Responding promptly to Schade's orders, a massive naval search force began to launch out of bases ranging from Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Virginia in the northeastern U.S, to North Carolina and Florida down south, to Naval Station Lajes in the Azores. Within days, it would come to include 7,500 men and thirty-seven vessels-eighteen destroyers, twelve nuclear and diesel submarines, five submarine rescue ships, the oceanographic survey ship USS Mizar, and an oilier for replenishment of the vessels at sea. By the first week of June, a dozen surface ships and submarines already in the water-a French Requin-class diesel boat among them-would be summoned to boost the effort.

The initial search plan covered three general tracks. One was off coastal Virginia in the relatively shallow water along the edge of the continental shelf, where Scorpion would have made her approach to base. Another was the vicinity of Hyeres Bank and Cruiser Seamount, neighboring volcanic structures in a chain of underwater peaks and ridges from which the unexplained explosion detected by the P3-B sub chaser on May 22 was thought to have emanated. The third and broadest track retraced a path running twenty-five miles north and south of the 2,000-plus mile route Scorpion was believed to have taken on her homeward journey.

As the vessels were manned and deployed, squadrons of long-range maritime patrol aircraft rumbled off the tarmac in airfields up and down the U.S. coastline-and as far away as Lajes-to aid in the search. Soon the skies over wide expanses of the Atlantic buzzed with Orions, older Neptune P2Vs, and large Air Force and Coast Guard Hercules C-130s tricked out for Search and Rescue efforts. At the peak of the hunt, twenty-seven flights would take to the air each day.

On Monday, May 27, Orion pilot Lieutenant Edward M. Brittingham, an instructor with the training squadron VP-30 in Jacksonville, was in Norfolk for a training conference when he and a student crew were hurriedly briefed on the type of buoy markers and flares Scorpion had been carrying, and then ordered into the air to look for her. By 5:45 p.m. they were streaking over the open sea.

The Orion would run what was known as a ladder search, flying parallel to the likely route of the sub for a short distance, then cutting across it for a longer, perpendicular leg to the north or south, then flying the same pattern in reverse. As with the naval flotilla, their goal was to cover both sides of the route.

The sortie would take the Orion two-hundred miles east of Norfolk through turbulent skies. Bad weather would be a severe problem into the night, not only for the aircraft, but for the entire SAR effort. Also, the P-3's array of electronic equipment was of no use under the circumstances. It was seeking a downed submarine in waters that, just fifty or sixty miles away from shore, would have reached abyssal depths of thousands of fathoms. If Scorpion had sunk, she would have plunged to the bottom in minutes, and come to rest far beyond the range of sonobuoys and magnetic anomaly detectors. That left Orion crews to conduct visual searches from behind large bubble windows located on the aircraft's port and starboard sides, and on the underbelly aft of the cabin. Throughout their searches, they would take turns sticking their heads into the bowl-like spaces behind the thick, concave glass panes, craning them this way and that as they sought debris or oil slicks the stricken nuke may have left behind on the surface.

At one point, Brittingham and his men spotted a group of buoys tumbling on the waves below, but whatever glimmer of optimism that gave them was quashed when they realized their sightings didn't match anything that would have been aboard Scorpion. Back over the Atlantic the next day, they went out beyond the previous day's distance and found some more floating "junk". Again, though, the flotsam wasn't associated with the sub, and they returned to base discouraged.

About the time Lt. Brittingham's first run over the ocean concluded that night, the submarine rescue vessel USS Petrel (ASR-14) was getting set to depart Naval Station Charleston, South Carolina. Aboard by nine o'clock was Rear Admiral Lawrence Bernard, the commander of Submarine Flotilla 6 who had been named Senior Officer of the Search Force. The Petrel would haul for the Virginia Capes carrying Bernard and a covey of subordinate officers, but communications problems would force them to transfer to the guided missile frigate USS Standley in the early morning hours of May 29. The Standley would then become the search's command ship, leading a line of four other surface ships and five submarines spaced between five and ten miles apart on a speedy 2,200 mile voyage to the Azores, with the submarine element following the skimmers by 135 miles to ensure that at least one of the elements would be covering Scorpion's assumed track in daylight at all times.

On the Pargo, meanwhile, Schade was roving the continental ridge with a group of nine other submarines and nineteen surface ships-and struggling with the storm that had ripped into the Virginia coast. Though it had tapered off inland, it was still creating tempestuous offshore conditions on the night of May 27, stirring up high winds and 15 to 22 foot wave crests that tossed one submarine, the USS Shark, into 22-degree rolls.

While Sunbird nevertheless continued to work closely with Pargo, a rescue attempt probably would not have been doable until the storm abated, even if Scorpion was found at a shallow depth. The Sunbird carried an assortment of SCUBA and deep-sea diving gear, equipment designed to control fire and flooding, a fantail-mounted towing apparatus, and a crew trained to deal with every dangerous contingency that might arise during SAR operations. But its main piece of personnel rescue equipment, a McCann submarine rescue chamber designated SRC-19, was a steel diving bell that had been little improved from the original version developed in the 1930s. Divided into two pressurized crew compartments and a water ballast tank, the SRC was designed to be lowered over the sub's escape hatch from aboard the Sunbird and lift its two operators and seven of the sub's crewmen to the surface with each return trip.

On the evening of May 27, Admiral Moorer conducted the first in a string of Washington news conferences that would assemble as the search for Scorpion progressed. Volleyed with questions about the SRC rescue chamber, Moorer told reporters that the rescue bell could be effective at depths of "several hundred feet". An aide to the admiral then expanded on his statement, saying it could be used to retrieve survivors trapped as deep as 650 feet beneath the surface.

They were being less than completely straightforward. Yes, the SRC could withstand the underwater stresses of 650-foot descents and ascents. But the problem would be putting it where the rescuers wanted it. Out on the continental shelf, where Schade's in-close search was concentrated, the Beaufort scale readings approached Force 10 going into the darkness of night. For the Sunbird to attempt an evacuation it would need be moored and stable on the surface above the submarine, a tough assignment in calm waters, and close to impossible on those heavy, pitch-black seas. The manager of the Navy's Deep Submergence Systems Project, Captain William J. Nicholson conceded as much in an interview after Moorer's press conference, when he admitted the tempestuous weather would make it "difficult" to use the bell "effectively" below 300 feet.

Asked about the chances of retrieving survivors from the deep sea, Moorer frankly admitted there would be no way it could be done. So perhaps the admiral was clinging to some tenuous shred of optimism that Scorpion had made it as far as the 50 fathom curve when he spoke of the Navy's available rescue procedures. But given his knowledge of her intelligence mission, and of her failure to respond to three successive radio communiques from SUBLANT, it is more probable that Moorer realized it was, at best, a longshot that the sub was anywhere near Norfolk, and hesitated to publicly reveal what must have been a leaden resignation among his staff about the fate of the submarine and her crew.

Storm or no storm, delayed homecoming or not, somebody had to feed the kids.

Theresa Bishop might have known the day would be a bumpy one from the way it started out. As she'd left home that morning, the tires of her car splashing along the puddled road, Theresa had seen a large tree on its side at the corner of her street uprooted by the heavy winds-and all indications had pointed downhill from there. At the pier, she shivered through the long, unavailing wait out in the gale for her husband Walter to return aboard Scorpion. She also convinced some of the other wives to hike over to the tavern and near the gate with her, and see if anybody there had heard an explanation for the sub's lateness. When that, too, proved fruitless, she'd returned to the pier and waited some more. Finally, Captain Bellah's man had told everyone it might be best to head back home. If word came about the sub, they would be contacted.

That advice had made sense to most of the wives, Theresa among them. The oldest of her three children, John, was only nine. She needed to put dinner on the table for him, Mike and Mary Etta. Nothing would be accomplished by standing around in cold and rain. Most likely the sub wouldn't come in till the storm-tossed waters outside the harbor settled anyway.

Slightly before six o'clock, Theresa was at the kitchen sink washing dishes when John shot in from the living room, where the television was tuned to the local news. His words were clear over the rattle of dirty plates and bowls under the tap.

"There's something on TV about the Scorpion being missing," he said.

Theresa went numb, her dirty dishes forgotten. Her sole focus now was the news bulletin. But other than to say a search was on for the sub, it didn't give any details. Still, it was clear was very different from that scare back in '62. Walter Bishop had been aboard back then. He was a plank owner, and had been with Scorpion from the beginning. That time, though, the Navy had immediately dismissed the British reports. Now it was making no denials.

Within a short while the Bishop residence was filling with worried visitors-friends, and the wives and children of Walter's shipmates. Wally was a Chief and a lifer, and they were hopeful the Bishops' phone might ring sooner than some others. Nobody spoke, the silence in the place was thick with trepidation. They just waited for the phone to ring.

It did around seven-thirty. The caller was a Navy official, but he had little to add to the televised report. His intention had been to essentially confirm that the story was accurate. A search for Scorpion had commenced, and the crewmen's families would be informed of continuing developments.

In the tense quiet of the Bishop home, a long wait was about to get painfully longer.