Following a special operations deployment throughout 1966, the Scorpion reported to the Norfolk Naval Shipyard for an extended overhaul. There’s no question the boat needed repairs desperately. The emergency blow system was non-operational, emergency seawater shut-off valves scheduled for decentralization were long overdue, and the hydraulic system suffered from chronic failures. Cold-war pressures, however, led to the boat’s anticipated thirty-six-month overhaul being cut to only nine.
The USN’s SUBSAFE maintenance, component, and structural testing program, instituted following the loss of the USS Thresher, was deferred at the order of Admiral David Lamar McDonald, the Chief of Naval Operations. Thus, when the Scorpion departed Norfolk on February 16, 1968, the boat left for deployment with 109 unfulfilled work orders, and a depth limitation of 500 feet.
The deployment got off to an inauspicious start. As the boat maneuvered out of the dock and through the harbor at Hampton Roads, 1,500 gallons of oil leaked from the Scorpion‘s conning tower. This, however, did not result in the boat’s recall, and the Scorpion proceeded to its scheduled deployment in the Mediterranean. One month later, as the boat’s problems continued to pile up, the Scorpion‘s captain, Commander Francis Atwood Slattery, submitted an emergency request for repairs.
He stated the hull was “in a very poor state,” and pointed out that valve leakage restricted the ship to a depth of three hundred feet. Following the completion of their mission in early May, the Scorpion departed the Mediterranean, now scheduled for extended overhaul in Norfolk, but command had one last mission for the submarine.
On May 20, the boat was ordered to observe a Soviet flotilla operating near the Canary Islands. Consisting of two hydrographic survey ships, an oiler, a destroyer, and an Echo II class submarine, US Naval command suspected the Soviet task force was taking acoustic measurements of NATO submarines and surface ships. The Scorpion maintained radio communication, however, an unusual problem surfaced with the boat’s radio traffic.
Beginning before midnight on the 20th until roughly midnight on the 21st, the Scorpion could not reach Naval Station Rota Spain, and ended up forwarding their radio traffic through a Navy Communications Station in Greece. Commander Slattery’s final message did not report any major malfunctions, and stated the Scorpion was closing in on the Soviet submarine and research group, running at a steady 15 knots at 350 feet “to begin surveillance of the Soviets.” Slattery also noted the boat’s position and included his estimate that the Scorpion would arrive in Norfolk on May 27.