Titanic Was Found During Secret Cold War Navy Mission

Ronald Thunman, then the deputy chief of naval operations for submarine warfare, told Ballard the military was interested in the technology—but for the purpose of investigating the wreckage of the U.S.S. Thresher and U.S.S. Scorpion.

Since Ballard’s technology would be able to reach the sunken subs and take pictures, the oceanographer agreed to help out.

He then asked the Navy if he could search for the Titanic, which was located between the two wrecks.

Since the bulk of the US Navy’s nuclear fleet has been subs, most of the students I taught were destined for subs, and many of my shipmates who had done tours at sea had their dolphins. That experience piques my interest even more when stories such as this pop up. (My own brief trip on a sub was enough to seal the deal that I wouldn’t be doing that for a living. 6′ 3″ with a touch of claustrophobia wasn’t going to mix well with most of the subs active back then)

For some more discussion of the Scorpion accident, and how the location of the sub was eventually determined, I recommend Blind Man’s Bluff by Sontag and Drew. There are also stories about Project Jennifer, a mission to retrieve a Russian sub, as well as some other very interesting submarine-related espionage activities.