A tense encounter with a US warship near Cuba in 1962 led a Soviet submarine captain to believe war had broken out and order a retaliatory nuclear torpedo launch.
At his annual press conference in Moscow on January 18, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov affirmed that President Vladimir Putin has never threatened to use nuclear weapons, contrary to the United States and Europe. He made the statement when asked whether the current world situation is as tense as the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the world was on the brink of nuclear war due to a cat-and-mouse chase between the US Navy and a Soviet diesel-electric attack submarine.
In 1962, in response to the Bay of Pigs incident and the US sending nuclear ballistic missiles to Italy and Türkiye, the Soviet Union secretly launched Operation Anadyr, sending a mechanized infantry division, two air defense missile divisions, 40 fighters and nearly 30 ballistic missile launchers carrying nuclear warheads to Cuba by sea.
US patrol aircraft follow Soviet cargo ships in the Atlantic Ocean in late 1962. Photo: US Navy
On October 14, 1962, an American U-2 reconnaissance plane discovered a Soviet missile site in San Cristobal, Cuba. US President John F. Kennedy ordered the deployment of hundreds of warships, including four aircraft carriers, along with reconnaissance aircraft to blockade the Cuban coast.
The Soviet Union protested the US blockade and simultaneously launched Operation Kama, deploying four diesel-electric submarines of Project 641, numbered B-4, B-36, B-59 and B-130 of the 69th Submarine Brigade, to secretly find a way to approach the Cuban port of Mariel.
Each Soviet submarine involved in the Kama operation was armed with 21 conventional torpedoes and a T-5 nuclear warhead with a range of 10 km, designed to detonate at a depth of 35 m and sink warships in the area. The power of the T-5 warhead is unknown, but it is believed to have produced an explosion equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT.
The captains of the four submarines had the authority to launch nuclear strikes without asking permission from the Soviet Union's top leadership.
The squadron of four Project 641 submarines left the Kola Peninsula on October 1, 1962, silently passing NATO's Neptune and Shackleton anti-submarine aircraft squadrons that were patrolling the North Atlantic at that time.
Project 641 submarines can reach a range of 20,000 km if they move close to the surface and use snorkels, but this makes them easier to detect by the enemy.
Submarines can operate underwater for 3-5 days continuously, using electric batteries to ensure secrecy. This number can be increased to 10 days if the crew's living conditions are accepted to trade off to save battery power for the most necessary activities of the ship. After this time, the submarine must surface to run the diesel generator and charge the batteries.
During the approach to Cuba, the cooling systems on the submarines were damaged because they were not designed to operate in warm waters, causing the temperature in the submarine to rise to 37-60°C. CO2 levels increased and fresh water became scarce, affecting the physical and mental health of the crew.
On October 23, 1962, detecting signs of a Soviet submarine trying to approach Cuba, US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara authorized US warships to use training depth charges (PDC) to hunt and warn, in order to force the Soviet submarine to surface.
PDCs, which were about the size of a hand grenade and had a very small warhead, were used to signal Soviet submarines that they had been detected and should surface for identification. Washington had informed Moscow of the procedure for surfacing submarines, but this information was not passed on to the 69th Brigade’s submarines.
Soviet submarine B-59 after surfacing on October 27, 1962. Photo: US Navy
The most serious incident occurred on October 27, 1962, when US reconnaissance aircraft forced the B-59 submarine to dive without having time to recharge its batteries. The destroyer USS Beale then repeatedly released PDCs to put pressure, before 10 destroyers from the USS Randolph aircraft carrier strike group joined in the pursuit of the B-59.
"It was like we were sitting in an iron barrel and someone was hammering continuously outside. The whole crew was stressed," Victor Orlov, a liaison officer on the B-59 submarine, said of the hours-long chase.
Captain Valentin Savitsky refused to surface the submarine, even though the oxygen supply began to decline and the temperature inside the ship reached 50°C in some places, the oxygen level decreased rapidly, causing some sailors to begin to lose consciousness.
PDCs dropped by US warships damaged communications antennas on Soviet submarines, while crews could not easily distinguish the explosion of PDCs from real depth charges.
This led Captain Savitsky to believe that war had broken out between the Soviet Union and the United States. He ordered the crew to prepare nuclear torpedoes to attack the aircraft carrier USS Randolph. "It is possible that war has broken out outside while we are trapped here. We will attack fiercely and be ready to sacrifice our lives, not to disgrace the navy," officer Orlov quoted Captain Savitsky as saying at that time.
Political Commissar Ivan Maslennikov also agreed with this decision. Under normal circumstances, the unanimity of the captain and the political commissar, the two top officers on board, would be enough to launch the nuclear torpedo. Detonating the T-5 torpedo off the coast of North America could set off a chain reaction of nuclear retaliation, bringing the world to the brink of destruction.
However, on board the B-59 submarine at that time was the Chief of Staff of the 69th Brigade, Vasili Arkhipov, who opposed the decision to launch the nuclear torpedo. His opinion carried equal weight with the captain and the political commissar, leading to a heated debate in the command room.
During this process, Arkhipov tried to reassure Captain Savitsky and eventually succeeded in convincing this officer to surface the submarine B-59 to await orders from Moscow.
Vasili Arkhipov when he was still a naval captain. Photo: Wikipedia
American warships and aircraft continuously circled the Soviet submarine after it surfaced. The B-59 suspended its mission and returned to its home port. Technical problems also forced the B-36 and B-130 submarines to abort their mission on October 30-31 and return to the Soviet Union.
Only the B-4 submarine under Captain Rurik Ketov broke through the US naval blockade, but also withdrew later.
On October 28, 1962, President Kennedy reached a secret agreement with the Soviet leader, agreeing to withdraw missiles from Türkiye and pledge not to invade Cuba, in exchange for the Soviet Union withdrawing nuclear weapons from Cuba, ending one of the most serious nuclear crises in history.
"When you think of the Cuban missile crisis, don't imagine Kennedy considering nuclear strike options from the White House, but think of miserable sailors in a steel box at the bottom of the ocean, wondering whether to go down in nuclear fire," said military commentator Sebastien Roblin of the War Zone website.
Vu Anh (According to National Interest )
Source link
Comment (0)