Table of contents:
- Unsuccessful searches and 98 burials
- Denial of the boat and American pushing
- Versions of the disaster
- American funeral of Russian sailors
Video: What happened to the Soviet submarine K-129: Mysterious disappearance, 98 funerals and the silence of the authorities
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
On March 8, 1968, the control signal from the K-129 submarine, which was in the northern Pacific waters, disappeared. The search lasted more than 70 days, but to no avail. The Soviet ship seemed to have disappeared into the ocean along with a crew of 98 people. This episode remained classified for a long time. Even today, experts do not agree on the versions of the death of the submarine. Krivotolki is also caused by the fact that the top of the USSR renounced the K-129, and almost a hundred submariners were declared “dead”.
Unsuccessful searches and 98 burials
Before the signal was lost, the K-129 submarine had served 12 days on its last cruise. The submarine left the bay on the Kamchatka coast on February 24, officially carrying out extraordinary combat duty. From the last voyage, the submarine returned a month and a half ago, awaiting inspection of the materiel and restoration of combat effectiveness. The main part of the crew was absent, therefore, there was an additional supply of submariners from other ships and apprentices-sailors. The control radio report was scheduled for the night of March 7-8.
As Rear Admiral Viktor Dygalo later recalled, disturbing news overtook him at the festive table on the occasion of the celebration of International Women's Day. They called him and urgently summoned him to the office of the commander of the 15th squadron, Rear Admiral Krivoruchko, where an emergency meeting was held due to the loss of communication with the K-129. Radiograms remained unanswered, and reconnaissance flights did not clarify the situation. The search and rescue group consisted of more than 30 different ships. But no traces of the submarine could be found. After 73 days of searching, 98 funeral notices were sent to the relatives of the disappeared submariners.
Denial of the boat and American pushing
The fact of the disappearance of the submarine was by default classified by the Soviet military-political elite, and the K-129 itself was expelled from the Navy. Relatives of the missing crew members said that in the funerals the sailors were not called dead in service, but dead. The search for the submarine was carried out in high secrecy, but despite all this, the American military managed to detect the concentration of aircraft and ships of the Soviet Union in the Pacific Ocean. In the United States, they quickly suspected that the submarine was missing and decided to find it first. The USSR officially abandoned the sunken submarine, which gave the ship ownerless status. According to legal norms, any country that found the K-129 could now be called its owner.
An innovative acoustic surveillance system helped the Americans quickly locate the approximate area of the boat's sinking. To survey the area, the Mizar special vessel was equipped with the best hydroacoustic systems at that time, equipment for underwater television and magnetic research of the bottom. A modern submarine "Khalibat" with deep-sea vehicles was also involved in the search.
After meticulous work, the Soviet submarine was found, thousands of photographs were taken. K-129 with hull damage was at a depth of over 5 kilometers. It was possible to raise the sunken submarine only in July-August 1974 after a lengthy preparation of unique deep-sea devices. The operation was carried out in secrecy. American journalists reported that only parts of the vessel were raised. But it is not known for certain what materials fell into the hands of the CIA.
Versions of the disaster
Despite the secrecy of the facts of death and the details of the lifting operation, today most of the materials are freely available. For a long time, the most likely causes of the disaster were called the failure of the submarine due to malfunctions or crew errors. A possible explosion of ammunition or a battery was considered. But a version of a collision with an American ship was also voiced. The overwhelming majority of the commanders who had experience of service on such submarines assumed that the submarine had crashed due to an unforeseen failure to an excessive depth. It was no secret that for its own displacement, a submarine of this type had insufficient power-to-weight ratio.
This feature limited the crew's capabilities in the application of operational emergency measures. At the same time, the standards existing at that time prescribed for submarines 90% of the entire period of combat service to be submerged or at the periscope immersion depth. The situation was complicated by the need to keep rechargeable batteries with a charge of 2/3 of their nominal capacity. This condition forced the commanders to carry out frequent charging or to use a diesel engine. Therefore, for a long time, the submarine was in a dangerous RPM mode (diesel engine operation while driving under water), which required high voltage and trouble-free concentration from the crew.
American funeral of Russian sailors
Today, technical experts, after a detailed analysis of recordings from acoustic stations in the United States in March 1968, almost unanimously name the cause of the disaster. According to available reliable data, on March 11, the sounds of explosions in missile silos were recorded. This happened at great depths. Most likely, when the rocket fuel detonated in the mines, the K-129 submarine was already at the bottom. This version is partially confirmed by photographs taken from the US search submarine "Khalibat". Thus, it turns out that at the time of the loss of the radio signal, the K-129 was in an emergency state, unable to transmit radio messages and request assistance. Three days later, the submarine sank.
The bodies of the submariners raised by the Americans along with parts of the K-129 corps were buried in the Pacific Ocean by US representatives in compliance with all the traditions of the Soviet Navy. Video footage of the funeral ceremony was handed over to the Russian side in 1992, and in 1995, a group of vessels from the Pacific Fleet approached the site of the K-129 wreck, giving military honors to the sunken crew. In 1998, all the sailors of the submarine were posthumously awarded the Order of Courage.
The fate of another Soviet submarine was no less dramatic. The crew of the K-19 survived three catastrophes that became for the sailors of the Soviet Hiroshima.
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