath. “Admiral, I’ve found some terrible stuff and need your advice,” he said.

“Lay it on me, Captain,” Dawson replied.

When Hayward finished explaining his findings, he said, “Sir, my report will damage the Navy if it leaks to the public and I don’t want that to happen. I just want to make sure the Navy shows a little appreciation for the work I’ve done over the years, if you know what I mean.”

“What kind of appreciation?”

“With all due respect, I’m long overdue for admiral and you know it, sir.”

Dawson dropped his head, reached in his top drawer, and pulled out a toothpick. He stuck it in his mouth and started chewing on it. About a minute went by before he raised his head and spoke: “I’m sure the CNO values your contribution. Let me talk to him and get back to you.”

“Thanks, Admiral. I’ll hand-deliver my report to you personally in ten days.”

They shook hands, and Hayward left.

 

***

 

Hayward kept up on the latest Scorpion news while polishing his report. The civilian scientists were telling every reporter who would listen that the difference in the timing of the underwater signals recorded in Canada and in the Canary Islands revealed that Scorpion had been traveling southeast toward the Canary Islands when the accident happened, not west toward Norfolk. They claimed the only way to explain the heading was to assume the crew had been conducting a routine drill when a torpedo accidentally activated. All torpedoes have an anti-circle device that disarms them if they turn back toward the launch boat. Submarine crews practice making 180-degree emergency turns so they’ll be prepared if an activated torpedo becomes stuck in its firing tube. The civilians were suggesting that the helmsman did not turn fast enough and the torpedo exploded, sinking the ship.

Hayward saw the torpedo nonsense as the Navy’s effort to divert public attention away from Scorpion’s fatigue-weakened tail. Such media manipulation matched their usual pattern of hiring civilian scientists to dream up a charade for the press to follow. When the reporters came running for an official Navy comment, a high-ranking spokesperson would make a few purposeful slip-ups in denying the civilian claims and then refuse to comment further, citing national security or some such catchall. The Navy’s stonewalling created the strong suspicion that the civilians’ fairytale was true, so the media ran the story. The public, unaware of the deception, had no reason to doubt the newspapers.

Stage-managing the media to feed misinformation to an opponent was one of the first courses taught to young officers at the Naval War College. Deception was the key to winning any battle and an essential talent for any aspiring admiral. Anyone who expected the US Navy to tell the truth had a lot to learn. Admirals even practiced spreading misinformation during peacetime just to develop their knack for lying in wartime. One such fabrication was the rumor that SUBLANT had sent Scorpion to spy on Soviet ships. Such a mission didn't make good sense considering Commander Forrester’s letter casting serious doubt on Scorpion’s ability to participate in a covert operation so many miles off her intended course home.

Besides, Forrester had only one reason to write his letter and that was to save his own ass in case Scorpion suffered a serious accident. Now that he’d gone down with his ship, his letter would likely get lost and he’d end up as the Navy’s scapegoat.  

Hayward also understood why Admiral Dawson had asked him to triangulate the location of the wreck site. The CNO’s office wanted to test its civilian experts and find out if they had reasonably fabricated the acoustic data. He had heard rumors that Navy intelligence agents had confiscated the original tapes from the secret underwater listening stations within hours of the sinking. Hayward was sure he had done the right thing by not revealing his suspicions to Admiral Dawson.

As to the true location of the wreckage, Hayward decided the most likely spot was along the great circle tract home, near 36.700N and 32.200W, about 190 miles south southeast of Flores Island. The only necessary departure from this course would have been to angle around Santa Maria Island.      

Hayward thought about Scorpion’s demise at great length. He became increasingly convinced that seismic shocks had snapped the fatigue-weakened welded joints in her starboard diving plane. His scenario made even more sense if the starboard plane was the one that had smashed into the garbage barge in Italy. But trying to work out exactly what happened after the starboard plane separated was practically impossible because everything depended on what the crew was doing when it happened and how they handled the situation.

There was no doubt that Scorpion was dealing with antenna problems, leaking hydraulic fluid, and a score of other troubles. Any number of things could have happened to delay her scheduled arrival at Norfolk. Maybe the vibrations in her propulsion shaft had worsened since leaving Italy. That would have caused the shaft seal to leak even more. Hayward felt Commander Forrester’s only option would have been to surface and transmit a radio message informing SUBLANT of his sub’s condition and maybe even request a sea tow.

The way Hayward pictured it, Scorpion’s duty officer had raised the periscope to check on surface conditions at around five o’clock the afternoon of 22 May. Noticing the long, streaming whitecaps atop ten-foot waves rolling in from the northwest, he’d realized that surfacing on a westerly heading with the seas breaking over his starboard bow would cause Scorpion’s rounded hull to roll excessively and make it impossible to work on the antenna. The most stable ride under the circumstances would have been on a southeasterly heading with the waves washing over her stern, so the duty officer instructed the helmsman to turn toward the Canary Islands. Once on a more stable heading, the crew had blown the bow buoyancy tank to angle the bow toward the surface, then the safety ballast tank to restore positive buoyancy. Scorpion ran on the surface with a rising angle on her stern diving planes so that the bow would tilt up slightly, smoothing the ride over the rolling seas.

The sub had plowed along slowly for about twenty minutes while three or four crewmembers tried to fix the radio equipment.

 Then, the seafloor below Scorpion had begun to shudder violently. The quake was probably close to magnitude six with a focal point less than three miles deep in the solid crust. The primary waves from the initial rupture had cracked open the seafloor and sent a series of powerful hydroacoustic shocks straight toward Scorpion’s underbelly. Her fat round hull amidship deflected the seismic energy away from the small planes attached to the sail, but there was no such protection for the wide horizontal stern planes—they flapped up and down during the seaquake like the wings of a monstrous prehistoric bird. The starboard plane had separated after about ten seconds. The current then washed the plane back into the spinning propeller, breaking off one or two blades and cutting deep scratches into the others.

The violent motion in her tail would have bounced the repair crew into the water, where the pulsating pressures would have crushed their lungs. If any of these men had tied themselves to the deck for safety, the sinking sub would have dragged them to the bottom.

The initial shocks had also knocked the men inside the hull off their feet, creating the impression that Neptune himself was dragging Scorpion over a field of large boulders.

An entirely different disturbance, transferred to the surface when the slower seismic shear waves (S-Waves) transverse across the seafloor, would have rolled Scorpion so violently that her extended antennas and scopes would have bent like pretzels, making it necessary for the Navy to retouch the picture of her sail to conceal the awesome side-to-side twisting motion she’d experienced.

Everything would have happened at once. The catastrophic loss of Scorpion’s starboard diving plane caused the submarine to roll over before the stumbling sailors could get to their feet and disengage the drive shaft.

Seaquake waves travel as a series of sudden increases in pressure followed by a sudden drop in pressure. Such changing pressure would alter the volume of air contained in the semi-enclosed air tanks used for buoyancy and ballast control in accordance with Boyle's law. As the air expanded during the negative pressure phases of the seaquake waves, the excess would flow out the open ports. Conversely, as the positive pressure phases greatly reduced the volume, the vacuum it created would draw in seawater to fill the void. In affect, the rapidly alternating pressure pulses would quickly expel the air from Scorpion’s buoyancy tanks and she would sink like a stone.

Scorpion's crew had a standard procedure for recovery from a stern plane jam in the dive position. It called for backing full astern with fairwater planes on hard rise and blowing of the main ballast tanks. But this procedure would not have helped, even if the crew could have initiated it, considering the condition of the propeller and shaft.  

Moreover, if someone in the galley had been using the trash disposal unit (TDU) and had the main basketball-size valve open to the sea, the violent fluctuations in the hydrostatic water pressure would have blown out the TDU’s inner door and an alternating blast of seawater would have flooded the galley—and eventually the battery space—leading to a battery explosion.

Scorpion lost buoyancy and headed bow first toward the bottom, with no means of stopping her descent.

The crew undoubtedly attempted to escape, opening whatever hatches they could and trying to get to the surface. How close they came to getting out is anyone’s guess.

To prove his scenario, Hayward asked the Navy’s seismographic office if it could locate any seismic data, but they told him that seismic coverage of the mid-ocean ridge near 37N was not available because of the lack of seismic stations in the area. He didn’t bother contacting the secret hydrophone stations because their bandwidth filters routinely screened low-frequency earthquake noises. Instead, he called a geophysicist friend who suggested looking for a commercial boat that might have been in the region to see if the crew had experienced anything unusual. He then assembled co-workers who helped him call harbormasters at more than a hundred ports around the North Atlantic trade route, searching for crewmembers who'd reported any weird encounters in the area when Scorpion went missing. They got lucky. One crew had reported several mysterious shaking episodes that caused them to think their vessel had run aground. Hayward spoke with the captain by phone. He recalled four distinct disturbances. The first hit them around sunset and the last about seven o’clock that evening. He faxed Hayward a copy of the page in his logbook where he had entered the incident.  

 

***

 

Hayward dutifully slanted his report to avoid placing blame on any admiral, then delivered copies to Dawson’s office as promised. An aide phoned him that afternoon and scheduled a meeting for the following morning.

Hayward arrived early. He told Dawson his ideas for a weapons system to take advantage of the resonance phenomenon. Admiral Dawson assured him that the CNO, Admiral William Fowler, would be receptive to everything he had to say at a meeting already scheduled for three days later. He also informed him that his appointment to admiral was ready for Admiral Fowler’s signature, asking for his pledge to say nothing about doctored photos.

Hayward smiled, gave his promise to keep quiet, and left Dawson’s office. He immediately began working on a second set of folders detailing his new weapons system.

 

 

 

 

To reserve a paperback copy for $15 or a digital copy for $7, send an email to dwms07@gmail.com. You will be contacted for payment and shipping instructions when SEAQUAKE is released.

 

 

 

CHAPTER THREE

 

April 1969

Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Pentagon

Arlington, Virginia

 

Hayward arrived early. An aide led him into a waiting area and offered him coffee and donuts. He was sipping his second cup when Admiral Dawson walked by with two highly decorated admirals and entered the CNO’s private office. The aide informed Hayward that Rear Admiral Marshall Colmes, Commander of the US Atlantic Fleet, and Rear Admiral Alexander Bates, Commander of Atlantic Submarine Force, would be having a late breakfast with the CNO and Admiral Dawson. He said they would call him when they were ready for his presentation.

            Hayward waited patiently as one admiral after another came and went. Finally, after an hour, Admiral Dawson emerged from the CNO’s office and walked over to Hayward. “They’re almost ready for you.”

Hayward stood. “How’s the atmosphere?”

“Everything’s fine.” Dawson put his hand on Hayward’s shoulder. “Just answer their questions and stay relaxed. And don’t mention those doctored photographs.”

“Don’t worry.”

He was about to say more when the CNO’s secretary stuck her head out of the conference room doorway and motioned for them.

Hayward followed Admiral Dawson into the room and glanced around. Admiral Fowler, Chief of Naval Operations, sat at the head of the large table. Admiral Colmes and Admiral Bates sat next to each other on Admiral Fowler’s right. To his left was Rear Admiral Charles Coburn, the head of Naval Intelligence. A member of Admiral Coburn’s staff, Lieutenant Ronald Schultz, had the chair next to his boss. Along with being a Naval Intelligence staff officer, Schultz served as Assistant Public Affairs Officer.

Hayward smiled and nodded in Schultz's direction. He had known him since their Annapolis days a decade ago. Schultz had dated Hayward’s wife before she meet Hayward. But she broke up with him when Hayward came along, and Schultz had held a grudge ever since.

Hayward set the larger of his two cases on the table, opened it, and took his seat.

Admiral Fowler placed his hands palms-down on the polished table and tapped several times with his fingers. “Gentlemen,” he announced with a smile, “we’ve read Captain Hayward’s report so let’s go straight to our questions. For myself, I’d like to know if you’ve shared your material with anyone outside this room?”

“No, sir.”

“That’s good.” Fowler then motioned to Admiral Colmes, who was writing on a notepad.

“Nice job on the report,” Colmes said, looking up. His hard brown eyes never left those of Hayward, who fought not to squirm under that laser glare. “Now tell me why you suspect fatigue failure in Scorpion’s tail.”

Admiral Colmes knew Scorpion had problems before she left Norfolk, Hayward thought. He forced a smile and reviewed his conclusion as best he could.

When Hayward finished, Colmes said, “I’ve been in a submarine during an undersea earthquake many times and only felt a bumping and swaying motion. I've also talked with other officers who have experienced seaquakes just as I have. What can you say about my experiences and those of other officers?"

"Sir, most undersea events are not dangerous. It all depends on the direction of the motion in the seafloor, the speed of that motion, and the depth of focus below the rock/water interface. The most dangerous undersea earthquakes are rapid thrusting events focused less than five km below the seabed."

"Our geological people tell me seabed acceleration is the most critical factor," Dawson said. "The faster the punch, the more destructive."

 "Sir, whether you are aware or not, sea shocks from a shallow, vertical-thrusting quake greater than magnitude five could easily knock the stern planes off a submarine, especially one with fatigued metal and/or welding defects," Hayward added.

 "Do you have any evidence of damage to a Navy ship other then the Scorpion?” Colmes asked.

“No, sir, but I do have incidents in which several World War II Liberty ships were sunk by earthquake shocks.”

“The Liberties were cheap cargo ships, notorious for cracking in a rough sea,” Colmes said dismissively.

“That’s my point, sir,” Hayward replied. “As you are aware, most seaquake encounters are shaking episodes that end with no damage. But if the ship has structural defects and the sea happens to be rough, a violent seaquake can be especially dangerous.”

“It’s a combination of factors,” Dawson said.

“Have you got reports of other Navy vessels hit by seaquakes?” Colmes asked. 

 Hayward reached into his case and pulled out a copy of a New York Times article published on 4 August 1919. He passed it to Admiral Colmes, who read it aloud:

 

Double Earthquake Shock Rocks Dreadnoughts

of Rodman’s Fleet near Colima, Mexico

 

ON BOARD U.S.S. NEW MEXICO, Aug. 2, (By Wireless to Associated Press.) – Six dreadnoughts of the Pacific Fleet were shaken severely by a double earthquake shock at 4:18 o’clock this afternoon twenty miles off the coast of the State of Colima, Mexico. None of the warships reported any damage.

TheNew Mexico trembled from bow to stern as if she had struck an uncharted reef, and the navigating officer sounded “Collision Quarters” on the flagship’s siren. Sailors in the foretop said the basket masts of the warships swayed like poplar trees in a gale.

Officers on the quarterdeck hurried to their posts and the crew and the marines took their places. Meanwhile, all watertight compartments on the New Mexico were closed, and inspection parties were sent into the holes to see if there had been any damage to the hull.

Admiral Hugh Rodman, commanding the fleet, quickly recognized the cause of the disturbance. “It’s an earthquake,” he said. “We are right off the coast of Colima, where there are many earthquakes.”

Then, turning to Commander Brainard, he ordered: “Signal all the ships in the fleet and see if they felt any excess vibration.”

Wireless telephone messages were received soon for five other dreadnoughts reporting that they had felt the shocks. The Mississippi, which was farther offshore, reported heavy vibrations.

“Just what I thought—an earthquake,” Admiral Rodman repeated.

When the first tremor was felt those below hurried on the flagships’ deck. The faces of some of the recruits showed alarm as the men stood at quarters awaiting orders, while the flagship rolled and pitched in the heavy ground swells that followed the shocks.

Admiral Rodman kept at quarters for fifteen minutes, and then ordered the “Secure Signal” to be sounded. He took the whole incident as if it were a matter of routine, giving his orders quietly on the quarterdeck, while officers and men were running to their post in the tense excitement of the first few moments.

One of the officers reported that he believed the earthquake came from an old crater in the Sierra Mountains, which fringe the coastline near here and drop off into the sea.

 

Colmes looked up. “What was the magnitude?”

“It wasn’t listed in any data banks. I’d guess it was shallow at maybe magnitude six or seven,” Hayward said.

“I don’t believe it!” Colmes replied. “New Mexico was the largest battleship of her day. You’re not gonna shake her with a magnitude six quake.”

“Sir, I cannot comment on what happened. I heard about the New York Times article from a retired seaman who served on New Mexico.”

“What else did you find?” Colmes asked.

“Here’s an interesting report from eighty years ago,” Hayward said, handing Admiral Colmes a sheet of paper. “The incident occurred near where the Scorpion went down.”

Admiral Colmes read it aloud:

 

A BRITISH STEAMER’S PERIL

From the New-Orleans Times-Democrat, Oct. 10.

 

Capt. Baker on his last trip from Liverpool to New-Orleans met with an exciting experience. It was on the forenoon of Sept. 24 as his ship, the British steamer Red Sea, was off the Azores. The morning was clear and bright, but the vessel began to labor heavily, and was put under storm sails. The sea became rough, while the wind blew a living gale. The barometer fluctuated by jumps: the compass was affected. Suddenly the vessel received a terrific shock that racked her from stem to stern. She appeared to bump the bottom, was thrown on her beam ends, but righted almost immediately. All hands rushed on deck to witness the appalling sight of a mountain of water off the port bow rolling down upon them. The vessel was headed bow on at the tremendous billow, and as she struck it stood on stern end, rode it gallantly, pitching over it as from a precipice into the trough yawning below. The rudder and the propeller were hoisted far out of the water, the boats swung in the davits, the yards creaked overhead, the masts strained and twisted, and the coal on deck was scattered from one end to the other. She came up out of the terrible trough, shook an instant, righted herself, shipping but little water, sustaining no material damage, and plunged ahead of her way. Capt. Baker is positive that his sudden and dangerous dilemma was the result of an earthquake, and if his ship had been heavily laden, he would never have ridden it out in safety (17).

 

“Any recent stuff?” Colmes asked when he finished.

Hayward reached into his case and pulled out four pictures. He slid them over to Admiral Colmes, who picked them up and leaned to his left to share them with Admiral Bates.

 “You’re looking at the oil tanker Ida Knudsen (18), destroyed by a seaquake five weeks ago in the same area where Scorpion went down,” Hayward said. He was lucky to have the pictures. The dockmaster in Lisbon had taken them when the damaged oil tanker tied up at his dock in early March. He found out about Hayward’s interest in seaquakes and sent reprints to him with a full description of the damage.

Hayward related the story.

“The Azores resort owners are lucky the tanker was not loaded, or their beaches would be black,” he concluded. 

Admiral Bates picked up the picture of Ida Knudsen’s pilothouse and looked at Hayward. “Scorpion was designed to withstand shocks of over 3,000 pounds per square inch. The damage here looks like it came from shocks of less than 1,000 psi,” he said.

“You’re right, sir. The seaquake shocks did not damage Scorpion’s hull. It was the rapid up and down twisting motion that caused the defective welds in her stern plane to give way.”

“Could seismic waves snap off the diving plane without there being a problem with the welding?” Admiral Fowler asked.

“It’s possible, especially if it was the starboard plane that smacked into the garbage barge when she was tied up next to the Tallahatchie.”

Fowler grimaced. “I read about the collision,” he said, turning to face Admiral Coburn. “Can your office find out which plane was hit?”

“We’ll have a report on the incident within a day or so,” Coburn replied.

“There’s something else, sir,” Hayward interjected. “When the Navy designed the Skipjack-class submarines, they copied the teardrop hull of the USS Albacore. But they did not use Albacore’s X-shaped stern plane configuration. Instead, they positioned Scorpion’s wide stern planes horizontally and her rudders vertically. This makes her stern planes especially vulnerable to any kind of shocks from directly above or below.”

“Are you saying all the Skipjacks are vulnerable to earthquakes?” Fowler asked. 

“They’d be extremely vulnerable if the quake lasted for a minute or longer. In my opinion, sir, we need to route Skipjack-class submarines out of dangerous seismic zones or risk a repeat of the Scorpion incident.”

“Are you sure?”

Hayward heard the sharpness in Fowler’s voice. “It’s only my opinion, sir. I could be wrong.”

Admiral Fowler stood, walked around behind Admiral Colmes, and looked over his shoulder at the pictures. “Captain Hayward’s offering theory, not facts. Right, Captain Hayward?”

“Correct, sir.”

“Any other documented examples?” Admiral Fowler asked.

            “The oil tanker Ida Knudsen and the steamer Red Sea were two of about thirty known seaquake-vessel encounters in the area where Scorpion went missing.” Hayward reached into his case and pulled out a manila folder. “Here’s a report from the captain of the Carl, a full-rigged sailing ship loaded with barrels of oil. She experienced a seaquake in the area in December 1884.” (19) He put the article on the table.

            Admiral Dawson picked it up and started reading:

            “We suddenly felt a strong rocking or shaking of the ship lasting about 5 minutes. The shaking was so strong that the oil barrels in the top layer between decks were thrown around, and the lamp chimneys fell to the deck. The sea in the neighborhood of the ship turned white. The first mate and his watch were thrown to the deck; he and the carpenter had been standing on the afterdeck, one sailor on the port side as lookout. I rushed on deck, as did the watch below, as we all thought the ship had met with an accident. After the shaking stopped, I immediately had the pumps started, and repeated pumping every ten minutes; however, the depth of bilge water did not change. The ship was at 35, 40’ N. lat. and 22,26’ W. long. The sea was calm, the wind easterly and light, the ship’s speed was three nautical miles per hour.”

 

Hayward opened the folder and pulled out another article (20) written by geophysicists. He slid it face-up across the table.

 Fowler picked it up. “A seaquake shook a seismic research vessel from Woods Hole five years ago,” he said and handed the paper to Admiral Colmes.

“The R/V Chain was doing a seismic survey fifty miles from the epicenter of the seaquake,” Hayward said. “The team leader told me personally that the event shook the Chain violently and scared everyone aboard.”

“From fifty miles away?” Fowler asked.

“Yes, sir. Fifty miles.”

As the admirals examined the articles, Hayward again reached into his case. This time he brought out the latest issue of Mariner’s Weather Log (21) and laid it in the middle of the table. “The article in this journal mentions over forty recent seaquake-vessel encounters. According to the author, shock waves from an earthquake off the coast of Acapulco, Mexico, struck a vessel loaded with steel assemblies, causing some pieces weighing six tons to jump up and down six inches off the deck.” He went on to summarize the rest of the article. 

“I’ve heard enough,” Fowler said. “The question now is what to do about it.”

He looked at Admiral Bates, who lowered his head and said, “I knew nothing about the fatigue cracks in Scorpion’s tail.”

Fowler stood and walked around to Hayward’s chair. “You’ve done a lot of work,” he said, patting him on the back.

Bates glanced down at Hayward’s report on the table and then up at Fowler. “Sir, if the captain’s effort pleases you, it’s good enough for me. I have no more questions.” He started putting his papers back in his briefcase. “No one told me her tail was ready to fall off.”

Hayward knew better. Besides the two cover-your-own-ass letters in her file, there were several notations suggesting that the sub’s safety officer had informed Admiral Bates’ office about the stress cracks numerous times.

The sub was dry-docked at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in February 1967, when things started warming up in the Middle East between Israel and her Soviet-backed neighbors. In April, Admiral Bates ordered the diesel-electric attack submarine USS Requin to enter the Mediterranean in support of the Sixth Fleet just in case the Soviets became more aggressive. Bates also ordered two nuclear attack submarines patrolling the Vietnam coast to pass through the Suez Canal and meet up with the Sixth Fleet. However, on 5 June 1967, before the US subs could enter the Mediterranean, the Six-Day War broke out. Egypt immediately sank six large ships in the middle of the canal and blamed Israel, Britain, and the United States. Other Arab countries quickly rallied in support, pledging to stop the flow of oil to the Western world.

On 8 June, in what Israel later claimed was a case of mistaken identity, Israeli warplanes opened fire on the USS Liberty, an electronic spy ship cruising in international waters off the Egyptian coast. The attack disabled a vital source of the Navy’s decision-making intelligence and caused substantial political tension. 

Admiral Colmes decided the Sixth Fleet still needed at least one nuclear attack submarine as support. With the Mediterranean bottled up by the canal closing, the only way the Navy could get a sub from the South China Sea into the Mediterranean was to send it around the tip of South Africa, then north through the South Atlantic—one hell of a long trip.

The USS Seawolf was on routine patrol along the US Atlantic Coast, so rather than send a sub from the Pacific, Admiral Bates ordered her crew to prepare to get under way. He also ordered Scorpion put back in the water to protect her from attack in case war broke out. Repair crews could fix her up in the water so she could eventually take Seawolf’s Atlantic Coast patrol duties. He then ordered Requin back to Norfolk to assist Scorpion in defending the Atlantic Coast.

However, several unforeseen events changed Bates’ plans.

In the third week of January 1968, the North Koreans seized USS Pueblo for spying. Two days later, the Israeli submarine Dakar mysteriously sank in the Mediterranean; a few days after the Dakar went down, the French submarine Minerve suddenly vanished. Bates thought the Soviets had started World War III, so he directed the Seawolf to depart immediately. However, as luck would have it, the sub hit bottom off Cape Cod the day before she was to leave. Admiral Bates then decided to send Scorpion. He was hoping that by restricting her diving depth to 300 feet, she could make it back to Norfolk in one piece. Scorpion departed in mid-February and hobbled around the Mediterranean with the vibrations in her stern getting worse by the day.

Then, sometime in early May—after the Navy had had plenty of time to digest the ass-saving letters written by Commander Forrester and the boat’s chief engineer—Admirals Colmes and Bates became worried that Scorpion’s stern might indeed suffer catastrophic fatigue failure so they ordered her back to Norfolk.

“What was I going to do?” Bates asked. “We needed a fast-attack sub in the area to bluff down the Soviets.”

Admiral Fowler hit the table with his fist. “Stop this nonsense right here!” he yelled. “We can’t afford to fix any blame. If the families of the dead crew start thinking we gambled with the lives of their kin during peacetime, we’ll all be looking for jobs.”

 “Hold on… I got an idea,” Admiral Coburn said. “Several newspapers are running stories that one of Scorpion’s own torpedoes exploded. Let’s just let these stories run and see what comes of it.”

Fowler then patted Hayward on the back again and nodded. “So, you really think a seaquake sank Scorpion?”

Hayward knew the CNO was looking for something to blame other than the stress cracks in Scorpion’s tail and the defective welding. “Yes I do, Admiral.”

“How many merchant ships might be lost if we say nothing?” he asked as he walked back to his chair and sat down.

 “I don’t know, sir.”

“If we admit a seaquake sank the Scorpion, can we present it in such a way as to keep the fatigue cracks and defective welding out of the newspapers?”

“We can blame it on the bumping incident at Naples,” Hayward offered.

“If we do that, the Navy still takes the blame,” Fowler replied.

“There is a congressional inquiry getting under way on the welded seam issue,” Dawson said. “What are we going do about that?”

“I’m sure I can get the Secretary of the Navy to put an end to the investigation,” Admiral Fowler said.

Admiral Dawson stood, walked over to the buffet table, and poured a cup of coffee. He turned and looked at Admiral Fowler. “Bill, we can’t let this shit out of the bag now,” he said.

“Why not… as long as it takes the heat off the Navy?”

“Hell, Admiral, I went over Captain Hayward’s report three days ago. If this seaquake danger leaks to the press, the cruise ship industry will collapse for sure. You’re not gonna get a Jewish grandmother to take a cruise if she thinks there’s a chance it could be sunk by a damn earthquake.”

“I don’t know about that,” Fowler said. “Even if the cruise business suffers, what kind of problems do you think the Navy will have?”

“Admiral, if this stuff leaks out, no sailor in his right mind will want to serve on a submarine, especially one with a few mechanical problems,” Dawson said. “Our submarine crews will panic at every little bump.”

“I agree,” Admiral Colmes said. “We had more than fifty earthquake-submarine encounters during World War II. The men wrote and told their families, who then pressured them to transfer out of the submarine service.”

Coburn spoke up. “I remember in November 1941 when the chief seismologists at Fordham University put out a press release saying that every submarine within 500 miles of a big quake off the coast of Spain might have been crushed like an egg (22). I was gonna volunteer for submarine service until I read that article in the Baltimore Sun.”

“The real problem is not the men, it’s their families,” Colmes said. “Knowing an enemy torpedo can kill their sons is hard for many parents to deal with. Adding the worry over undersea earthquakes is just too much.” 

Admiral Dawson took the last sip of coffee from his cup and headed toward the server tray. “We’ve got solid proof on the table in front of us that a seaquake can destroy an oil tanker,” he said, over his shoulder. “What about supertankers or one of those new natural gas bulk transports?”

“The bigger the ship, the easier it is for seaquake waves to establish a deadly resonance,” Hayward answered.

“Every environmentalist in the goddamn world will be protesting the movement of crude oil and natural gas in supertankers,” Admiral Coburn said. “We’d have a real mess on our hands.”

Fowler turned to face Coburn. “Do you think the Soviets have any knowledge of this stuff?”

“Maybe… their K-129 sub went missing northwest of Hawaii in March of last year. The Soviets organized a massive search but never found a trace.”

“What about Dakar?” Fowler asked, looking at Hayward. “You think she was hit by a seaquake?”

Hayward stood and walked toward the window. “Sir, Dakar was in seismically active waters with the same flawed tail design as Scorpion. If they find her with a broken tail, the odds are good she went down due to seismic shock waves.”

“There was a magazine article about ships disappearing off our Atlantic Coast a few months ago, wasn’t there?” Admiral Coburn asked.

“Yes, Admiral,” Lieutenant Schultz spoke up for the first time. “It made the cover of Argosy in August. A writer named Vincent Gaddis is calling the area the ‘Bermuda Triangle.”

“Are there seaquakes near our Atlantic Coast?” Fowler asked.

“I did some checking with my staff over the last few days,” Admiral Dawson replied. “Our submarine commanders have reported mysterious shaking episodes all along the area for several decades now. They’re also picking up lots of low-frequency seismic rumblings all along the Atlantic Coast, the Gulf of Mexico, and especially in the Caribbean. We now believe most of these episodes are the result of magnitude three and four earthquakes hypocentered less than two miles down. The problem is that our land-based seismic stations are not sensitive enough to record these events.”

“There’s also a massive volcanic hot spot under the seafloor north of Bermuda,” Hayward said. “The magma chamber might cover a thousand square miles.”

“My God! Is this near where Thresher went down?” Admiral Fowler asked.

“We’re not sure,” Dawson said.

“Why not?”

“Because we don’t know the size of the magma field. We are only aware of the Bermuda hot spot because of changes in gravity, but we don’t know yet how far it spreads. We’re getting low-frequency signals on our hydrophones from the Bermuda Rise so we know magma is on the move down there.”

“I don’t buy it,” Admiral Colmes interjected. “You’ll never convince me that a magnitude four quake can sink a ship.”

“Indirectly, Admiral,” Hayward replied. “Seismic waves traveling through the seabed could alter the pressure inside an underground chamber of methane. If the seismic waves crack open one of these gas pockets, the fluctuating pressures could force the methane out of the chamber like oil gushing out of a newly tapped well. A huge mound of escaping gas would boil to the surface. Ships caught in these bubbles would sink instantly. This gas could even become ionized by the rapid fluctuations in pressure and create erratic changes in the magnetic field.”

“We already know that there are methane gas deposits off the coasts of New York, Boston, and farther south,” Admiral Dawson said. “Geologists have also found thousands of small gas pockets in the ancient mud and rock formations along the slopes of the continental shelf. The drop-off edge of the slope, especially off Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, and South Carolina, also produces a fair number of smaller quakes, many less than a mile deep.”

“That’s not all,” Hayward said. “If the hypocenters are extremely shallow and the water is not too deep, lesser-magnitude thrusting quakes might put enough energy in the water to sink an older ship without the escaping gas.”

“How shallow?” Admiral Fowler asked.

“A magnitude four earthquake, hypocentered a mile down, in water less than 1,000 feet deep might do it,” Hayward replied.

“What are the odds?” Fowler asked.

“It’s hard to say, Admiral,” Hayward answered. “The bilges of many ships currently working off our Atlantic Coast, Bermuda, and the Caribbean are filled with rust. If a rough sea is pounding one of these rust buckets at the same time a small seaquake erupts below it, the two vibratory disturbances could resonate together and cause the ship to come apart in the blink of an eye.”

“But what are the odds of that happening?”

“It’s anybody’s guess, Admiral. There are many incidents at sea in which a vessel might experience a serious vibration that could resonate with a seaquake.”

“I understand that, Captain,” Admiral Fowler said. “But I want to hear it from you. You’re our expert right now.”

“Sir, a ship can be tossed into the air by a large wave and then slammed back down hard, generating a thundering vibration that could resonate with a seaquake. Or, a ship’s propeller could hit a submerged object and snap or bend a blade and cause the ship to shake violently. A wave could even lift the stern and free the propeller to spin wildly in the air, setting up severe vibrations throughout the boat. A pounding from a short choppy sea can also cause a ship to shudder. Mechanical ships vibrate all the time. It’s common for these vibrations to resonate with certain sections of the ship and make life aboard uncomfortable.”

“So Captain, what you’re saying is that when a ship sinks during a seaquake, it’s because of seismic vibrations resonating with the existing vibrations of a loose, faulty vessel in a heavy sea. Is that correct?”

“That’s what I am saying, sir. Seaquakes don’t sink ships unless there are other contributing factors.”

“So the odds must be a hundred to one, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Maybe more, Admiral.”     

“Does Research plan to get some answers?” Fowler asked, looking at Admiral Dawson.

“We’ve contacted our people at Scripps and at Woods Hole and asked them to provide us with anything they can find,” Dawson answered. “We’re also planning to map out a danger zone for our submarines to avoid.”

Fowler turned toward the Chief of Naval Intelligence. “I’m convinced that seaquakes can explain the mysterious loss of commercial ships. My question to you is whether we can keep the public’s mind off this Bermuda Triangle crap until we can figure the right course of action.”

Admiral Coburn gave a nod to his aide.

“We can handle it, sir,” Lieutenant Schultz said.

Hayward quickly glanced around the room. It was apparent that what he had presented had swayed his audience. Now is the time, he thought. “Admirals, there’s something else of utmost importance that must be presented today.” He quickly unlocked his second attaché case and removed a handful of folders, then passed them around the room without waiting for a response. Stamped in large red letters at the top of the cover page were the words TOP SECRET.

“I have reason to believe that the underwater weapons systems detailed in these folders will put the Navy light years ahead of the Soviets.”

The startled faces in the room told him his timing was perfect.

 

 

 

CHAPTER FOUR

 

April 1969

Pentagon Parking Garage

Arlington, Virginia

 

It was dark when the Navy sedan carrying Captain Hayward emerged from the garage. Light snow swirled across the ground, mounting around the tree trunks lining Pennsylvania Avenue. Hayward sat in the backseat, his small leather attaché case handcuffed to his right wrist, the bulkier case resting on the seat beside him.

He glanced at his watch. Almost nine o’clock. What had transpired toward the end of the fourteen-hour meeting upset him. Dawson had urged Admiral Fowler to forward a copy of Hayward’s weapons system proposals to the Secretary of the Navy immediately. Colmes had grumbled that politics controlled the Secretary’s future and suggested presenting the ideas to the Joint Chiefs of Staff instead. Fowler finally decided to postpone any decision until Admiral Dawson could assemble a team of acoustical physicists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to verify Hayward’s calculations.

And there it would remain. His earlier optimism about getting recognition evaporated the minute the CNO mentioned the civilian scientists at Woods Hole. He would be back working in the lab tomorrow morning, and a group of outsiders would grab credit for his work.

Schultz had already whitewashed the loss of Scorpion with the press. Now, thanks to Hayward, he had all the information he needed to rebut the idea of a special danger zone off the Atlantic Coast. Only a small portion of Vincent Gaddis’ Argosy article was true anyway—the rest was pure hoax and easy to invalidate.

“Damn it, my work doesn’t need to be checked by anyone,” he muttered to himself.

The tires crunched through icy slush as the windshield wipers thumped back and forth like a metronome marking the boredom of his life. The Secretary of the Navy would see the importance of what he had to offer and would deal with those responsible for the loss of Scorpion. Did he dare request a meeting? Would it be the right thing to do? If word got to Admiral Fowler, his career would be over. But so what if he lost his job? He could earn ten times more in the private sector. Maybe even go to work for the defense contractor who landed the contract to build his system.

“I’ll do it. I’ll do it tomorrow morning,” he said aloud. He would explain his plan in more detail to the Secretary. He, as well as his country, should benefit. If his achievements went through Woods Hole, they’d steal the credit and he’d be back doing theoretical analysis of acoustical hypotheticals. He hated mundane physics. Even if it destroyed his career, he had to break free.

His fingernails dug into his palms. His foot tapped the floorboard in time with the thumping windshield wipers. He felt sick. Better get some fresh air before I throw up, he thought.

“Pull over when you reach an area where there’s no traffic,” Hayward told the driver.

“Sir, my orders are to get you home safe with that security case.”

“I’ll use caution. Just let me out where the sidewalk is deserted.”

“Yes, sir,” the driver said. He pulled over to the curb, got out, opened the back door, and watched Hayward wrench himself out and step onto the sidewalk. “Sir, I’ll just creep along behind you to make sure you’re okay.”

Hayward looked back over his shoulder. “Check on me at my quarters in twenty minutes. You’ve got the address; it’s only eight blocks from here.”

“But, sir…”

“That’s an order!” Hayward shouted.

The driver got back behind the wheel and slowly drove away from the curb.

The heavier case impeded the natural swing of Hayward’s left arm as he strode down the sidewalk. The cold air felt good on his face. He inhaled it deep into his lungs, letting it flush out the bad taste of the meeting. Snow quickly dusted his black brimmed cap and overcoat. He thought of his wife, Rebecca, and their seventeen-year-old son, Richard. The more he had allowed his obsession with work to control his life, the more he had neglected his family. He would make it up to them now, put in a forty-hour week like everyone else, and be home for dinner at six every night. Maybe Admiral Fowler’s decision wasn’t so bad. The verification of his calculations by physicists from Woods Hole would force the Navy to give him his admiral’s star. The CNO was right. He chuckled, thinking of his own moronic plan to go over Fowler’s head. He crossed the street at a deserted intersection and followed the sidewalk into the park, his frequent shortcut home.

A few scattered park lamps cast ghostly shadows over the snow-covered statue of Abraham Lincoln in the center of the park. As he approached the statue, he thought he heard something behind him and glanced over his shoulder. Two men were walking toward him, less than fifty feet away. The back of his neck started to tingle. The sensation spread quickly to his chest. His heart thumped. He tightened his grip on the cases and quickened his pace. Once past the statue, he was a quarter of the way through the park. He could still hear the crunching steps of the men behind him. Another two hundred yards and he would be on the street, within two blocks of his house. He risked a glance back. They were now ten paces away.

He stood no chance of running, burdened as he was with the two cases. Another park lamp was coming up on his left, the brightest area in the park. He stepped into the circle of light, set the larger case down by his feet, and reached inside his overcoat as if going for a revolver. If they were thieves, they would think twice before attacking. Hayward stared at the two men, taunting them to make a move. They passed in front of him, ignoring his stare. The knot in his stomach loosened.

He felt stupid for having been so scared. He stood there, breathing deeply to steady his nerves, watching the men turn down the street.

When they were out of sight, Hayward picked up his extra case and made his way across the park grounds in the uneven darkness of the trees and shrubs. He smiled wryly, thinking of a common thief’s reaction to the acoustic equations cuffed to his wrist. How could I have been so careless to risk losing top-secret material to thugs?

Still in the shadowy darkness, he was almost to the street when two pairs of arms grabbed him from behind and shoved him facedown into the snow. Hayward twisted his head just in time to see one of the men draw a dagger from his boot sheath … a heavy blow to the center of his back … sharp burning pain…. Seconds later one of the men tried to pull the knife out, lifting Hayward a few inches off the ground. It must have lodged between his ribs and wouldn't give.

            Hayward twisted to see his attackers, but all he saw was the butt of a pistol as it thumped into the side of his head.

The men dragged him by his feet, facedown, to the edge of a big tree. Snow packed his nostrils, and then his mouth, when he tried to yell for help. When the assailants let go, Hayward tried to stand up, getting as far as his knees before one of them kicked him in the stomach. He gasped as the blade cut deeper into his ribcage. Blood spewed from his mouth as they shoved his face back into the snow.

One of the men grabbed the handcuffed case, jerked it up with Hayward’s arm still attached, and pressed it against the tree trunk. Hayward looked up just in time to see the hatchet whoosh through the air. It seemed to arc in slow motion as he formed a prayer to a God he didn’t know.

Pain scalded down his arm, interrupting the prayer.

He heard the men running away. He looked up again. His severed right hand, impaled by the hatchet, dangled from the tree. He gawked at the bizarre image, then turned and stared at his arm in horrid query. Blood from the exposed arteries gushed into his face.

He tried to scream as he plunged the bleeding end of his arm into the snow, but only frothing blood rushed from his mouth. The last sound he heard as he crumpled against the base of the tree trunk was the distant warble of a siren.

 

To reserve a paperback copy for $15 or a digital copy for $7, send an email to dwms07@gmail.com. You will be contacted for payment and shipping instructions when SEAQUAKE is released.

 

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[1] Seaquake-vessel encounters (www.seaquake_solution.com/seaquakes_1800s.htm and …/seaquakes_1900s.htm)

 

[2] Report of the Proceedings of the Court of Inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the loss of USS SCORPION  (SSN 589) on or about 27 May, 1968, Department of the Navy, Office of the Judge Advocate General

 

[3] Submiss: The Mysterious Death of the USS `SCORPION (SSN 589) by Mark Bradley, Deputy Counsel for

Intelligence Policy, Department of Justice Office of Intelligence Policy and Review published in the Congressional Record 23 March 1999 (Honored as the year’s most distinguished article on an historical topic by The Society for History in the Federal Government.)

 

[4] Defective Steel Plates in US Nuclear Subs? Columnists Jack Anderson – Palm Beach Post, October 1, 1968    (http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Z7E1AAAAIBAJ&sjid=V7YFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1256%2C36257)

 

[5] The Washington Merry-Go-Round, Drew Pearson, Algona upper Des Moines, October 7, 1968, page 5

 

[6] Deficiencies Suspected, Were Defects Ignored, The Free Lance-Star, Fredericksburg VA June 5, 1968, page 5

 

[7] A Damaging Seaquake, Professor Nicholas Ambraseys, Earthquake Engineering, and Structural Dynamics, v. 13, pages 421 - 424  (1985)

 

[8] Project FAMOUS: Its origin, programs, and setting, J. R. Heirtzleri and T. H. Van Andel, Geological Society of America Bulletin; April 1977; v. 88; no. 4; p. 481-487 (http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewArticle.do?id=2512)

 

[9] Double Earthquake Shock Rocks Dreadnoughts of Rodman's Pacific Fleet, New York Times, August 4, 1919

 

[10] Mono Bombed by Navy During Seismic Test,  Reno Evening Gazette, July 29, 1957, page 14 ---- Also see: Artificial Earthquakes Set Off in Navy Tests,Los Angeles Times, July 26, 1957, page 27

 

[11] Project Seal Wikipedia Encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Seal

 

[12] Man-Made Quake Once Planned to Settle Nip Hash, Toronto Daily Star, January 2, 1945 --- Also see: US Planned to Wreck Japan By Earthquakes, Sydney Morning Herald, January 4, 1945, Page 3

 

[13] Atomic Energy Crisis, Fateful Hour For Humanity, Wellington Evening Post, 9 November 1945, page 6

 

[14]Use of Natural Phenomena Against Foe is Studied by Navy, The Washington Post, September 24, 1962, page B6

 

[15] Bent Metal Plate Led to Discovery of the Ill-Fated Scorpion, Poughkeepsie Journal, Poughkeepsie, New York, November 21, 1968 page 32

 

[16]Hearing Told Scorpion Had Definite Leak, The Montreal Gazette, June 7, 1968, Page 5

 

[17]A British Steamer’s Peril, New York Times, October 15, 1886

 

[18} A Damaging Seaquake, Prof. N Ambraseys, Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics, Vol 13, No 3, pp 421-424 (1985)

 

[19] http://www.allelementsdesign.com/schilling/company/shipping/ships.html

 

[20] An earthquake recorded at sea, Birch, F. S.(1966), Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Vol 56, No 2, pp 361-366

 

[21]Seaquakes: Shakers of Ships, Rossi, Frank, Mariner's Weather Log 11 (1969) (5) pp 161-164

 

[22] Lisbon is Rocked by Record Quake, The Baltimore Sun, November 26, 1941

 

To reserve a copy of the paperback version for $15 or the digital version for $7, please send email to:  dwms07@gmail.com  You will contacted for payment and shipping instructions when SeaQuake is released.