KITTERY (AP) – Forty-four years after it sank off Cape Cod, the USS Thresher and its crew were remembered at a ceremony during the weekend near the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.

The nuclear sub sank during sea trials out of the yard on April 10, 1963, killing 129 men.

A mechanical error caused the submarine to lose power, causing it to sink below crush depth in the Atlantic.

Saturday, Irene Harvey, widow of Capt. John Harvey, the sub’s commander, dropped a wreath into the Piscataqua River to remember the crew.

To honor each man, a bell was rung as their photographs were displayed on a screen.

“They are on eternal patrol,” said Gary Hildreth, commander of the Thresher Base, during the memorial service at R.W. Traip Academy.

John Cook, a former crew member, remembers the sinking as “devastating.”

Cook had left the Thresher three months before the accident to attend nuclear power school.

He remembers the constant phone calls his mother received from worried friends after the news broke.

“There’s no closure for the families, no grave to visit,” said Cook. “This is the closest thing you’re going to get to that.”

Navy officers told those at the memorial that the Thresher accident has made submarines safer for the sailors who followed.

“We vowed that the great patriots that died that day would not go down in vain,” said Capt. Gregory Thomas.

Thomas added that since the Thresher tragedy, the Submarine Safety Program was created and the Navy has not suffered a loss like that of the Thresher.

On the Net:

The USS Thresher Base, www.thresherbase.org.

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