The equilibrium started in those thirteen days, where the opposition became more and more mutated in the launching pads of nuclear missiles prepared in Cuba. Humanity stopped to listen to the talks between the superpowers, to witness the evolution of the confrontation. Nobody, however, expected that the real threat and the facts to follow were elsewhere. During a military operation, an obstacle is the breaking of the chain of command, even more so at that time where technology was to become. In those thirteen days, this inauspicious event occurred in all its drama.
The 1 October 1962, four Soviet "hunter / killer" attack submarines set sail from Sayda Guba near Murmansk, a strategic naval base for the Northern Red Fleet. They were the B4, B36, B59 and the B130, framed in the 69a Submarine Brigade.
The NATO reference code: Foxtrot.
The mission assigned them was to escort the Russian convoy to Cuba and once on the Island they would have to dock in the port of Mariel. From that first day of October a series of events took place that brought humanity to the threshold of the nuclear holocaust. On October 15, the "hunters / killers" received a change of orders: they had to stay in the Sargasso Sea and sail in combat. The four Foxtrots were surveyed several times by the American anti-submarine integrated defense system and in the afternoon of the October 22, the CIA Director, John Mc Cone, informed President Kennedy that the four Foxtrots were in position off Cuba. the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Anderson, warned the Commanders of surface units about a possible Soviet attack against the forces deployed to ensure quarantine compliance. The 24 October, at 10.00 in the morning, McNamara briefed the National Security Council on the four hunters / killers, specifying that they approached the interdiction line. On this occasion he suggested keeping them under constant pressure, but in this regard, President Kennedy expressed himself by specifying that for no reason the American units should have opened fire first.
In contrast, Krushov's response came, threatening to attack anyone who tried to stop the convoy to Cuba.
The countermove was to make the quarantine operational; they were the 10.00, now on the east coast.
Between the 24 and 25 October, several sightings of the four submarines were reported, but at the end of the 25 one of them became the secret protagonist of the Cuban crisis: the B59 was taken east of the Bermuda Islands. They were the 18.11 and was designated as an 19: C19 contact.
The October 26, the CVBG of the aircraft carrier Randolph, optical identifier CV15, with its eight Destroyers entered the patrolling zone assigned to it; the same as the B59. At 19.15 GMT, a reconnaissance aircraft called the "Woodpecker 5", launched by Randolph, reported a MAD contact to the 20 ° 65'47''W coordinates.
On the scene appeared the second protagonist of the affair: the Destroyer USS Cony, DD508 optical identifier.
In the late evening of October 26, in fact it was this unit that was commissioned by Randolph to verify the nature of the contact indicated by the reconnaissance. One source reports another ship, but it is absolutely false, as the mission comes directly from the Cony's Deck Log Book. The next day, the contact was detected at 380 nautical miles to the south-east of Bermuda and also confirmed by the CVBG of the Essex aircraft carrier navigating 170 nautical miles from the point of the sonar contact. From the CV15 the immediate take-off of ASW S2F and Sea King helicopters was ordered.
The hunt had begun.
The C19 was detected without any doubt residual. The Cony activated the search sonar in active mode, its "ping" bounced obsessive and terrifying on the hull of the Foxtrot, the DD508 was thus revealed to the adversary, but at the same time communicating to the B59 to have been discovered, nullifying the meaning same as the mission assigned to him by the Northern Command. On board the C19, nervousness began to spread and the sailors' tension became palpable. Not even Commander Savitsky proved unscathed to these feelings. In those moments a submariner feels trapped, thinks he has no other way out than to attack.
Naval technology applied to submerged units, at that time was a lack: air recycling. The propulsion of submarines was diesel-electric, which guaranteed a remarkable quietness of operation, a key element not to be detected, but at the same time the engine needed air both to recharge the batteries and to ventilate the rooms of the whole unit. These operations were carried out by means of a retractable mast called "snorkel" which extended over the surface of the water, sucked in air. This practice needed every 24 / 48 hours, methodology set to the commissioning of nuclear and hydrogen-powered propellers. So even if the B59 had managed to disengage, it would have been detected again when the air deficit would have necessitated the use of the "snorkel". In fact, once known the initial position of the Foxtrot, the American units present in large numbers in that area could start a research plan, based on the relative speed of the B59, in any presumable direction. Hitting the hull with the sonar "ping" was like warning the C19 Commander to be an easy target, a tactic still in use. The intimidation action taken by DD508 did not achieve the desired effect: the Foxtrot remained in normal navigation. They were the 17.29, now local patrolling area, when the Commander of the Cony, annoyed by the negligence revealed by the B59, decided to move to more coercive actions: he targeted the Foxtrot with depth bombs but with training charge, that is only producers of explosions but not able to cause damage. This data also came from the Deck Log Book, on 27 October 1962, Huchthause on 169 page. Evidently the Commander of the Cony had lost touch with reality, blinded by the eagerness to win what had become his personal war with the enemy in the ocean depth, from which he felt mocked. A questionable order issued with the slight conviction that the Russians would have had the ability to discern deterrence from the offense, thus determining it as a further warning to surrender rather than to a real attack. Savitsky understood this, but could hardly predict where the attacker would go, even in view of the constant increase in the hostile attitude of the Destroyer. Time passed and with it the reserve of air, the heat on board was now unbearable, probably over 45 °, with the content of carbon dioxide near the risk levels. The speed of the B59 was reduced to that of minimum sustenance.
Savitsky, now depressed, frustrated and furious, gave the extreme order: to set up a launch tube with a nuclear warhead torpedo.
According to the testimony of an officer present in the Command Room of the C19, Savitsky hypothesized the action of the surface unit as demonstrated that Russia and the United States were already at war and therefore had to hit the Destroyer with the most lethal weapon he had. In this way he would not have shamed the Soviet Fleet. The general conditions of his state of mind worsened considerably when he failed to contact the Command to report on the situation; this convinced him definitively that they were in a state of war and perhaps Murmansk no longer existed.
While the statesmen were looking for a bloodless solution to the crisis, two Commanders were ready to undermine their efforts, in fact the sinking of the Cony, would have triggered an irreversible domino effect such as to trigger the thermonuclear war.
The protocol for the use of nuclear weapons foresaw that the Commander, the Second and the Political Officer, were in agreement on the ineluctable and fatal appeal to the launch. The Zampolit Maslenikov supported the angry Savitsky, but the Second Officer Vasilij Arkhipov pronounced a peremptory and dystonic "Niet". Evidently he was the only one still present to himself, in symbiosis with reason and observing the rules of engagement; in fact they had not reported damage and no evidence suggested that they were at war. The nuclear holocaust was averted with a simple and appropriate syllable.
At 20.52 27 October, now reduced to a minimum of operation, the B59 emerged from the depths. On board the Cony a sailor who knew the Cyrillic was embarked, by means of luminous signs he asked the C19 which unit it was, as it did not show the optical identification number on the hull, evidently scraped off. The answer was dry and unfriendly, a simple "X". The DD508 offered technical and health assistance, but Savitsky refused. Between the 22.00 and 07.00 hours of the following day, the B59 was reached and surrounded by other surface units: the Beale, the Lowry and the Murray.
On how the C19 escaped the Americans is legend.
What remains is the ability to remain in contact with the reality revealed by Arkhipov, who with his prudence spared the thermonuclear war to mankind. It was learned of him that he was arrested. Now his body rests in Murmansk.
An official Navy Message is reported to the COMASWFORLANT by Destroyer Barry on 30 October 1962 at 02.06 GMT, after losing contact with C19.
He quoted laconically: "went deep".
Giovanni Caprara
