Not so long ago, a film called "The Tragedy of Submarine K-129" was released on Russian screens. The picture was positioned as a documentary and told about the mournful events that occurred in March 1968. "Project Azorian" is the name of a covert operation that was later considered one of the most unpleasant events of the Cold War. Just then, the United States Navy recovered the sunken Soviet submarine K-129 from the bottom of the ocean.
In the twentieth century, the death of submarines, perhaps, was not uncommon. In the northern part of the Pacific Ocean lies the remains of the most famous submarine in history. For a long time, information about these events was kept secret, even the exact place where she sank was hushed up. Just think: a huge nuclear submarine ceased to exist, claiming the lives of ninety-eight Soviet officers.
American intelligence agencies, having the most innovative equipment, managed to find and investigate the boat in the first twoweeks after the incident. And in August 1974, K-129 was taken from the bottom.
Backstory
1968 had just begun, it was a frosty February. Nothing foreshadowed trouble, besides, the upcoming mission was to pass completely calmly and without incident. Then the submarine K-129 set off on its last voyage from a military base on the shores of Kamchatka with the function of patrolling the borders. Three ballistic missiles, a pair of nuclear-powered torpedoes - the submarine was very powerful, and the crew was experienced and active. He commanded the submarine cruiser V. I. Kobzar - captain of the first rank. This man was distinguished by endurance, vast experience and a serious attitude to business.
It should be said that by the time of departure, the submarine had practically no time to rest after a long journey through the expanses of the oceans. The submarine arrived in the town under the unusual name Olenya Guba quite recently. There was no fundamental repair that should have been done, and the crew was in a depressed state, not having time to properly rest after a long and exhausting voyage. But there was no choice, all the other submarines turned out to be even more unprepared for the mission, because the K-129 command did not ask any extra questions, but simply went to patrol the borders. In addition, the D-4 missile system was located on the submarine, which meant that it was superior to other ships. By the way, many officers from the crew have already been released on vacation, some even dispersed around Russia, heading home for a visit. Assemble a team inin full force, the commander failed. But, as we understand it, the very people who did not show up for the training camp literally saved their lives.
It all went wrong
There was nothing to do, I had to staff the team using people serving on other ships, and also recruit newcomers for responsible navigation. Everything went wrong from the very first days of the training camp. It is noteworthy that the command of the military base did not even have a ready list of the crew, certified by the captain with a ship's seal, and after all, V. I. Kobzar was known for his pedantry. They frantically searched for the document in the papers when the tragedy happened, but found nothing. This is unheard of negligence, which simply could not be in the Navy! Olenya Guba was famous for the fact that professionals, the best in their field, served there. And yet…
On March 8, a short signal was supposed to come from the submarine to the base, as it was the turning point of the route, completely standard procedure. But he did not follow, on the same day the alarm was announced on duty. The captain of the first rank could not allow such a mistake.
Start searching
Submarine K-129 did not get in touch, because all the forces were sent to search for it, the entire Kamchatka flotilla, as well as aviation, were actively involved in the search. The submarine showed no signs of life. After two weeks of fruitless work, the Pacific Fleet of the USSR realized that the ship was no more. At that time, attracted by the noise on the radio, the American troops became interested in what was happening. It was they who discovered the oily spot on the surface of the ocean waves. The analysis of this substance showed that it was indeed a solar liquid that leaked from a Soviet submarine.
At that time, the news shocked the entire world community. Ninety-eight brave Soviet officers, experienced sailors, young people for whom this voyage was the first serious test in their lives, a good, well-equipped submarine K-129 - all this perished in one moment. It was not possible to establish the causes of the tragedy; the equipment to raise the boat from the bottom did not yet exist. Over time, all search work was curtailed, and the boat was forgotten for a while, deciding that, as in many cases when ships sank, the sea would become a mass grave for the crew. Lost submarines in the Pacific were not uncommon.
Versions of what happened
Of course, the most current version of what was happening at that time was the perfidy of the American Navy. The appearance of these thoughts in society was also facilitated by the fact that the press disseminated information about an American vessel with the sonorous name "Swordfish" - it was a submarine with ballistic missiles, which was also on duty at that time in Pacific waters. It would seem that nothing special: she was on duty - and let it be the right of the Americans - to take care of their borders, only on March 8 this ship also did not get in touch with its base, and a couple of days later appeared off the coast of Japan. There the crew landed for a while, and the submarinewent to the repair docks, apparently, there were some problems with her. This, you see, is also completely normal - anything could happen at sea, so she, perhaps, did not get in touch. But the oddity is not in this, but in the fact that, according to some sources, the crew was forced to sign non-disclosure documents. In addition, this submarine subsequently did not go on a mission for several years. The radical version of what happened says that the American submarine was spying on the actions of the Soviet one and for some reason rammed its object of surveillance. Perhaps that was the original intention.
Of course, all this raised questions even then, but the American government explained the situation as follows: through negligence, their submarine collided with an iceberg. And everything would be fine, but only it happened in the central part of the Pacific Ocean, and icebergs are usually not found there, therefore the option of a collision with an ice block disappeared immediately, and also with respect to K-129.
It is not possible today to prove the involvement of Americans in the tragic events, it may well be that all this is just speculation and a series of coincidences, but it is very strange that the most experienced crew, who have been on such trips more than once, so died ingloriously.
Another version follows from the previous one. Based on it, it can be assumed that the teams of both submarines did not have bad intentions, there was an accident: they collided under water, patrolling the same territory. Now this is hard for meimagine, but in the twentieth century, technology could well fail.
In any case, the outcome of the events we are discussing is known: a Soviet diesel submarine ended up on the bottom in the North Pacific Ocean, 1,200 miles away from the base in Kamchatka. The depth at which the submarine turned out to be equal to five thousand meters. The boat sank with an even keel. It is terrible to imagine how terrible it was for the crew in a confined space filled with cold water to realize imminent death.
Rise from the bottom
But do not think that the authorities have completely forgotten about the sad event. After some time, it was in order to raise the K-129 from the bottom of the ocean that two specialized ships were built. One of them was the very famous Explorer, and the second was the NSS-1 docking chamber, according to the project, its bottom was moved apart, and a huge mechanical “arm” was attached to the body, which looked more like pincers, the span of which was exactly the diameter of K -129. If the reader had the impression that these were Soviet devices, then they were mistaken. This is not true. These designs were designed and manufactured in the United States. The best specialists on the West and East coasts were involved in the design.
The curious fact is that even in the final stages of assembling the craft, the engineers working on the design had no idea what they were working on. But on the other hand, their work paid well, so no one protested.
Start operation
It's hard to imagine the scaleoperations. Just for statistics: the special vessel-apparatus "Explorer" looked like a huge floating platform, the displacement of which exceeded thirty-six tons. This platform was accompanied by a remote-controlled thruster rotary engine. Thanks to this, this device accurately found any given coordinate on the ocean floor, and then could be held strictly above it, the error was only a dozen centimeters. At the same time, this colossus had no difficulties with the management.
And that's not all: the platform was equipped with a "well" in the center, surrounded by structures that vaguely resemble oil rigs; tubes of a particularly strong alloy, each of which had a length of twenty-five meters; a set of various indicators, which, with the help of special equipment, sank to the bottom. This type of ship did not exist before.
The operation was carried out in ste alth mode and consisted of three simple steps. To date, the information has been declassified, so you can easily find information about those events in the public domain.
1 stage took place at the very beginning of the seventy-third year. At first, the technique was prepared and tested for a long time, the operation was extremely risky, so there could be no mistakes. At the same time, a large international vessel specializing in oil production was used to move the special platform to the site. This ship did not cause any questions from the ships passing by. But it was only preparation.
Stage 2 is the second half of the year, now everyone has been transported to the accident sitenecessary technical equipment and specialists. But even this was not enough. Until that moment, such operations had never been carried out before, to get a sunken submarine from the bottom of the ocean was considered something on the verge of fantasy. During this period, training work was carried out.
3 stage - the seventy-fourth year. At the very beginning of the year there is a long-awaited rise. All work was carried out in the shortest possible time and did not cause any difficulties.
Soviet side
The Soviet government kept a close eye on this square, as many things were suspicious, especially the fact that the international ship stood over the sunken K-129. In addition, the question arose: why is oil production carried out in the middle of the ocean at a depth of six kilometers? Not very logical, because usually drilling took place at a depth of two hundred meters, and several kilometers is unheard of. This ship, in turn, did nothing suspicious, the work was carried out quite typical, the conversations on the radio waves also did not stand out in any way, and after a month and a half, which is absolutely normal, it moved off the point and continued the planned course.
But in those days it was not customary to trust America, so a reconnaissance group went to the scene on a high-speed ship, this fact should not have been mentioned on the radio. Tracking was established, but it was not possible to fully understand why the Americans were so fussy, what exactly was happening here. Americans noticed tracking, butbehaved as if nothing had happened, continuing to work. Nobody hid anything in particular, and the actions of both sides were very predictable. For a long time it seemed that American sailors were busy searching for oil, which, in fact, they had every right to do: these waters are neutral, and it is not forbidden to conduct underwater research. A week and a half later, the ship moved off the point and headed for the island of Oahu in Honolulu. The Christmas festivities were already approaching there, therefore it became obvious that surveillance would not give any result in the future. In addition, the Soviet ship was already running out of fuel, and it was only possible to refuel in Vladivostok, and this was a couple of weeks of travel.
This initiative was decided to be terminated, relations with America were already strained, surveillance did not bring any results, and deployment over the place of death of the Soviet crew could well turn out to be an accident. At least officially, the US did nothing wrong. Having caught the mood of the government, the local command stopped surveillance (as you understand, only at the second stage of the operation, and, who knows, perhaps it was calculated that way).
And, of course, no one in the USSR could have imagined that US ships were trying to raise a sunken boat, it really seemed impossible. Because the skepticism of the authorities was understandable: what can the Americans do?
That's just all the same American ship of unusual shape and huge dimensions after Christmas again went to the ill-fated point. In addition, no one had ever seen such a type of ship before. And it's already trueseemed suspicious.
We must pay tribute to the American authorities: as soon as the K-129 submarine was delivered to the shores of the United States, all the bodies that were inside (only six people) were buried in the sea according to the ritual for sailors, the Americans even included in that moment of the anthem of the USSR. The burial was filmed on color film, which was sent to American intelligence agencies. At the same time, the behavior and attitude of the Americans towards the dead was extremely respectful. It is still unknown where the rest of the Soviet crew members are, but, according to American data, they were not on the submarine. By the way, V. I. Kobzar was not among those reburied.
Cold War
By that time, the Soviet Union already knew about what was happening, a new round of diplomatic struggle between the two giant states began. The USSR was dissatisfied with the secret actions on the part of America and the fact that the diesel submarine was precisely Soviet, which means that the Americans did not have the right to extract it from the bottom. The United States, on the other hand, assured that the death of the submarine was not recorded anywhere (this is true), which means that this is no one's property, and the finder can do with it at his own discretion. In addition, so that there would be no further debate, the American side provided video footage of the reburial of Russian sailors. They were buried really with all respect and according to all the rules. Therefore, unnecessary questions from the Soviet side have disappeared.
Only it remains a mystery what actually happened to the submarine, why the Americans made so much effort toto get it from the bottom of the ocean, why they did all this in secret and why after this operation they hid the Explorer out of sight in the depths of America's repair docks, because this is very useful equipment. The equipment was placed with a Soviet submarine somewhere near San Francisco.
Perhaps the American side just wanted to know the secrets that the Soviet submarine fleet hides. It may seem to some that the Soviet government was eventually fooled, because it is obvious that the Americans examined Soviet equipment, perhaps even that they found something interesting and they adopted something. Perhaps torpedoes, which were created very elegantly, or maybe other secrets. But, according to modern sources, the antagonists could not get the main one. And a happy coincidence is to blame for everything: the crew commander V. Kobzar, who was mentioned earlier, was very tall and had a heroic physique, therefore, for obvious reasons, he was cramped at the place of work. When the boat was once again being repaired, the captain asked the engineers to place his cipher-cabin in the rocket compartment, there was more space there, although this was a risky neighborhood. So, all the most important information was stored there. But the Americans, removing the submarine from the bottom, did not raise the missile compartment. It seemed to them not so important.
1968 showed that this is how it is - Russian reality: everything is not like people's, but sometimes it even plays into our hands. The Americans, of course, did not return the submarine itself to the Soviet side, itfurther fate also remains a mystery. Most likely, it was dismantled, carefully studied and disposed of. But no one hoped to return. Perhaps this is fair, because so much money and effort was spent by the Americans.
By the way, these not too pleasant events only spurred the arms race and technological innovations. For practice has shown that one state is stronger in some ways, and another in some ways. Maybe this is not so bad, because progress in science leads humanity to development.
Remaining questions
So many things remain unclear. Why did a submarine with experienced sailors and a talented captain sink for no apparent reason? Why did the Americans spend so much money and effort building vehicles to lift it from the bottom of the ocean? What happened to most of the team, after all, more than a hundred people could not have gone somewhere from the closed space? What happened to K-129 after it was taken out of the deep ocean? The sinking of submarines in the twentieth century was certainly not uncommon, but in this case there are a lot of unsolved questions.
Conclusion
In the very film with which our story begins, there are far from all answers to all questions. Its production is American-Russian, which, of course, should be noted, since the creators wanted the most objective consideration of what happened. But, perhaps, now it is not so important, because all this is a matter of bygone days, and nothing can be changed. The Cold War is consideredbloodless and not as dangerous as other wars in the history of mankind, but there were enough unpleasant moments. It is a pity for the people who made up the crew of the K-129 submarine, and especially for the young sailors who went on their first serious voyage. In any case, this unfortunate event will forever remain in the annals of history and in the memory of the Russian people.
