Uncovering Soviet Disasters, by James Oberg
Random House, NY, 1986

Chapter 5: Submarines

The official Soviet explanation was simplicity itself: The missile
submarine had sunk because it had quickly filled with water. While
analysts chuckled over the tautology, they realized they had witnessed a
breakthrough. It was October 7, 1986, and. for the first time in half a
century of recorded Soviet history, the Soviets had admitted to the loss
of one of their submarines at sea.

The United States had lost two nuclear-powered submarines at sea, the
Thresher off Cape Cod in 1963 with 129 men, and the Scorpion in the
mid-Atlantic in 1968 with 99 men (the Soviets, describing the Scorpion
loss, suggest that one of its nuclear torpedoes must have detonated). In
the discussion and comparison of such event the foremost unforgettable
fact is that death submerged is about as horrible an end as human
engineering has devised. Chemical spills sear skin and lungs, electrical
fires devour flesh, ammunition and fuel explosions tear limbs off,
high-pressure water jets pierce through bodies, while salt water
short-circuits power supplies and electrocutes anyone nearby, collapsing
bulkheads crush and maim--and all through the terror-filled final moments,
usually in the dark, there is no way "out" since on the outside is death.
If death is not instantaneous, it can be hideously lingering as air
becomes poisoned (carbon dioxide buildup kills long before breathable
oxygen is exhausted). That human element must not be forgotten behind the
following catalog of Soviet undersea disasters.

The best available summary of early Russian submarine accident experience
is Jan S. Breemer's article in Navy International magazine in May 1986.
Breemer, who outlined the entire history of the Russian submarine service,
pointed out that as early as 1913 Russia owned the world's third-largest
submarine fleet, and its safety record was at least as good as (and maybe
better than) that of West European fleets. Between the world wars the
Soviets had about the same accident rate as the French, British, or German
submarine fleet.

Many incidents are known from that period. In late 1927 (Breemer suggests
September) there was the loss of AG-16 (possibly named Bezbozhnik,
["Atheist"]) after a collision with a destroyer (only seven survived from
a crew of twenty to twenty-five men); on May 22, 1931, the Rabochiy
("Worker") was lost in the gulf of Finland, with thirty-five fatalities;
sometime in October 1931 a submarine sank during acceptance trials, but it
was later raised; on July 25, 1935, the submarine B-3 collided with a
battleship and sank with sixty-six crewmen (TASS officially announced this
disaster); in November 1938 the M91 sank during a trial run; on July 24,
1939, the submarine Shch-424 went down off Murmansk after being rammed by
a fishing trawler. It is a sad but not unusually costly list.

Breemer noted that information about the period immediately after World
War II is very sketchy. However, the introduction of new technologies
increased the accident rate (Quebec-class subs in the mid-1950s were
nicknamed cigarette lighters in honor of their frequent engine
explosions), as did the expansion of operational areas. In the 1950s
Soviet submarines began venturing out into the distant oceans, and
unfamiliar operating conditions probably exacted their toll.

Additionally, both nuclear power and on-board missiles were being
introduced in the 1960s, and a number of accidents must have testified to
the "learning curve" of these technologies. Former Soviet submarine
missile test engineer Mikhail Turetskiy, in his memoir published in
Virginia in 1983, recalls accidents caused by those new factors which
occurred while he was on duty at a missile test range at Severomorsk.

One type of sub-launched cruise missile, the P-5 in Soviet nomenclature,
was installed aboard large containers attached to a submarine's topside.
These containers seriously affected the sub's performance and handling
qualities. Finally, according to Turetskiy's account, "An accident put an
end to any further testing of the system. A submarine put to sea [sometime
in 1960-1962] carrying empty containers and sank on its return voyage. A
two-year search for the boat yielded nothing. It is possible that the high
position of the containers significantly reduced the stability of the
submarine, causing its destruction."

A second incident in 1961 involved newly introduced nuclear-powered
submarines on the high seas:


One of the new nuclear submarines on a return voyage was assigned to
practice a salvo-firing of two R-13 missiles [NATO designation SS-N-4] in
the Northern Fleet's test range. Near the coast of England an accident in
the submarine's nuclear power plant occurred. Crew members and other
submarine passengers were seriously contaminated. Parts of the ship, and
the missiles themselves, were also contaminated when a cooling pipe broke.
The level of radiation was reported to have been five [rem] per hour in
the space where the pipe broke.

Soviet rocket engineers suggested that this was a good
 opportunity to test the effects of radiation on missile components and
fuel, and "after a two-month ventilation of the submarine" the missiles
were removed, installed on a diesel-powered missile submarine, and
successfully launched.

As the 1960s progressed, the Soviets began introducing a series of new
submarines. Eventually they had more than twelve shipyards, each producing
its specific type of submarine. NATO designations attempted to keep the
different types
 distinct; Zulu, Golf, Hotel, Yankee, Delta, and other designators were
applied to these different models with various types of weaponry and power
plants.

As these missile submarines, along with nuclear-powered attack submarines,
began patrolling the oceans within missile range of the United States,
accidents soared. Some of them were made obvious by sightings of surfaced
crippled submarines; in a few other cases data obtained by Western naval
intelligence activities were later released (or leaked). Many of the
accounts, however, were based on interviews with knowledgeable Soviet
citizens who had emigrated and later were interviewed by the CIA's
Domestic Intelligence Division (DID); the reliability of such hearsay
reports is a major concern, and they must be treated on a case-by-case
basis.

An early 1970s incident was related by a Soviet emigre who had served in
the navy:


A sailor aboard an unknown class ballistic missile nuclear submarine was
exposed to excessive radiation through his own negligence. He was
hospitalized and subsequently de- mobilized from the Navy six months prior
to his scheduled discharge. He was continually in and out of hospitals and
was hospitalized permanently in 1975. He died in 1976 after spending one
year in the hospital.There was no doubt he died from excessive exposure to
radiation.


Another emigre reported an incident from "around 1966," on a submarine
home-based at Polyarnyy, near Severomorsk. There was radiation leakage in
the reactor area. On return to the USSR some crew members were
hospitalized for radiation sickness at a specialized center on an island
near Murmansk. The interviewee added: "[Many] of those sent to the island
did not come back."

The source went on to describe how the sub returned to port: "As the
submarine entered port the captain requested permission to proceed
directly to the shipyard. Permission was not granted but the captain took
the vessel there nonetheless, and as it approached the pier several of the
crew members jumped ashore and ran in scattered directions before the
submarine was berthed." To repair the sub, a "special brigade" was formed.

Sometime in 1968, according to an emigre, a sub (presumably nuclear) went
down in a bay off the base at Severomorsk. A
 search was initiated a day or two after it had failed to return, but by
the time it was found thirty days later ("on the bottom of the estuary to
Kolskiy Zaliv") the ninety-man crew had died. All the food aboard had been
eaten, but there hadn't been time for the men to starve; more likely the
crew had later suffocated.  The submarine was raised, repaired, and
recommissioned.

Two years later, on April 11, 1970, in the North Atlantic Ocean 350 miles
southwest (and upstream) of England, a November-class attack submarine
suffered an internal fire and nuclear propulsion system failure. Crewmen
were seen on deck trying to rig a tow line to a Soviet merchant ship, but
because of worsening sea conditions, the attempts to tow the sub were
abandoned. The following morning the submarine was no longer in sight and
was presumed lost. The number of crew casualties is not known, but it
could have been everyone aboard, as many as eighty-eight.

According to a 1986 statement from Captain Guy Liardet, director of
British Naval Public Relations, the Russians still "regularly check it
[the sinking site] for any radiation leaks."

At almost the same time in 1970 a second disaster involving substantial
loss of life apparently occurred, also off the British coast, according to
another emigre. An unidentified nuclear submarine was lost after
experiencing a major fire during the Okean-70 maneuvers. Other independent
U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) sources corroborate this event.

The full text of the heavily censored CIA interview summary reads:

During the exercise, an unidentified Soviet nuclear subma-

rine (class unknown) was tied up alongside an unidentified submarine
tender (class unknown) in the vicinity of the Faeroe Islands. [Passage
deleted.] ... interior of the nuclear submarine caught on fire. The cause
of the fire was not disclosed. The fire was fought unsuccessfully, and the
sub- marine captain gave orders for part of the crew to escape to the
submarine tender. The political officer, who had not been ordered to leave
the submarine, went on board the tender for fear of his life. The captain
ordered the executive officer and several crew members, number unknown, to
leave the submarine.'The executive officer and crew members refused and
instead assisted the captain in fighting the fire. The fire could not be
controlled and was spreading towards the nuclear reactor. Since there was
fear that the nuclear reactor was about to catch on fire, the submarine
captain ordered the submarine to be scuttled. The petcocks were opened,
and the interior of the submarine was flooded to prevent the fire from
reaching the nuclear reactor. The number of petcocks opened and the number
of compartments flooded was [sic] unknown. The submarine sank "with great
loss of life," but the specific number of casualties was not disclosed.

It's conceivable that both these accounts are grossly distorted,
 independent versions of a single event somewhere off the British coast.
In light of what we know about distortion factors in iemigre reports, that
remains possible.

Two "routine" submarine accidents also are known to have occurred in the
following years. During January 1971, in the Mediterranean, a
Foxtrot-class attack sub was apparently involved in a collision with a
Soviet merchant ship, and a twenty-foot section of its bow was sheared
off. Any personnel in the forward area (the torpedo room traditionally
doubles as bunk space for several dozen crewmen who continuously rotate
into and out of the "hot" bunks) would have been killed. A year later, in
February 1972, in the North Atlantic Ocean about 600 miles northeast of
Newfoundland, a Hotel II-class SSBN lost all power after a serious
propulsion malfunction, possibly involving several deaths. The sub was
taken in tow for return to the USSR.

In December 1972, in the Atlantic Ocean a few hundred miles off the North
American coast, an unidentified Soviet nuclear submarine experienced
radiation leakage in a nuclear-armed torpedo storage compartment in a
forward section. Consequently the compartment was sealed off with some
crewmen inside. One account by an émigré was that the sub had to be towed
home at a speed of two to three knots. This source (who also had described
the 1968 Severomorsk submarine disaster) recounted what happened to the
men in the isolated compartment. Evidently they could not be reached
because of contamination of their surroundings and themselves, although it
is appalling that the Soviets couldn't get them out quickly and put them
through a decontamination procedure. "The crew members ... initially
consumed dry rations that were perma nently stored in the compartment, and
later they received food through a small opening from the weather deck."
At Severemorsk they were evacuated from the compartment and hospitalized.
Several crewmen had died shortly after the accident (from radiation,
burns, poisoning? -- we don't know), and others died later. "'The majority
of submarine crew members suffered some form of` radiation sickness," the
source reported.

On August 28, 1976, in the Mediterranean, an Echo-class submarine was
involved in a surface collision with the USS Voge. Photographs released by
the U.S. Navy show the submarine (its conning tower and periscope visible
just over the surface) heading straight for the side of the frigate.
Another view shows the sub's conning tower akilter following the impact.
The navy claimed the sub had followed the American ship on a parallel
course for an hour before turning in to it. Some hull damage was noted on
the submarine, but crew injuries probably were minor.

According to another Russian émigré, about October 1976, in the Atlantic
Ocean, an unidentified nuclear submarine (possibly a missile sub) suffered
a fire in its missile launch compartment. Casualties were reported to be
three dead; the sub returned to the USSR under its own power. Another
émigré reported that sometime the following year, l977, in the Indian
Ocean, an unidentified nuclear submarine suffered an internal fire,
possibly caused by an outdated reactor. There was an unknown number of
deaths; the sub was towed home to Vladivostok.

The CIA's account of the interview gave an intriguing view of just how
this report leaked out. According to the informant, it had to do with the
general Soviet housing shortage:

Housing accommodations for wives and dependents at Soviet naval
installations were extremely inadequate. Because of this, many students at
the various naval academies and installations in Leningrad established
residence in Leningrad upon graduation and maintained them throughout
their naval careers. Because of [this], in 1977, when a fire of
undetermined origin occurred on a Soviet submarine in the Indian Ocean, a
select number of people in Leningrad were aware of the event while the
fire was still under way. Several crew members were killed in the fire,
and their wives and dependents in Leningrad were informed that the
accident had taken place at that time. The submarine was forced to surface
in an attempt to extinguish the fire which lasted for several days.
Eventually, the fire was put out, and the submarine was towed by a Soviet
trawler to a port near Vladivostok. Nothing on this accident appeared in
the Soviet press at that time even though the event was well publicized in
the world press.

A submarine in tow through the Sea of Japan is newsworthy, and Japanese
television and print reporters regularly charter aircraft to fly over the
embarrassed Russians and photograph the crippled boat. There are no press
accounts of this happening anytime in 1977.

However, there was such an incident on October 13, 1978. According to a
Reuters dispatch from Tokyo, "A 3,200-ton Soviet submarine, armed with
anti-shipping missiles, was reported under tow by a destroyer in the Sea
of Japan tonight with a typhoon bearing down from the Pacific. 'The
Japanese Defense Agency said a navy reconnaissance aircraft spotted the
Juliet class submarine." This could be the publicity the Soviet source
referred to. The error in the year of the incident (if indeed it is an
error) would not be particularly unusuan an American attack submarine
trailing the Russian "boomer." Noted another Pentagon official: "I can't
go into details, but let's just say they made one hell of a lot of noise
under water with their fire alarm" and with the subsequent explosion. "The
force of the explosion,' noted Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger,
"was very, very great.

The USS Powhatan, an auxiliary rescue ship, was ordered into the area, but
the Soviets declined a U.S. offer of assistance. Several Soviet merchant
ships soon reached the stricken sub, and they took off most of its crew.
The day after the accident eight Soviet sailors were seen circling the
submarine in a small boat, obviously assessing external hull damage and
probably seeking signs of continuing leaks.

Two days later, during the night of October 5-6, shadowing Western patrol
craft suddenly noticed a flurry of activity. The submarine had been
observed to be floating lower and lower in the water. Green and red flares
sliced through the predawn sky, and the towline to a Soviet merchant ship
was cut. The Powhatan again offered assistance, and the Soviets again
radioed it to "remain clear." The last of the crew took to lifeboats, and
the sub sank within half an hour.

The last man off was the captain, and according to intercepted radio
messages, he was none too eager to be rescued. After leaving the sub on a
small raft only minutes before it sank, he refused assistance from a boat
from a nearby Soviet freighter. "We don't know what his problem was," a
U.S. official told the Washington Post. "Maybe it was pride or fear, or
maybe he wanted to paddle all the way to Virginia." Soviet naval officials
radioed stern orders that the captain go aboard the Soviet ship, and he
finally did.

A second (and last) dispatch was issued by TASS at about 1700 GMT, October
6. Like the first, it was sparse and to the point:


>From October 3 to 6, 1986, the crew of the Soviet submarine in which an
accident happened, and the crews of the Soviet ships which approached the
scene, were engaged in an effort to keep her afloat. Despite the efforts,
the submarine has not been rescued. At 11:03 AM [Moscow time, 3:03 A.M.
Bermuda time] on October 6, it sank to a great depth. The crew has been
evacuated to the Soviet ships which appeared on the scene. There have been
no other losses among the crew, apart from those which were reported on
October 4. An effort is continuing to find out the circumstances which
resulted in the loss of the submarine, but the immediate cause is the
speedy flooding of water from the outside. The reactor has been shut down.
According to the conclusion of specialists, the possibility of a nuclear
explosion and radioac- tive contamination of the environment is excluded.


Such a catalog of underwater catastrophe can be justified
 only if it provides some insight into Soviet submarine capabilities,
including comparative reliability and safety, along with an explanation of
why in 1986 the long-standing complete secrecy policy was set aside.

To do the first task, however, requires knowledge of the total time spent
at sea by Soviet submarines, and this is hard to estimate. Mere numbers of
subs cannot be directly compared since American missile subs spend so much
more of their time actually at sea than do the Soviets. Nevertheless, in
Jan Breemer's words, "'The weight of evidence leaves no doubt that the
American submarine fleet has been much less accident prone than its Soviet
opponent."

Understanding how the secrecy policy has been modified is even more
difficult. Submarine disasters have traditionally fallen under the
"military affairs" policy of total secrecy for reasons of national
security. For routine submarine malfunctions, the Gorbachev regime
evidently expects the world to understand that nothing has changed. But
when the stricken submarine carries nuclear missiles aimed at U.S.
targets, and when photographs of the boat's gaping holes are published
around the world, traditional silence would have been impossible without
repudiating glasnost before the entire planet. Western expectations thus
propelled Moscow along a course of disclosure which it never would have
been likely to choose from internal motivations.

Such moral pressure was more powerful than that of water at great depths,
which has crushed more Soviet submarines than we probably know about. The
pressure of expectations of glasnost broke the hull of Soviet maritime
defense security, at least this once. But as mathematicians can
demonstrate, it takes more than one point to define a line, to describe a
trend. The next Soviet submarine disaster and Moscow's reaction to it will
define how far underwater the sunlight of glasnost extends. To judge from
past experience, there won't be long to wait


Chapter 6 Disasters Afloat (Excerpt on Soviet unwillingness to ask for
foreign help)

As the Soviet freighter Mekhanik Tarasov listed forty-five de grees off
the Newfoundland coast, a Danish trawler approached and radioed an offer
of aid. It was February 16, 1982, and the Soviet ship had been bound from
Quebec to Europe with a load of newsprint when it endured a battering by a
heavy storm. The oil rig Ocean Ranger had just gone down in the same area
with great loss of life.

The Russian captain waved off the would-be rescuers, preferring that his
forty crewmen wait for the arrival of a nearby Soviet ship rather than
accept help from foreigners. This second Soviet ship, the Ivan Dvorskiy,
eventually showed up three hours after the Mekhanik Tarasov had sunk. The
Ivan Dvorskiy was in time only to help the Danes pull some of the last
 bodies from the water. Seven survivors and eighteen bodies were
eventually picked up.

Once again, ordinary Soviet people had paid a bitter price for the
official Soviet policy of refusing assistance from "enemies."

One of the most famous "official" Soviet maritime disasters is the loss of
the icebreaker Chelyuskin in February 1934 and the daring rescue of its
crew. The ship was crushed by ice fields in the Chukotsk Sea (at the far
eastern tip of Siberia), and 104 people on the ship had to abandon the
sinking vessel and seek refuge on the ice field. Under severe conditions,
half a dozen Soviet pilots made repeated flights to the site and over a
period of days picked up all the survivors. This drama was covered live by
radio. The pilots became the first in the USSR to be honored with the
supreme award of the country, the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. And
the Soviets did it all themselves; a plan to save time by flying pilots to
Alaska and buying rescue planes there was rejected as politically
unacceptable. If the stranded Chelyuskin survivors couldn't be rescued by
Russians, they were not going to be rescued at all.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn documented another kind of maritime emergency along
the same coast. In the spring of 1938 the steamer Dzhurma was transporting
3,000 or 4,000 slave laborers from Vladivostok to the Kolyma goldfields,
which required passing very close to Japanese-held Sakhalin Island. Some
of the prisoners got loose and looted a storeroom, setting it afire. As
smoke poured from the hold of the ship, a Japanese naval vessel pulled
alongside and offered assistance in fighting the fire. The captain refused
the offer and ordered the hatches sealed, suffocating the fire and the
thousands of political prisoners as well. Once the Japanese ship was out
of sight, the bodies of the dead were thrown overboard.

"Decades have passed since then," the fuming Solzhenitsyn wrote in a
footnote to this episode, "but how many times Soviet citizens have met
with misfortune on the world's oceans, yet because of that same
secretiveness disguised as national pride they have refused help! Let the
sharks devour us, so long as we don't have to accept your helping hand!"