The US Navy aided in finding the Titanic.
There was a secret Navy mission to investigate the submarine wrecks.
The US was playing a psychological warfare game with the Soviets.
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The wrecks of the Nazi battleship, the US aircraft carrier, and the US patrol torpedo boat were discovered over the course of his career. There is a man named John F. Kennedy. The British passenger ship Titanic sank in the North Atlantic in 1912, killing more than 1,500 people.
The US Navy supported the discovery because of two reasons.
The Navy used the search for the Titanic as a ruse to explore two submarine wrecks. The service was convinced that his discovery would lead to a game of psychological warfare with the Soviets.
"You can do what you want, but you have to do it within the time and money, and that's it," the officer said, according to Ballard. The submarine investigation was covered by the search for the Titanic.
Navy Secretary John Lehman was the one who gave the green light to look for the Titanic. He wanted to get the endorsement of Ronald Reagan's thinking on psychological warfare.
Reagan and Lehman wanted to confront the Soviets more aggressively, and one way they did that was by making them believe the US could do more.
Lehman, who had been behind Ballard since a talk he did on underwater warfare, was invited by him to go on an underwater excursion in an exploration and research submarine.
He repeatedly made his pitch to look for the Titanic.
The Navy secretary was told by the president that he wanted to make the Soviets think we can do more than we are capable of.
The explorer said that he was certain he could find the Titanic in two weeks, because of the equipment in his possession.
"I'll find it, and then we'll show the videos from the robots in the ballrooms," he said. The Soviets are going to be crazy. Imagine what our Navy is doing in secret if we were to publicly announce this capability.
According to the Navy secretary, Lehman agreed to give the recommendation to Reagan.
The hunt for the passenger ship Titanic was the public face of a secret Navy mission to explore and take photos of the wrecks of the ships. The US Navy studied them intensely for answers.
He went back to active-duty status so that he could be read into classified material. The Navy's investigation was his real goal according to his book. A priority and long-time dream for Ballard was to find the Titanic.
The true purpose of the research vessel R/V Knorr was obscured by the man who was sailing it.
He explained that the Navy would only allow him to tell those with a need to know what was happening. We said we were testing equipment for the Navy.
I wanted to do a bang up job for the Navy, but I was also thinking about how to find the Titanic. The investigation into the submarine wrecks helped find the Titanic.
The Thresher and Scorpion had large debris trails. There were reports from survivors that the Titanic broke apart and left a trail of debris.
The ship broke in two and fell to the bottom, just as I had seen with Thresher and Scorpion.
He said it was clear as a bell when it played out in his head. I shouldn't be looking for something. I should be looking for something. It is easier to find a mile-long trail than a 833-foot ship.
The team arrived in the area where the Titanic is thought to have sunk in August of 1985 and deployed a ship-towed video camera sled called "Argo" that was designed to operate in deep waters.
A large metal cylinder over 15 feet in diameter was discovered by the team after several days of searching for the Titanic.
The boiler that created steam for the Titanic's engines was located there. It was a masterpiece. The debris field was about 12,000 feet down. There's a bull's eye!
A 100 foot tall object was found to the north of the position used by the team. They moved to the spot where the object was detected and used a scanning device to find the Titanic.
We were drifting at a slow pace. When the Titanic's hull came into view, it was revealing herself to us. No one was making noise. We didn't want to close our eyes for a second. It was a sort of moment.
He said that everyone exploded when the submersible passed over the hull. We had accomplished it.
The place where the Titanic sank is a quiet and peaceful place for the remains to rest. May it stay that way, and may God bless them.
The post was first published in the year 2021.
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