Scorpion Down, Ed Offley
Scorpion Down, Ed Offley
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Scorpion Down
Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion

Author: Ed Offley

Narrator: Richard Ferrone

Unabridged: 15 hr

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/07/2007


Synopsis

The Hunt for Red October meets Blind Man's Bluff in the untold story of an American submarine torpedoed at the height of the Cold War—and the forty-year cover-up that followed.

The last thing they heard was the faint scree-scree of a high-speed propeller. Then the torpedo hit, the warhead detonated, the ocean thundered in, and ninety-nine men died. On May 22, 1968, an American submarine was sunk by the Soviets as reprisal for the sinking of a Soviet sub just ten weeks before. The tragic loss of the USS Scorpion and its crew is still described by the U.S. Navy as an "inexplicable accident." In fact, it was a secret buried by both the U.S. and the Soviet governments to prevent the Cold War from turning into World War III.

For nearly forty years, researchers, journalists, and family members of the lost crew have tried to learn the truth while the Navy and U.S. intelligence communities have covered up the facts. Based on a quarter-century of research, an extraordinary array of new resources, and hundreds of interviews with military personnel with direct connections to the disaster, Scorpion Down is the first book to tell what really happened. It's the first to reveal that the official Scorpion story—the sub's failure to make port, the frantic open-ocean hunt, the search that ultimately "found" the wreckage, and the Court of Inquiry's carefully crafted conclusions—was all a lie.

About Ed Offley

Ed Offley, a
seasoned military reporter and Pulitzer Prize nominee, is the author of Scorpion Down and Turning the Tide. He has written about aspects of the Scorpion
story for leading military journals and is the acknowledged expert on the
topic. Offley has appeared on numerous television and radio shows to discuss
military and defense issues and has covered military operations and exercises
in eighteen countries. He served in the US Navy in Vietnam and lives in Panama
City Beach, Florida.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Eric on April 07, 2020

I really enjoyed this book. I started reading it after diving on the wreck of the USS Kittiwake, which makes a cameo in the book. Ed Offley spent 25 years researching and writing the book, it's well written, based on factual evidence and a good read. In the interest of full disclosure I bought the b......more

Goodreads review by Chris on November 22, 2020

An outstanding piece of Navy, and submarine history. Definitely add to your reading list.......more

Goodreads review by Blake on April 22, 2023

Seemingly well researched but, a couple of flaws: One, the idea an American sub couldn't break contact with a Soviet sub in 1968 seems a bit far-fetched. 2. That the Walker spy ring giving away Navy communications secrets which lead to the sinking seems a lot like bringing in a random fact and tryin......more

Goodreads review by Paul on December 01, 2023

Excellent book but the later chapters seemed to bog down a bit with all the detail. I had never heard of the USS Scorpion before, thus this book was very interesting and well written. Having read about the Glomar Explorer months ago, I found many ties (as did the author). The book also reframed some......more

Goodreads review by Stuart on September 07, 2022

This is an incredible book. Though the title is a complete spoiler this is the story of how the story of the sinking of the US nuclear submarine Scorpion was uncovered and the incredible secret undersea skirmishes during the Cold War that led to the sinking of both US and Soviet submarines. It also......more