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Disclaimer: Before I start this final report, I want the say that these events are mostly from my memories of the event and my memory is 25 years older than is was when the event happened. I did not have access to any military files to put this report together.
Purpose:
In the spring of 1979 the Navy decided it was time to conduct another SINKEX. This is an exercise where the Navy chooses a decommissioned ship to use as a target. During this period in time, the Navy was conducting these exercises every year as a means of conducting R & D on weapons and weapon platforms.
The SINKEX the previous year was the USS Chopper SS (342).
If you remember the history of the Chopper, she was the submarine that had a "deep depth excursion" as they called it. Actually my brother was on that trip and the ship went to + 1,000 ft. before the crew managed to save her and return her to the surface.
The Navy towed her back to port and put her out of commission where she sat until the SINKEX 78. If you would like more information about the Chopper, you can go on line at www.geocities.com/jaob/deepdive.htm, and the report of that event is there.
It was decided that to complete the Chopper exercise, they would submerge the Chopper and hang her from slings and barrels floating on the surface to let the weapons platform fire its weapon at her submerged. On this particular day, the Chopper had the last laugh; it went straight to the bottom, when they tried to suspend her.
For our exercise it was decided that we would get a submarine and make that ship operational to the point where she could operate under her own power and be controlled remotely.
We went to Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in April of 1979 and toured 5 or 6 ships in the mothball fleet. I remember one of those ships being the Albacore, which is now in Portsmouth, NH as a tourist attraction and museum. As a side note, I was one of the team members, while at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard that chose the Albacore to go to Portsmouth.
The Tiru was chosen as our ship of choice due to her excellent condition. We felt that she was the one that we would have to do the least work on, to make operational. That is a credit to those who put her in mothballs and I have now met some of those men here today. (I liked her because she had Fairbanks Morse engines, my engine of choice), We returned to Norfolk and the Tiru was then towed down for us to commence the tremendous amount of work, readying her, fit to take out and sink.
A team of a Master Chief Engineman and myself an E-8 at the time, from SUBRON SIX were put in charge of readying the ship. The Master Chief was not a submariner but was attached to the squadron. His name was Gray Wentworth. He allowed me to call him by his first name, "Master". We were given the support of the tender LY Spear personnel, none of which were submariners.
Our goals were as follows:
Strip the ship of all excess equipment, paper, supplies, and liquids.
Keep her afloat until the exercise.
Secure and make unfloatable, anything that might, come back to the surface after the sinking.
Keep her afloat until the exercise.
Make the propulsion plant operational so that we had one usable engine and one for backup.
Keep her afloat until the exercise.
Design a remote-operating unit that would allow us to operate the ship form a helicopter during the exercise.
Keep her afloat until the exercise.
Stripping the ship:
As it turned out, we had plenty of help, in fact, a lot more than we hoped for.
First the ASW School in Norfolk showed up to remove all items related to the torpedo/navigation systems. They stripped the TDC from the Con and removed it piece by piece. That equipment as I understand it is in an ASW museum in Norfolk.
Next a 26'box van showed up from the USS Silversides (SS 236) out of Chicago IL, with a crew to remove anything they wanted. We had to keep a close eye on them as I think they would have removed hull valves if they thought they could have kept the water out until they left to go back to Chicago. Remember one of our goals, "keep her afloat until the SINKEX".
We used tender sailors to do the grunt work, and we had to keep a close eye on them too. They didn't have a clue! One particular incident that happened was, when I told a welder to go up into the superstructure by the forward torpedo room hatch and cut holes in the messenger buoy. We did not want it to pop out of its cradle and come floating up to the surface at an inopportune time. I told him they were round on the end. Well, he came back
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