All Hands Down: The True Story of the Soviet Attack on the USS Scorpion

When renowned ocean explorer Bob Ballard embarked on a highly-publicized search for the Titanic in 1985, it was just a convenient cover story. Ballard, acting on behalf of the U.S. Navy, made several deep sea dives not to find the doomed ocean liner, but to inspect the wreck of the USS Scorpion, a nuclear sub that mysteriously sank in May 1968. Ballard's actual mission: to determine if, instead of sinking as a result of mechanical problems, the sub was actually struck by a Soviet torpedo at the height of the Cold War. In ALL HANDS DOWN: The True Story of the Soviet Attack on the USS Scorpion (Simon & Schuster; April 15, 2008), authors Kenneth Sewell and Jerome Preisler follow the submarine's fateful last tour of duty and reveal what actually happened to the sub and the ninety-nine members of its crew. Sewell, a nuclear engineer and a U.S. Navy veteran who served on a submarine for five years, uses his extensive knowledge of these stealthy submersibles to take readers onboard the USS Scorpion. Combined with the independent research and story-telling flair of Tom Clancy collaborator Jerome Preisler, the result is both compelling and authoritative.