Nothing dramatic. Meaning the reactor is just "treated as part of the submarine's structure" by the ocean. It gets squished along with everything else.
They're sure because it actually happened when the Thresher exceeded crush depth while under power in 1963 (it was deep dive testing).
April 10, 1963 was a Wednesday which meant Daddy milked early and we all went to Wednesday night services.
As we were leaving for church the phone rang and Mama went back in the house to answer it.
She came out crying saying a boy whose grandparents were regular church members had gone down on a submarine named Thresher.
The boy had usually spent most of his summers in Humansville.
I just called an old friend who remembered the boy dying on the Thresher but like me, couldn’t remember his name.
But he recalled how we children tolled the bell that evening, with all those grown ups crying, for our sailor lost out on the sea.
When I got home I was all excited about submarines, but my Mama shook me hard and made me promise her to never to put her through what that boy’s mother and grandmother were enduring that night.
He’s still down there, on the Thresher.
What’s left of him.
