Sajeda Momin

London: Finding the wreckage of the ill-fated Titanic became the backdrop of a romantic Hollywood blockbuster that was watched by millions around the world, but in reality the mission was simply a cover for examining the remains of two Cold War nuclear submarines.

Dr Bob Ballard, the oceanographer who led the mission, has finally admitted that he was sent on a top secret mission by the US navy to locate and inspect the remains of the two nuclear vessels before he was allowed to look for the Titanic.

“I couldn’t tell anybody. There was a lot of pressure on me. It was a secret mission. I felt it was a fair exchange for getting a chance to look for the Titanic,” said Dr Ballard.

The USS Thresher and the USS Scorpion sank in the 1960s and more than 200 men lost their lives. It was also believed that the USS Scorpion was sunk by the erstwhile USSR.

In 1982, Ballard approached the US Navy for funding to search for the Titanic which sank in 1912 after it hit an iceberg.

Around 1,500 people lost their lives on the maiden voyage of the liner. Ballard had developed a robotic submarine craft and he wished to use that to find the remains of the liner.

He was told the military were not prepared to spend large sums of money on locating the liner, but they did want to know what happened to the naval submarines.

Officials wanted to find out how the nuclear reactors had fared after being under water for so long. Dr Ballard was given money to embark on two expeditions, one to find the wreck of Thresher in 1984 off the eastern coast of the USA, and another to find the Scorpion in the eastern Atlantic.

Source : DNA