Capt. Donald Creed; probed wreck of Thresher
Hyfler/Rosner
April 30, 2005 Saturday
Final Edition
HEADLINE: Capt. Donald Creed Dies;
Probed Submarine Wreck
BYLINE: Joe Holley, Washington Post Staff Writer
Capt. Donald L. Creed, 91, a naval architect and marine
engineer who helped investigate the loss of the
nuclear-attack submarine Thresher, died of pneumonia April
16 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He had resided in
Washington since 2003 and lived for many years in Falls
Church and Annandale.
On April 10, 1963, the just-overhauled Thresher was
conducting routine tests more than 400 feet below the
surface of the Atlantic. About 220 miles east of Cape Cod,
Mass., the vessel disappeared suddenly, a garbled final
message the only indication that something had gone wrong.
Its shattered remains eventually were found on the ocean
floor, 8,400 feet below the surface. All 129 officers, crew
members and civilian technicians died.
As director of the Hull Division of the Naval Ship Systems
Command, Capt. Creed served on the official board of inquiry
for the loss of the Thresher.
In 1966, he was appointed to the Submarine Structural
Steering Committee and the Submarine Steering Safety Task
Group. The committee was established as a direct result of
the Thresher tragedy and was charged with overseeing the
development, design and construction of hulls, with safety
as a paramount concern.
He subsequently was in charge of research that led to the
development of an improved high-yield steel for a new
generation of deep-diving submarines.
Capt. Creed was born in Marshfield, Mass., into a longtime
seafaring family. He graduated in 1933 from the
Massachusetts Nautical School (now the Massachusetts
Maritime Academy).
He received an undergraduate degree in naval architecture
from the University of Michigan in 1942 and a master's
degree in management engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute in Troy, N.Y., in 1951. He was licensed as a
marine chief engineer and professional engineer.
During the 1930s, he was an assistant engineer on ships of
the United Fruit Co. and the Mystic Steamship Co. of Boston.
He left Mystic in 1939, and on the very next voyage, the
ship on which he had been sailing was sunk by a German
U-boat off the coast of Atlantic City.
He was commissioned in the Naval Reserve in 1937 and ordered
to active duty in 1941. During World War II, he was an
engineering duty officer in the Boston Navy Shipyard and the
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.
During the Korean War, he was the ship-repair superintendent
for the Navy's dry-dock ship-repair facility in Guam.
He also served with the Navy's Bureau of Ships in Washington
and with the staff command for the Amphibious Forces
Atlantic Fleet in Norfolk. He was the production engineering
officer in the Norfolk Naval Shipyard before becoming hull
division director in Washington. In 1958, he was ordered to
the 6th Fleet to assist in the logistics of landing Marines
in Lebanon.
In addition to World War II and Korean War service medals,
Capt. Creed received the Navy Commendation medal for
outstanding performance of duty in connection with the
repair of battle-damaged ships during World War II.
After retiring from the Navy in 1966, he took a position as
a marine engineer for the Western Gear Corp. in Everett,
Wash. Two years later, he came back to Washington, where he
became head of the fleet modernization and ship cost
analysis office for the Naval Ship Systems Command.
After retiring a second time in 1981, he worked as an
engineering consultant and as a marine surveyor for the Boat
Association of the United States.
Capt. Creed was a patron of the National Theater, a Boy
Scout troop leader in Falls Church and a member of the
Church of the Good Shepherd in Burke.
His first marriage, to Helen C. Creed, ended in divorce. His
second wife, Antoinette H. Creed, died in 1979.
Survivors include four children from his first marriage,
Donald L. Creed Jr. of Rockville, retired Navy Cmdr. Andrew
L. Creed of Pensacola, Fla., Gordon S. Creed of Washington
and Laura C. Gordon of Johnstown, Pa.; eight grandchildren;
and three great-grandchildren.