Silent Strength, by D Allan Kerr

My minister’s favorite comment is surprisingly “what we do is all about relationships”. Thirty or forty years ago I distained that line of reasoning, but no more. At this point in my life, I’d say that relationships are about all we have. I treasure mine and I am sure that you do too.

Everyone in Southern Maine, Seacoast New Hampshire and North Shore Mass knew the Thresher in 1963. During the height of the Cold War it was an amazing sub, designed and built here in Portsmouth / Kittery. There was pride, real pride in the knowledge that Thresher was built by us, well not all of us but by Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. This was in a time when pride was not mocked.

We read of the seemingly everyday people who are presented with an extraordinary situation. Those left alive after Thresher sank. How they coped, how they carried on, how they endured. I do recall this as a child. It is with me still. I was lucky, my family was lucky. Many others were not lucky. It still hurts all these years later. There is still a hole in Seacoast New Hampshire and Southern Maine. I think it will last for as long as there is living memory of Thresher.

The author has in my opinion, done an excellent job of striking the balance of the love, loss and pride of those relationships changed forever on that day. I find it ironic that I am writing this review fifty-seven years later. I can still recall the headline in the Portsmouth Herald---“Thresher Lost!”, it was terrifying---and when adults are scared children are frightened and I was.  

Author Kerr has done a superb job of weaving personal relationships, events and photos into what is what I believe to be a local history at its best. This is a tough subject. This is a history of those real events, real people, and real relationships. I do want to quote the author on page three; “collectively the American public appears to have forgot the sacrifice of the sailors and civilians who went down with the Thresher half a century ago”. Regrettably, this is correct, but not here.  I do not think that we will ever forget here.

William Littlefield, Albacore Historian and Sales Associate

10/18/20

Silent Strength: Remembering the Men of Genius and Adventure Lost in the World's Worst Submarine Disaster Hardcover – Unabridged, January 1, 2014 by D. Allan Kerr (Author)*

* Available for sale in our Gift Shop