The Charlemagne Pursuit Read Online Free PDF Page A

life. Mercury is forbidden for use on submersibles. Why that rule was relaxed on this design is unclear. But if batteries on board NR-1A caught fire, which, according to repair logs, has happened on both NR-1 and 1A, the resulting mercury vapors would have proven fatal. Of course, there’s no evidence of any fire or battery failure.
8. USS Holden, commanded by LCDR Zachary Alexander, was dispatched on November 23, 1971, to NR-1A’s last known position. A specialized reconnaissance team reported finding no trace of NR-1A. Extensive sonar sweeps revealed nothing. No radiation was detected. Granted, a large-scale search and rescue operation may have yielded a different result, but the crew of NR-1A signed an operational order, prior to leaving, acknowledging that in the event of a catastrophe, there would be no search and rescue. Clearance for this extraordinary action came directly from Chief of Naval Operations in a classified order, a copy of which the Court has reviewed.
    Opinions
The failure to find NR-1A does not lessen the obligation to identify and correct any practice, condition, or deficiency subject to correction that may exist, given that NR-1 continues to sail. After carefully weighing the limited evidence, the Court finds there is no proof of cause or causes for NR-1A’s loss. Clearly, whatever happened was catastrophic, but the submarine’s isolated location and lack of tracking, communications, and surface support make any conclusions that the Court may make, as to what happened, purely speculative.
    Recommendations
As part of continuing efforts to obtain additional information as to the cause for this tragedy, and to prevent another incident from happening with NR-1, a further mechanical examination of NR-1 shall be conducted, as and when practicable, using the latest testing techniques. The purpose of such testing would be to determine possible damage mechanisms, to evaluate secondary effects thereof, to provide currently unavailable data for design improvements, and to possibly determine what may have happened to NR-1A.

    M ALONE SAT IN HIS ROOM AT THE P OSTHOTEL . T HE VIEW OUT THE second-floor windows, past Garmisch, framed the Wetterstein Mountains and the towering Zugspitze, but the sight of that distant peak only brought back what had happened two hours ago.
    He’d read the report. Twice.
    Naval regulations required that a court of inquiry be convened immediately after any maritime tragedy, staffed with flag officers, and charged with discovering the truth.
    But this inquiry had been a lie.
    His father had not been on a mission in the North Atlantic. USS Blazek didn’t even exist. Instead, his father had been aboard a top-secret submarine, in the Antarctic, doing God knows what.
    He remembered the aftermath.
    Ships had combed the North Atlantic, but no wreckage had been found. News reports indicated that Blazek, supposedly a nuclear-powered submersible being tested for deep bottom rescue, had imploded. Malone remembered what the man in uniform—not a vice admiral from the submarine force, whom he later learned would normally break the news to a boat commander’s wife, but a captain from the Pentagon—had said to his mother: “ They were in the North Atlantic, twelve hundred feet down. ”
    Either he’d lied or the navy had lied to him. No wonder the report remained classified.
    American nuclear submarines rarely sank. Only three since 1945. Thresher, from faulty piping. Scorpion, because of an unexplained explosion. Blazek, cause unknown. Or more properly, NR-1A, cause unknown.
    Every one of the press accounts he’d reread with Gary over the summer had talked of the North Atlantic. The lack of wreckage was attributed to the water’s depth and canyon-like bottom features. He’d always wondered about that. Depth would have ruptured the hull and flooded the sub, so debris would have eventually floated to the surface. The navy also wired the oceans for sound. The court of inquiry noted that