Scorpion Down - Don't Read This Book

[Subnuts]

I finally made it to the end of this book the other day. Thank God it's over with. I haven't had to read through a more ridiculous, insulting pile of crap in a long time. As the book reviewer for the site, this is my rough draft review:

The May 22, 1968 sinking of the American nuclear-powered attack submarine Scorpion, 450 miles Southwest of the Azores Islands, is one of the most enduring mysteries of the Cold War. The focus of the largest search operation in American naval history, the Scorpion's wreck wasn't discovered until October of 1968. The hull was in three sections, the fairwater had been torn off, and the stern was shoved 50 feet forward into the auxiliary machinery space. All of the compartments except for the torpedo room had suffered massive implosion damage, implying that the torpedo room alone had flooded before Scorpion exceeded it's crush depth.

No one has ever been able to determine what really happened to the Scorpion. Had one of the torpedoes exploded while still inside it's tube? Did the Trash Disposal Unit fail? Did the diving planes jam themselves in full down position, sending the submarine into an out of control dive? A small percentage believed that foul play on the part of Soviet Navy caused the destruction of the Scorpion. Most of these theories have been pretty thoroughly debunked, but that didn't stop Ed Offley from writing Scorpion Down.

Where does one begin when reviewing a book like Scorpion Down - Sunk By The Soviets, Buried By The Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion? This book is so riddled with logic flaws, second-hand circumstantial evidence posing as "smoking guns," idle speculation regarding conspiracy theories, and convenient side-stepping, that it reads more like a bad spy novel than a "shocking expose." Scorpion Down begins with a quote from George Orwell's 1984, and ends with a statement from the author that the responsibility for the book's accuracy is his alone. If there was any justice in the world, it would open with "this is no ****!" and end with a money back offer.

Ed Offley wants me to accept a number of extremely questionable assertions that go against everything I've learned over the years. He wants me to believe that the Soviets, tired of American submarines being overly aggressive during surveillance missions, sank the Scorpion as a warning to the United States. He wants me to believe that the Soviet submarine that sank the Scorpion (a hot-rod attack submarine presumably capable of speeds of up to 35 knots) was one of the slowest and noisiest boats in their fleet, not to mention ill-equipped to hunt other submarines. He wants me to believe that the Scorpion was destroyed by a torpedo, despite reams of evidence to the contrary. He wants me to believe that the Russians spilled the beans to the Americans just days after the sinking, and that a small elite tried to cover up the truth. There's plenty of other absurd things that Mr. Offley so desperately wants me to believe, almost none of which make a lick of sense.

Ed Offley began his research for Scorpion Down way back in 1983, when he was writing an article for the Norfolk Ledger-Star on the 15th anniversary of the sinking. I imagine he would have given up by now if it weren't for the 2006 release of Stephen Johnson's Silent Steel, a vastly superior book on the same subject. Silent Steel was a calm, in-depth examination of the last 18 months of the Scorpion's life. While Johnson devoted a sizable portion of Silent Steel to covering the large number of mechanical causalities that occurred during the sub's final deployment, Offley sweeps it all under the rug to further his conspiracy theory.

In fact, Offley sweeps pretty much anything that doesn't jive with his "Soviet torpedo" scenario under the rug. As I mentioned before, the torpedo compartment is the only section of Scorpion to survive mostly intact, and photos taken of the wreck fail to show any torpedo damage. Had the Scorpion been actually torpedoed, the entire submarine would have been flooded, and wouldn't have been crushed (or not crushed to such an extent) by hydrostatic pressure. Except for a single picture of the dismembered fairwater, Offley fails to mention the condition of the wreck anywhere in this book!

Scorpion Down also asserts that the Navy conducted a secret attempt to locate the Scorpion beginning on May 23rd, several days before the sub was officially listed as "overdue." I can buy that - submarine operations at the time were so secret that the Navy frequently had to "fudge the truth" (okay...lie) about the reality of what the submarines were really up to. This doesn't surprise me one bit. It was the height of the Cold War after all, and security was a premium. At the same time I can't find anything terribly insidious about the operation as Offley describes it. In his recounting, it becomes another part of a grand cover-up, another piece in a bodyguard of lies. Typically melodramatic.

Offley's "smoking gun," if one could honestly call it that, came from a sonar technician who graduated from the Anti-Submarine Warfare Training Center in 1982. The technician came forward and revealed that his instructor had shown his class a drum paper recording (not an audio recording) from a SOSUS sensor that allegedly depicted a battle between the Scorpion and a Russian submarine. The Russians fired a torpedo, the Scorpion took off, and six minutes later was sunk by the Russian torpedo. So much for the grand cover-up.

Since Offley hinges his entire theory on this little bombshell, it's worth examining in greater detail. Offley asserts that the submarine on the scene of the Soviet naval exercise that Scorpion had been monitoring, an Echo II-class, with a top speed of about 23 knots, had been stalking the Scorpion for several days, which repeatedly failed to elude it's Soviet hunter. How could the crew of the Scorpion be so grossly incompetent?

In 1968, the Soviets had three types of submarine-launched anti-submarine torpedoes in use. The first, the SET-53M, had a top speed several knots below that of Scorpion's. The second, the SET-65, had a top speed of 40 knots, but was so new that it probably wasn't used by the Echo class. The third, the SAET-60, was a passive homing torpedo with a speed of 42 knots, and a far more likely candidate for the "Scorpion Killer." If the Scorpion really could make 35 knots, that gave the SAET-60 a 7 knot speed advantage. With a run time of about 6 minutes, the Echo would have had to close to about 1,400 yards from Scorpion before firing. During these six minutes, the Scorpion never returned fire and never launched any countermeasures. The same technician who related this story to Offley also stated that the Echos were so loud that they could be heard from miles away even when running "silent." Does this scenario seem completely unreasonable to anyone else yet?

On and on Scorpion Down goes, peddling out more ill-researched innuendo and second and third-hand accusations with each passing chapter. The parts that don't deal directly with the conspiracy are loaded with padding as well, not to mention a number of forehead-slapping historical errors. A full breakdown of Offley's theories would stretch on for thousands of words, which I'll spare the reader from. Scorpion Down might have been terribly amusing if it was a crackpot PDF file on a conspiracy website. Unfortunately, I'm seeing dozens of copies of it in the Military History section of my local Borders and Barnes and Noble, selling for $27.50.

Scorpion Down isn't just bad or merely incompetent, it's an affront to common sense and an insult to the submariners on both sides of the Cold War who put their lives on the line and perhaps prevented a global catastrophe. I was sick to my stomach and had an awful headache by the time I was done reading it.

There's no doubt that in this conspiracy-happy modern age this book will sell well, and make a tidy sum for Offley and his publisher. What a shame that the author, a decent writer and a veteran military journalist, allowed himself to buy into this garbage. Once the controversy over this book reaches full boil, the Navy will probably spend millions of dollars trying to defeat Offley's claims, which will just give him more credibility in the eyes of conspiracy theorists. There's no "truth" to be found in Scorpion Down, just a whole lot of hand waving and easily debunked silliness. Or as Stephen Colbert might call it, truthiness.

[Konovalov]

Great post.

It would be great to see some more reviews of books by members of the Subsim forums.

Your review was a really good read. Doesn't sound like the book is however. Has anyone else read this?

[Linton]

I have read it.The author does use a lot of padding to try and improve his theory but he is far from convincing.

[Chock]

For anyone who cares to try and find it, there was a fictionalised account of this tale in the novel 'To kill the Potemkin', by Mark Joseph (written in 1986). The Scorpion being replaced in the novel by a fictional early US nuclear sub, 'Barracuda'.

Quite entertaining, and reasonably authentic in its portrayal of things like the SOSUS net at that time and cold war operations in the late sixties, it does however, rely on that most favourite of submarine novel cliches, the US sonar operator being the 'best there is'. Mind you, I suppose that was less of a cliche twenty years ago.

You can find it at the link below very cheap (brilliant site by the way for out of print stuff). Not a bad read if you fancy a half decent sub novel for next to nothing:

http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/Se...e+potemkin&x=6

Chock

[Iron Budokan]

Thanks for the heads up. I'll be sure to avoid this turkey....

[Bill Nichols]

Thanks for taking the effort to read the entire book. What did you do with your copy after you finished it?

... or ... ?


This sounds a lot like another book I've read recently, Red Star Rogue, "The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S." That book is not worth the powder it would take to blow it up.

It's a shame that good trees are wasted to produce such rubbish.

[Bill Nichols]

PS: If you can find a copy of Mark Joseph's "To Kill the Potemkin", grab it immediately and read it.

Joseph wrote only one other sub novel, "Typhoon", which is a good read, too. (Not to be confused with Robin White's book of the same name, which I also recommend highly).

[Subnuts]

Originally Posted by Bill Nichols

Thanks for taking the effort to read the entire book. What did you do with your copy after you finished it?

... or ... ?

I'm thinking of putting it up on Ebay starting at $0.01, sit back, and let the PT Barnum effect take hold. For some odd reason, the book's Amazon sales rank just shot up to 986. Must be a lot of masochists out there. If it's any consolation, Silent Steel also had quite a sales bump.

That, or I'll offer it as "240 sheets of double-sided toilet paper - high quality!" Whatever brings in the buyer.

I should have noted in my original review that Offley believes that the Soviets sank the Scorpion in retaliation for the sinking of K-129. An American attack submarine entered harbor in Japan about three weeks later with collision damage. Pardon me for actually thinking, but didn't K-129 sink about 800 miles from Pearl Harbor, several thousand miles from Japan?

Oh, and here's some select quotes from Amazon reviewers on Scorpion Down:

"Sensationalist nonsense best suited for the paranoid fringe...This book is written in the style of the best propoganda and lunatic fringe material: lots of innuendo, lots of contradictions in the very complex formal record, but no substance to support the author's contentions."

"It is despicable, self-aggrandizing nonsense by a hack journalist who is more concerned about making a name for himself than the truth, and using the tragic deaths of 99 men lost at sea 40 years ago to do so."

"A true disgrace to submariners on both sides of the Cold War. Relegate this prose to the rubbish heap and move on."

"Offley should be ashamed of himself. He isn't, but that's to be expected of someone who seems to have spent so much time twisting facts, near-facts, and hearsay and second and third hand hearsay, into what is supposed to be non-fiction, but is nothing more than poorly supported speculation."

"The actual story of the Scorpion is buried by a mountain of detail about the Soviet navy, sub warfare in WWI and WWII, letters home from the crew, and almost-endless detail on almost everything related to submarine programs and construction...He meanders, digresses, repeats himself--where was his editor?"

"...he presents no evidence except anecdotal, 2nd- and 3rd-party hearsay to support his theories. With some of his conjectures just downright ludicrous...

"The book is correct. Those with the most to lose will naturally whine the loudest over it."

[XabbaRus]

We should invite him to post his answers here. Now that would be fun. I thin I will borrow them from the library as they certainly don't sound worth the money.

[Subnuts]

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

We should invite him to post his answers here. Now that would be fun.

A couple months back, someone at Newsherald.com told Ed Offley that eventually the government would refute his book. His response? "I don't care. I don't care." I wonder if he'll ever get around to caring, since it's obviously more than just "the government" who think he's full of, well, s%^t!

[Subnuts]

On a vaguely related note...

http://www.theonion.com/content/news..._kennedy_wasnt:rotfl:

[XabbaRus]

Why should he he's made his money.

Wish I could make a job of spouting bollocks.

[bookworm_020]

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

We should invite him to post his answers here. Now that would be fun. I thin I will borrow them from the library as they certainly don't sound worth the money.

I'm a librarian and I would avoid wasting good money on it when there are better titles to be purchased. So if you want one, don't come to my library!

[SSBN629ERS]

I just read the book. I found it to be a good read. I would like to know what the final messages were that the Scorpion sent. I haven't seen any good pictures of the wreck. I saw the one of the sail but that didn't indicate much to me. It is hard to dispute much of what he says as it mostly is all hearsay.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by SSBN629ERS

I haven't seen any good pictures of the wreck. I saw the one of the sail but that didn't indicate much to me.

navsource.org has some. Go to submarines>Nuclear Attack>Scopion>Discovery.