Crew Killed in Thresher Sub Honored
Cannons boomed and church bells tolled Sunday for the 129 men who died a quarter of a century ago aboard the Thresher in the nation’s worst submarine disaster.
A memorial service at 275-year-old North Church drew more than 800 relatives of the men who died aboard the Thresher and people associated with the nearby Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.
The Thresher, the most advanced sub of its time, left the shipyard for a routine cruise, developed problems with its nuclear reactor and failed to resurface from a dive in the Atlantic 220 miles off the New England coast. Eventually water pressure crushed its hull, killing all aboard.
The sub’s pieces remain on the ocean bottom.
Retired Rear Adm. Dean Axene, a former commander of the Thresher who shared the task of breaking news of the deaths to the families on April 10, 1963, said Sunday that the Thresher, in his mind, “remains a mighty ship, manned by a mighty crew still sailing the sea.”
“She was intended to reach a new peak of perfection. And she did, but the price was very high,” Axene said.
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