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Nov 2011
You can still find our pictures
behind gilded frames.
If you take time and the trouble
You can find out our names.

We are fading from memory
as our Families pass on.
We’re the crew of the Thresher,
long time gone down.

Our boat was the pride
of the  Atlantic Sub Fleet.
Five years on our station,
patrolling the deep.

We were out on an exercise
Two hundred miles off Cape Cod
When, quite unexpected,
We encountered our God

A critical subsystem failed
the reactor shut down
Without power or steering
The thresher would drown

Our companion ship heard
A roaring like wind.
We were crushed by the pressure
as the Thresher caved in.

Some worker on shore,
in a hurry to lunch,
Had missed a weld on a pipe
-The Inquiry board’s hunch.

You can still see our pictures
behind gilded frames.
If you take time and the trouble
You can find out our names.

We are fading from memory
as our families pass on.
We’re the crew of the Thresher,
long time gone down.
The United States Navy Nuclear Attack Submarine was lost with all hands in 1963. She apparently lost power and dropped down below the crush depth that her hull was designed to withstand.
John F McCullagh
Written by
John F McCullagh  63/M/NY
(63/M/NY)   
639
 
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