23 Oct
2002
23 Oct
'02
10:12 p.m.
The only other major submarine disaster that has
occured to a US sub
since the second world war was a battery fire (nasty business) on the
USS Bonefish in the late 80's. The Bonefish was one of the last of the
diesel boats. Three men died in that fire, one of whom was a friend of
mine.
The USS Bonefish was the 2nd to the last, the last is tied up outside OMSI
in Portland Oregon (OMSI = Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, and yes
that is where one or two PDP-11 languages came from).
It was scarry standing on the deck of the USS Carr, seeing the Bonefish pop
her hatch, and men and smoke billow out (we'd not known why she was
surfacing, just that she was coming up next to us). Of course it was even
scarrier when we popped half our life rafts and all except two sank, and one
of those only half inflated.
Zane