HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) – For a half-century after the deadliest submarine disaster in U.S. history, Navy Capt. Paul “Bud” Rogers struggled with feelings that it should have been him – and not his last-minute replacement – on the doomed voyage of the USS Thresher in which 129 men died.
This week, at his family’s request, a Navy submarine is bringing his cremated remains to be buried at sea near the Thresher’s wreckage some 200 miles off Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
“I’m just so happy. I feel like my husband will be at peace,” said his widow, Barbara Rogers, 86, of Wernersville, Pennsylvania. “He felt he should have gone down with the Thresher.”
It was within a few days of the loss of the Thresher that its captain replaced Rogers with a more experienced sailor for deep-dive testing. On April 10, 1963, the submarine suffered a mechanical failure, descended below crush depth and imploded. The sub’s remnants came to a rest on the ocean floor at a depth of 8,500 feet.
At a memorial service for the lost men, Rogers served as an usher and tried, unsuccessfully, to console the wife of the man who took his place on the crew.