The 1985 search for the Titanic wreck was tied to a top-secret US Navy mission involving a nuclear submarine.
When oceanographer Robert Ballard discovered the Titanic in 1985, the world thought his mission was to find the remains of the giant passenger ship that had sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in 1921 after colliding with an iceberg, killing more than 1,500 people.
It wasn’t until 2008 that the more complicated truth about the search was revealed. Ballard had been given a top-secret mission by the US Navy to investigate the fate of two sunken nuclear submarines.
The rusted bow of the Titanic lies at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Photo: National Geographic
The sinking of the Titanic in 1912 shocked the world, spawning hundreds of songs, dozens of books and films about the tragedy. It also changed international maritime regulations. Many attempts were made to find the wreckage, but the depth of the ocean, harsh environmental conditions and conflicting reports about its location meant that all attempts failed.
Ballard, born in 1942, had been fascinated by the ocean since he was a child. He was studying for a doctorate in marine geology at the University of Southern California in 1967 when he was drafted into the Army. At Ballard’s request, he transferred from the Army to the Navy as an oceanographer. The Navy assigned him as a liaison between the Office of Naval Research and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.
His work sparked his interest in shipwrecks and his desire to find the Titanic. In 1982, Ballard approached US military officials to ask them to fund his diving technology to search for the Titanic. He introduced them to Argo, the deep-sea robot he had developed.
Argo is a 4.6-meter-long, 1.5-meter-wide, 3-foot-tall, sonar-equipped unmanned submersible capable of operating at depths of 20,000 feet. It has a forward-looking and downward-looking camera array, along with a lighting system to illuminate the ocean floor. Its cameras can capture wide-angle footage and zoom in for detailed views.
Argo was released from the survey ship RVKnorr into the Atlantic Ocean in 1985. Photo: Thinkquest
An official from the Navy’s submarine warfare program responded that they would fund the equipment but not the search for the ill-fated passenger ship. Instead, they wanted Ballard to go to the sites of two American nuclear submarines, the USS Thresher and the USS Scorpion, which sank in the North Atlantic in 1963 and 1968, respectively. The Navy wanted Ballard to photograph the wrecks. They were particularly interested in the fate of the nuclear reactors on the two submarines and whether there was any evidence that the Soviets had sunk the Scorpion.
If Ballard had completed that mission early, he might have found the Titanic, which lay somewhere between the two sunken submarines. But naval officials were skeptical that Ballard would find anything, he said.
In August 1985, Ballard boarded the survey ship RVKnorr and deployed Argo to examine the two submarines. Ballard and his team discovered that the submarines had been crushed by the extreme pressure under the sea. He realized how ocean currents affected the debris: Heavier objects sank faster, creating a trail of debris on the ocean floor. Following the debris trail led them to the remains of both ships and made locating them significantly easier than searching directly for the hulls.
Ballard's data showed that the submarine's nuclear reactors were safe on the ocean floor and had no environmental impact. The US Navy favored the theory that the USS Scorpion sank due to an explosion on board that flooded the ship. They dismissed the Soviet theory of involvement, saying there was no indication that the submarine was attacked by an external weapon.
Robert Ballard, who discovered the wreck of the Titanic, 73 years after the ship sank. Photo: National Geographic
Ballard realized that the knowledge he had gained from his mission to examine the two submarines was the breakthrough he had been looking for. If he could find the Titanic's debris field, he might find the ship's wreckage.
“Is it like an arrow telling you which way to go?” ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer asked Ballard in a 2008 interview.
“And it points right to the ship,” he replied.
After the submarine inspection mission ended, Ballard began the search for Titanic. His team deployed Argo to scan the ocean floor for traces of Titanic debris.
On September 1, 1985, Ballard was lying in bed on the research vessel, reading a book to distract himself, when a chef walked into the room. The crew wanted to see Ballard.
When Ballard reached the ship's bridge, his colleagues showed him what Argo had discovered. A Titanic boiler could be seen on grainy footage. Seventy-three years after it sank, the world's most famous ship had finally been found.
Upon returning to the ocean research center in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, the search team was greeted as heroes. A U.S. Coast Guard cutter blared its siren as the research vessel pulled into port. Ballard stood on deck, smiling and giving a thumbs-up sign. About 100 reporters swarmed the harbor, and two television helicopters hovered overhead.
"The Navy thought I wasn't going to find the Titanic. So when I did, they were really worried about public interest," he told National Geographic in 2008 of the secret mission. "But people were so interested in the Titanic that they didn't connect the dots."
Although the Titanic had broken in two, its bow remained upright. A missing window revealed an interior space where an ornate staircase once stood. The ocean floor was littered with china, furniture, and an unopened bottle of champagne. Chandeliers still hung from the ceiling.
The scene resembled a haunted house, Ballard described. Most of the remains were intact, with several pairs of shoes the only sign of the dead.
Vu Hoang (According to Washington Post )
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