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Past Reunions Reunion 2022
PHOTOS By Location
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July 11, 2020
March 30, 2009
June 24, 2009
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A very wet day! - submitted by Russ Christie MT1 70 - 75 It was in February 1972, we had just off-loaded our missiles in Charleston and wer just passed through the Panama Canal to transit going to Bremerton, WA for the Key's first overhaul and conversion from Polaris to Poseidon missiles. We were snorkeling at periscope depth with the head valve pinned open because it has been failing shut causing problems with ventilating the ship. Then a reactor scram drill took place and, as it was explained to me, instead of recovering the scrammed set of rods, the operator scrammed the only operational set of rods thus completely shutting off all ships power. We immediately lost propulsion and the bow dipped causing the snorkel mast to drop below the surface. The battery had kicked in so the fans were now drawing water down the snorkel mast and sending it throughout the ship. The first alarm came, "Flooding in the torpedo room!" followed seconds later by "Flooding in lower level Ops!", then immediately "Flooding in middle level Ops and upper level Ops!". Water was coming out of all of the ventilation ducts turning the forward end of the boat into a big sprinkler system. I was on duty at launcher and we had shut the dampers in the forward end on the missile compartment when we heard the first alarm which prevented water from getting aft but water was flooding into Ops through the fan room. The ship began to drop. As I remember, the command came to blow main ballast tanks as we passed 150 feet. You could hear the air hitting the tanks but the ship did not rise. We kept dropping, 200 feet, 250 feet, 300 feet, 400 feet and more - then finally the command "Emergency Blow!". What a sweet sound it was hearing that 4500 pound air pressure hitting those tanks. The depth gauge slowed, then stopped, then began to rise at a shark up angle. The numbers rolled by quicker and quicker until finally you could hear us breaking the surface. It felt like the Key was jumping out of the water. This immediately stopped the flooding as the snorkel mast was now above the surface. However, a new problem arose. The water in lower level Ops was in danger of getting into the battery compartment. The crew dragged mattresses from berthing and pile them on top of the battery hatch stopping the water and removing the immediate danger. We spent the rest of the trip to Bremerton cleaning up and trying to get the various salt-water dunked equipment working again. Just about everything was up and running when we pulled into the shipyard in Bremerton where they gutted the ship for overhaul.
02/08/07 E-mail from Harry Baker TM2 71 - 73 Blue I was looking at the web page the other night and was reading about our mishap off San Diego and I remember some other goodies about that transit I'll send along. Three or four years ago I got invited by my buddy to visit the George Marshal when it came to New London ( I think for decommissioning) and I was telling the OD about the experience. He said "we studied that at the academy"! The young LTJG sure made me feel old. I guess the Key will be remembered for a lot. Harry
03/14/2007 E-mail from Bob Weeks QM Blue I was on the conn
with the OOD (whose name I withhold to protect the guilty), when we almost sank
the Key, and in my 60 years, it is the only time that I was sure that I was
going to die - the 10's on the depth gauge were spinning so fast that I couldn't
read them. The OOD totally lost it and the Chief of the Watch had his hands on
the emergency blow 10/29/09 E-mail from Larry Keller My name
is Larry Keller, I was a second class, RO on the Blue Crew just finishing my 5tth
patrol, taking the boat around through the
08/15/10 from Jess Blankenship MM1
My name is Jess Blankenship MM1 (SS) and I was aboard the Key during the
transit as LELT when we almost sank in 1972. I had the AMR 2 LL watch
about 1 am and was in the process of sampling the reactor. Capt. Bump was up
and ran a reactor scram drill. We started the recovery and decreased our
depth. The ET2 in the upper level had just qualified and was trying to
transfer the rods back to the operating bus (with Capt. Bump watching) when he
failed to properly sync and caused a full scram. This wasn't something we
typically trained for, but I got the diesel up and running after we reached
snorkel depth and we were completing the recovery when he again synced out of
phase and scrammed again. This also caught the panel on fire, which was
quickly put out. Suddenly the diesel shut down and I opened the kick
drain and I got a full stream of water out, so I immediately shut it. By
then extra crew were coming back and we were trying to restart the reactor
again. We heard the ballast tanks blow as the ship began to sink, but you
could tell it wasn't an emergency blow. The ship continued to go down and then
they finally did the emergency blow, but the after tanks didn't blow. We're
rising from the bow and sinking from the stern. My chief Moore and another MM1
and I were standing at the bottom of the ladder waiting for them to
manually override in the UL AMR2, finally we started up the ladder to get it
done, when they finally blew. It wasn't an instant change but we finally began
to feel the ship stop sinking and start rising. I heard we were over
a thousand feet. I'm sure we were over a 25 degree up angle and as
described we finally popped to the surface. It took several hours to get the
diesel going and heat the reactor back up and do a start up. I think we were
dead in the water for 12 to 13 hours before we got underway. I remember the
look in all of our eyes as we waited for the aft group to blow. You could see
we each were thinking "this is it", but damned if we were giving up.
J. T. Linville was a hard taskmaster, but he sure trained me well, Thanks JT
07/31/2019 Great to hear the sea stories - I would like to contribute to the "A Very Wet Day" story. Submitted by Bill Wendland MM1(SS) 70-75 Proceeding to Bremerton in the Pacific, on watch as ERS in engineering spaces. Scram drill, diesel running, recovering from the scram. Drilled many, many times. All of a sudden diesel shutdown, coffee pot overflowed in AMR2, reactor day tank filled the Reactor Compartment Tunnel with hot steamy water. Not sure whether we had a real reactor water spill or what. Passed the word to maneuvering "reactor spill". Jumped down to AMR2 lower level, Jess Blankenship was dealing with a high vacuum trip on the emergency diesel and water coming out the mast drain line. Back up and into maneuvering, noticed that the depth repeater was rapidly increasing, so fast in fact that you could not make out the numbers. Then heard word passed on the 1MC "flooding-flooding-flooding". Securing the compartment water tight doors and ventilation dampers. Then 1MC "surface, surface, surface", heard the MBT blow, but depth counter still increasing, then "Emergency Blow". Slowly surfacing although not at the normal angle - hanging on. Finally surfaced, dead in the water for a while. Recovered the propulsion plant, took a bit longer as at this point we had a full scram, and due to flooding needed to reopen all the hull valves that were closed via the emergency closure in maneuvering and in the engine room and AMR2 to bring the main and auxiliary systems back on line. Also steam lines were by now only semi warm requiring additional time to warm. Once we had steam, started the SSTG's, main and auxiliary systems and all three high pressure air compressors to recharge the air banks. ELT's sampling water and air in the tunnel and cleaning up from that. Got the coffee pot back on line. Finally 2 slow, 2 slow and underway albeit slowly at first. Following watch relief, went forward and noted the remnants of the extensive flooding in the fan room, crews berthing and elsewhere. I've forgotten who it was that barricaded themselves on top of the battery compartment hatch surrounded by quite a large number of mattresses. Told that the water got as high as the middle bunk. Everyone did what they were supposed to. My recollection is that Key experienced a very similar experience about two years later on the same date an hour or two off. Not sure where we were at the time - scram drill, diesel running and lost depth control although not as deep this time. Diesel tripped on high vacuum again. Head valve was pinned open. It would have been during a gold crew deployment.
Any of you guys from that cruise that have more detail from where you were on the boat that day please send them in so we can get all the detail possible on the day we almost sank the Key - or at least gave her a good bath. |