SUB DISASTER: NATION MOURNS 129 LOST IN TEST I conclude with great regret and sadness that the submarine Thresher is lost. With those words Admiral George Anderson; chief of naval operations mounted an epitaph for 129 men aboard the nuclear craft. After an overhaul the Thresher; fastest and deepest diving of all submarines; was on a test dive in 8;400 feet of water; 200 miles east of Boston; accompanied by the tender Skylark. Presumably the Thresher rests on the ocean's bottom. Her fate recalls a happier one that of the Squalus in 1939. With a diving bell the Navy was able to rescue the 33 men who were still alive.