Water and cold. Darkness.
And somewhere above there was the sound of metal.
I don’t have the strength to say: we are here, here...
Hope is gone, I'm tired of waiting.
The bottomless ocean reliably keeps its secrets. Somewhere out there, under the dark arches of the waves, lie the wreckage of thousands of ships, each of which has its own unique fate and tragic death.
In 1963, the thickness of sea water crushed the most modern American submarine "Thresher". Half a century ago, this was hard to believe - the invincible Poseidon, who drew strength from the flames of a nuclear reactor and was able to circumnavigate the globe without a single ascent, turned out to be weak as a worm before the onslaught of the merciless elements.
“We have a positive increasing angle... We are trying to blow through... 900... north” - the last message from the Thresher is unable to convey all the horror that the dying submariners experienced. Who could have imagined that a two-day test voyage accompanied by the rescue tug Skylark could end in such a disaster?
The cause of the Thrasher's death remains a mystery. The main hypothesis: when diving to the maximum depth, water entered the durable hull of the boat - the reactor was automatically shut down, and the submarine, unable to move, fell into the abyss, taking with it 129 human lives.
Rudder blade USS Tresher (SSN-593)
Soon the terrible story continued - the Americans lost another nuclear-powered ship with its crew: in 1968, it disappeared without a trace in the Atlantic multi-purpose nuclear submarine "Scorpion".
Unlike the Thrasher, with which sound underwater communication was maintained until the last second, the death of the Scorpion was complicated by the lack of any clear idea of the coordinates of the disaster site. Unsuccessful searches continued for five months until the Yankees deciphered data from deep-sea stations of the SOSUS system (a network of hydrophone buoys of the US Navy for tracking Soviet submarines) - on the records dated May 22, 1968, a loud bang was discovered, similar to the destruction of the durable hull of a submarine. Next, using the triangulation method, the approximate location of the lost boat was restored.
Wreck of USS Scorpion (SSN-589). Visible deformations from the monstrous water pressure (30 tons/sq. meter)
The wreckage of the Scorpio was discovered at a depth of 3,000 meters in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, 740 km southwest of the Azores. The official version connects the death of the boat with the detonation of torpedo ammunition (almost like the Kursk!). There is a more exotic legend, according to which the Scorpion was sunk by the Russians in retaliation for the death of K-129.
The mystery of the death of the Scorpion still haunts the minds of sailors - in November 2012, the Organization of Veteran Submariners of the US Navy proposed launching a new investigation to establish the truth about the death of the American boat.
Less than 48 hours had passed since the wreckage of the American Scorpio sank to the seabed, and a new tragedy occurred in the ocean. On experimental nuclear submarine K-27 The Soviet Navy's reactor with liquid metal coolant went out of control. The nightmare unit, in whose veins molten lead was boiling, “contaminated” all the compartments with radioactive emissions, the crew received terrible doses of radiation, 9 submariners died from acute radiation sickness. Despite the severe radiation accident, Soviet sailors managed to bring the boat to the base in Gremikha.
K-27 turned into an ineffective heap of metal with positive buoyancy, emitting deadly gamma rays. The decision on the future fate of the unique ship hung in the air; finally, in 1981, it was decided to sink the damaged submarine in one of the bays on Novaya Zemlya. As a keepsake for posterity. Maybe they will find a way to safely dispose of the floating Fukushima?
But long before the “last dive” of K-27, the group of nuclear submarines at the bottom of the Atlantic was replenished submarine K-8. One of the first-born of the nuclear fleet, the third nuclear submarine in the ranks of the USSR Navy, which sank during a fire in the Bay of Biscay on April 12, 1970. For 80 hours there was a struggle for the survivability of the ship, during which time the sailors managed to shut down the reactors and evacuate part of the crew on board the approaching Bulgarian ship.
The death of K-8 and 52 submariners became the first official loss of the Soviet nuclear fleet. Currently, the wreckage of the nuclear-powered ship rests at a depth of 4,680 meters, 250 miles off the coast of Spain.
In the 1980s, the USSR Navy lost a couple more nuclear submarines in combat campaigns - the strategic missile submarine K-219 and the unique “titanium” submarine K-278 Komsomolets.
K-219 with a torn missile silo
The most dangerous situation arose around the K-219 - on board the submarine, in addition to two nuclear reactors, there were 15 R-21 submarine-launched ballistic missiles* with 45 thermonuclear warheads. On October 3, 1986, missile silo No. 6 depressurized, which led to the explosion of a ballistic missile. The crippled ship demonstrated fantastic survivability, managing to emerge from a depth of 350 meters, with damage to the pressure hull and a flooded fourth (missile) compartment.
* the project assumed a total of 16 SLBMs, but in 1973 a similar incident already occurred on the K-219 - the explosion of a liquid-propellant rocket. As a result, the “unlucky” boat remained in service, but lost launch shaft No. 15.
Three days after the rocket explosion, the heavily armed nuclear-powered submarine sank in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean at a depth of 5 kilometers. The disaster killed 8 people. It happened on October 6, 1986
Three years later, on April 7, 1989, another Soviet submarine, the K-278 Komsomolets, sank to the bottom of the Norwegian Sea. An unsurpassed ship with a titanium hull, capable of diving to depths of over 1000 meters.
K-278 "Komsomolets" at the bottom of the Norwegian Sea. The photographs were taken by the Mir deep-sea submersible.
Alas, no exorbitant performance characteristics saved the Komsomolets - the submarine became a victim of a banal fire, complicated by the lack of clear ideas about the tactics of fighting for survivability on kingless boats. 42 sailors died in the burning compartments and icy water. The nuclear submarine sank at a depth of 1,858 meters, becoming the subject of a furious debate between shipbuilders and sailors in a bid to find the “culprit”.
New times have brought new problems. The orgy of the “free market”, multiplied by “limited funding”, the destruction of the fleet supply system and the mass dismissal of experienced submariners inevitably led to disaster. And she didn’t keep her waiting.
August 12, 2000 no contact Nuclear submarine K-141 "Kursk". The official cause of the tragedy is the spontaneous explosion of a “long” torpedo. Unofficial versions range from a nightmarish heresy in the style of “Submarine in Troubled Waters” from the French director Jean Michel Carré to completely plausible hypotheses about a collision with the aircraft-carrying cruiser Admiral Kuznetsov or a torpedo fired from the American submarine Toledo (the motive is unclear).
The nuclear submarine cruiser is an “aircraft carrier killer” with a displacement of 24 thousand tons. The depth where the submarine sank was 108 meters, 118 people were locked in the “steel coffin”...
The epic with the unsuccessful operation to rescue the crew from the Kursk lying on the ground shocked the whole of Russia. We all remember the smiling face of another scoundrel with admiral’s shoulder straps smiling on TV: “The situation is under control. Contact has been established with the crew, and air supply has been provided to the emergency boat.”
Then there was an operation to raise the Kursk. The first compartment was sawn off (for what??), a letter from Captain Kolesnikov was found... was there a second page? Someday we will know the truth about those events. And, for sure, we will be very surprised at our naivety.
On August 30, 2003, another tragedy occurred, hidden in the gray twilight of naval everyday life - it sank while being towed for cutting. old nuclear submarine K-159. The reason is loss of buoyancy due to the poor technical condition of the boat. It still lies at a depth of 170 meters near the island of Kildin, on the approach to Murmansk.
The question of lifting and disposing of this radioactive pile of metal is periodically raised, but so far the matter has not moved beyond words.
In total, today the wreckage of seven nuclear submarines lies on the bottom of the World Ocean:
Two American: “Thrasher” and “Scorpio”
Five Soviet: K-8, K-27, K-219, K-278 and K-159.
However, this is not a complete list. In the history of the Russian Navy, there are a number of other incidents that were not reported by TASS, in each of which nuclear submarines were lost.
For example, on August 20, 1980, a serious accident occurred in the Philippine Sea - 14 sailors died fighting a fire on board the K-122. The crew was able to save their nuclear submarine and bring the burnt boat in tow to their home base. Unfortunately, the damage received was such that restoring the boat was deemed impractical. After 15 years of storage, K-122 was disposed of at the Zvezda Shipyard.
Another severe incident, known as the “radiation accident in Chazhma Bay,” occurred in 1985 in the Far East. During the process of recharging the reactor of the nuclear submarine K-431, the floating crane swayed on the wave and “teared out” the control grids from the submarine’s reactor. The reactor turned on and instantly reached an extreme operating mode, turning into a “dirty atomic bomb,” the so-called. "fizzy" In a bright flash, 11 officers standing nearby disappeared. According to eyewitnesses, the 12-ton reactor cover flew up a couple of hundred meters and then fell again on the boat, almost cutting it in half. The outbreak of a fire and emissions of radioactive dust finally turned the K-431 and the nearby nuclear submarine K-42 into unsuitable floating coffins. Both damaged nuclear submarines were scrapped.
When it comes to accidents on nuclear submarines, one cannot fail to mention the K-19, which received the telling nickname “Hiroshima” in the navy. The boat became a source of serious problems at least four times. The first combat campaign and the reactor accident on July 3, 1961 are especially memorable. K-19 was heroically saved, but the episode with the reactor almost cost the life of the first Soviet missile carrier.
Having read the list of dead submarines, the average person may have a vile conviction: the Russians do not know how to control ships. The accusation is serious. The Yankees lost only two nuclear submarines - Thresher and Scorpion. At the same time, the domestic fleet lost almost a dozen nuclear submarines, not counting diesel-electric submarines (the Yankees have not built diesel-electric boats since the 1950s). How to explain this paradox? The fact that the nuclear-powered ships of the USSR Navy were controlled by crooked Russian Mongols?
Something tells me that there is another explanation for the paradox. Let's try to find it together.
It is worth noting that an attempt to “blame” all failures on the difference in the number of nuclear submarines in the compositions of the USSR Navy and the US Navy is obviously useless. In total, during the existence of the nuclear submarine fleet, about 250 submarines passed through the hands of our sailors (from K-3 to the modern Borey), while the Americans had slightly fewer of them - ≈ 200 units. However, the Yankees had nuclear-powered ships earlier and were operated two to three times more intensively (just look at the operational stress coefficient of SSBNs: 0.17 - 0.24 for ours and 0.5 - 0.6 for American missile carriers). Obviously, the whole point is not the number of boats... But then what?
Much depends on the calculation method. As the old joke goes: “It doesn’t matter how you did it, the main thing is how you calculated it.” A thick trail of fatal accidents and emergencies stretches through the entire history of the nuclear fleet, regardless of the submarine’s flag.
On February 9, 2001, the US Navy multi-purpose nuclear submarine Greenville rammed the Japanese fishing schooner Ehime Maru. Nine Japanese fishermen were killed, and the US Navy submarine fled the scene without providing any assistance to those in distress.
Nonsense! - the Yankees will answer. Navigation incidents are everyday life in any fleet. In the summer of 1973, the Soviet nuclear submarine K-56 collided with the scientific vessel Akademik Berg. 27 sailors were killed.
But the Russians' boats sank right at the pier! Here you are:
On September 13, 1985, K-429 lay down on the ground at the pier in Krasheninnikov Bay.
So what?! - our sailors may object. The Yankees had the same case:
On May 15, 1969, the US Navy nuclear submarine Guitarro sank right next to the quay wall. The reason is simple negligence.
USS Guitarro (SSN-655) lay down to rest at the pier
Americans will scratch their heads and remember how on May 8, 1982, the central post of the nuclear submarine K-123 (“underwater fighter” of the 705th project, a reactor with liquid liquid fuel) received an original report: “I see silvery metal spreading across the deck.” The first circuit of the reactor ruptured, the radioactive alloy of lead and bismuth “stained” the boat so much that it took 10 years to clean up K-123. Fortunately, none of the sailors died then.
The Russians will only smile sadly and tactfully hint to the Americans how the USS Dace (SSN-607) accidentally “splashed” two tons of radioactive liquid from the primary circuit into the Thames (a river in the USA), “dirting” the entire Groton naval base.
Stop!
We won't achieve anything this way. There is no point in denigrating each other and remembering ugly moments from history.
It is clear that a huge fleet of hundreds of ships serves as rich soil for various emergencies - every day there is smoke somewhere, something falls, explodes or lands on rocks.
The true indicator is major accidents that lead to the loss of ships. “Thresher”, “Scorpion”,... Are there any other cases where nuclear-powered ships of the US Navy received heavy damage during military campaigns and were forever excluded from the fleet?
Yes, such cases have happened.
USS San Francisco (SSN-711) smashed to pieces. Consequences of a collision with an underwater rock at 30 knots
In 1986, the US Navy strategic missile carrier Nathaniel Greene crashed on rocks in the Irish Sea. The damage to the hull, rudders and ballast tanks was so great that the boat had to be scrapped.
February 11, 1992. Barencevo sea. The multi-purpose nuclear submarine Baton Rouge collided with the Russian titanium Barracuda. The boats collided successfully - repairs on the B-276 took six months, and the story of the USS Baton Rouge (SSN-689) turned out to be much sadder. The collision with a Russian titanium boat led to the appearance of stresses and microcracks in the submarine’s durable hull. "Baton Rouge" hobbled to the base and soon ceased to exist.
"Baton Rouge" goes to the nails
It's not fair! – the attentive reader will notice. The Americans had purely navigational errors; there were practically no accidents on US Navy ships with damage to the reactor core. In the Russian Navy, everything is different: compartments are burning, molten coolant is gushing onto the deck. There are design flaws and improper operation of the equipment.
And it is true. The domestic submarine fleet has traded reliability for exorbitant technical characteristics of boats. The design of submarines of the USSR Navy has always been distinguished by a high degree of novelty and a large number of innovative solutions. Testing of new technologies was often carried out directly in combat campaigns. The fastest (K-222), deepest (K-278), largest (project 941 “Shark”) and most secretive boat (project 945A “Condor”) were created in our country. And if there is nothing to blame “Condor” and “Akula” for, then the operation of the other “record holders” was regularly accompanied by major technical problems.
Was this the right decision: immersion depth in exchange for reliability? We have no right to answer this question. History does not know the subjunctive mood, the only thing I wanted to convey to the reader: the high accident rate on Soviet submarines is not the miscalculations of the designers or the mistakes of the crews. Often it was inevitable. A high price paid for the unique characteristics of submarines.
Project 941 strategic missile submarine
Memorial to fallen submariners, Murmansk
In early February 1992, the USS Baton Rouge, a nuclear submarine from Los Angeles, collided with the Russian submarine Kostroma near Murmansk. Baton Rouge most certainly did not use active sonar to remain undetected. She also did not detect the active sonars of the Kostroma. Thus, neither vessel was using active sonar, while their passive sonar was likely not strong enough to detect the other boat in shallow water.
The National Interest writes about this, ZN.UA reports.
Sonar is considered to be radar that operates underwater. However, water is a much less compatible medium than air, even for the most advanced sensors. And wind conditions, temperature fluctuations and sounds bouncing off the ocean floor can dramatically degrade its performance. When trying to detect today's extremely quiet submarines, even a few unfavorable factors can ruin an already difficult task.
Therefore, a submarine engaged in espionage near the enemy’s home port may not notice another submarine coming towards it until the collision itself. Such consequences can be worse than a small nuisance.
On February 11, 1992, the American nuclear submarine Baton Rouge from Los Angeles was hiding at a depth of 20 meters off the island of Kildin, 22 km from the Russian port of Murmansk. The Soviet Union had collapsed just two months earlier, but the US Navy was still trying to keep a close eye on what was happening with Russia's powerful navy.
The exact nature of the Baton Rouge submarine's espionage activities is still unknown. Perhaps these were recordings of the sounds of Russian submarines for later identification or testing of reconnaissance devices. At 8:16 a.m., the 110-meter American nuclear submarine Baton Rouge received a massive blow from below. First of all, the hull was scratched and the ballast tanks were punctured. However, the hull of the American submarine was not damaged.
It turned out that it was the Kostroma B-276, a top-class Russian nuclear fast submarine, that tried to surface and was hit by an American submarine. At a speed of 13 kilometers per hour, the stern of the Russian boat hit the belly of the American ship. The Kostroma's double-hulled titanium sail was partially destroyed by Baton Rouge, and pieces of the American submarine's sonar were later found on its surface.
Both submarines were designed to launch cruise missiles from a torpedo tube, some of the missiles could theoretically be equipped with nuclear warheads. However, Russia and the United States recently agreed to abandon such warheads under the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Therefore, it is likely that Baton Rouge no longer had such warheads. However, a more serious collision could have disrupted the ship's reactor and irradiated the submarines and surrounding waters.
Fortunately, this did not happen. The Baton Rouge circled and contacted the other submarine to ensure it did not require assistance, and then both vessels returned to port for repairs.
The accident led to one of the first US diplomatic incidents with the new Russian government, and US Secretary of State James Baker met with Yeltsin personally and assured that the United States would reduce the number of intelligence operations in Russian waters. However, the following year there was a report of another submarine collision, this time on the Kola Peninsula.
This incident also revealed differences in the definition of “international waters.” The United States follows the standard of measuring twelve miles from the nearest land mass. Baton Rouge was in accordance with this principle. However, Moscow defined these standards as twelve miles from the line formed by the two sides of the bay. According to this definition, Baton Rouge violated Russian territorial waters.
The Baton Rouge submarine was only seventeen years old. However, the cost of repairing the 110-meter-long vessel, combined with the already planned costs of nuclear refueling, was assessed as excessive and the boat was taken out of service in January 1995. However, Kostroma was repaired and returned to sea in 1997 and is still sailing today. Russian sailors painted a "victory" marking on their stern to mark the "defeat" of the Baton Rouge.
How did this even become possible? Some press articles described the incident as a cat-and-mouse game between submarines that had gone too far. Indeed, such dangerous games were common between ships of opposing countries and had already led to collisions in the past. However, this version is unlikely, because the submarine could be playing cat and mouse if it is able to detect another ship. But in the shallow waters near the island of Kildin this was hardly possible.
This is because in shallow water, shock waves create at least ten times more background noise for sonar, making it very difficult to recognize a submarine's almost silent propeller. In addition, even detected signals will be reflected from the ocean surface and surf, making them difficult to detect among background noise.
Analyst Evgeniy Myasnikov estimated in 1993 that the detection range of a slow-moving top-class submarine in such a noisy environment using passive sonars would likely be one hundred to two hundred meters, or less if the weather was windy. However, the detection range could possibly drop to zero if a Russian submarine approached under an arc of sixty degrees behind the Baton Rouge, which did not have the technical ability to detect the enemy in such conditions.
A Russian submarine would also have little chance of detecting a quieter American submarine. More powerful anti-submarine sensors would be effective in such conditions only at a range of three to five kilometers, which is not enough to detect the Baton Rouge. Submarines can also deploy towed sonars to increase their coverage, but they are difficult to monitor in shallow water and were not used during the incident.
A submarine or surface ship could also use sonar to launch sound waves that could bounce off the hull of another submarine. In shallow water this can increase the detection range to several kilometers. However, at the same time, the platform where the active sonar is used will be visible on the surface.
Baton Rouge most certainly did not use active sonar to remain undetected. The use of Kostroma active sonars was also not recorded. Thus, both vessels were not using active sonar, and their passive sonar was probably not strong enough to detect the other in shallow water. This explains why submarines longer than a football field could collide without noticing each other's presence.
As evidenced by the alarming collision in 2009 of the French submarine Triumphant, armed with nuclear missiles, with the British submarine Vanguard, the risks of underwater collisions between nuclear submarines remain very real today.
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The collision of the nuclear submarine K-276 with the American nuclear submarine Baton Rouge.
On February 11, 1992, our nuclear submarine K-276, later called Kostroma, under the command of Captain 2nd Rank Igor Lokt, collided with the American Los Angeles-class nuclear submarine Baton Rouge.
In 1992, when the Cold War seemed to have already ended, the geopolitical and ideological confrontation between Russia and the United States had ceased (at least on our part), we withdrew our boats from American shores, and the plans for operations of the US Navy submarine forces remained virtually unchanged. The American nuclear boat Baton Rouge with a displacement of 6,000 tons, armed with Tomahawk missiles, was collecting intelligence information about the naval activity of the Soviet Navy in the Kola Peninsula area.
The American boat, after detecting the Soviet boat, positioned itself behind it in its aft sector, in the acoustic shadow zone, and on a parallel
course crossed the border of Russian territorial waters together with our boat.
After some time, the K-276 acoustics detected some unclear noises. Commander Captain 2nd Rank twisted his elbow so that
enable acousticians to more accurately determine the source of noise. The American boat missed this maneuver and lost contact.
The commander of the American boat, Commander Gordon Kremer, began to rush about, began to ascend, in the hope of inspecting the clarity of the horizon, and maybe discovering
there is a submarine under the periscope. To clarify the situation, he mindlessly swam to periscope depth, thereby completely losing the opportunity
detection of K-276 by hydroacoustic means, and he himself found himself in the dead zone of its surveillance equipment (almost above it).
Since the time had come for the next radio communication session with the fleet command post, Igor Lokot was forced to begin ascent to periscope depth without additional clarification of the situation on the surface. At this time, at 20.16, a collision occurred. When approaching the periscope depth, the K-276 hit the American nuclear submarine with the front part of the conning tower fence into the strong hull, which created several relatively small holes in it, which allowed the Baton Rouge to independently reach its naval base. But her hull received internal stresses that made repairs to the boat impractical, and she was decommissioned from the US Navy, and her commander was removed from his post, which happens extremely rarely. According to unofficial data, that ram cost American submariners five lives. Our participant in this incident was already doing combat service in the ocean a year later. If the K-276 had started to ascend 7-10 seconds earlier, it would have hit the American submarine with its bow, which has a powerful hull, and would have broken its side, which would have led to the sinking of the US Navy nuclear submarine. In another case, the combat torpedoes in the K-276 torpedo tubes could have detonated, and then both nuclear boats would have died at the entrance to the Kola Bay, 10 miles from the coast, in the area through which all ships and vessels going to Murmansk pass, Severomorsk and from them.
"Kostroma" is now part of the same 7th division as "Kursk". On the conning tower of this boat there is a red five-pointed star with the number “1” in the center. This is how our submariners counted their victories during the Great Patriotic War. Traditions among submariners are alive. Kostroma commander Vladimir Sokolov answered the question of whether his superiors swear at such symbolism: “At first, of course, they frowned, saying that the Americans are now our friends, then they seemed to get used to it, but after Kursk, who can tell me what? about this? Is it just that the number is not very large!”
Oddly enough, during that underwater incident, neither Norwegian environmentalists nor the international Greenpeace said a word about the danger of an environmental disaster threatening radioactive contamination not only on the northern shores of Russia, but throughout Scandinavia.
Russian President Boris Yeltsin then accused the United States of continuing to deploy its submarine forces in close proximity to Russian shores. To settle the scandal, the then President of America George Bush Sr. (his son, Bush Jr., is now also the American President) flew to Moscow, and, promising a large loan, managed to somehow settle the matter. But the Americans stubbornly hid this fact of their boat’s collision from the world community for several years.
Valery Aleksin, who dealt with this collision, came to the conclusion that both commanders had no desire to collide, it was not intentional. But the American commander committed a number of violations, such as entering the territorial waters of the Russian Federation and sending the ship to the combat training area, the coordinates of which were brought to the attention of all states as an extremely high-risk zone. And after he lost contact with our boat, he should have, as good seamanship requires,
the practice of steering a ship, in order to avoid a collision, do not perform feverish maneuvers, but stop the progress and look around, in more detail
listen to the horizon, assess the situation.
One may get the impression that American submariners have always acted as cats chasing helpless Soviet kittens. In April 1980, when checking the cleanliness of the area before a tactical exercise in the Kamchatka region, the commander of the K-314 nuclear submarine Valery Khorovenkov, having discovered an American nuclear submarine, pursued it for 11 hours at a speed of 30 knots and a distance of 12-15 cables (2-3 km) with using the active paths of the hydroacoustic complex until it was driven under the ice of the Sea of Okhotsk. The pursuit was stopped only by order of the Pacific Fleet command post. It is only necessary for everyone to clearly understand that such races without rules of underwater objects with a displacement of 5000 tons each at a speed of 55 km/h do not end well. With any misunderstood maneuver, both giants will crush each other, along with their 250 crew members, nuclear reactors and almost a hundred missiles and torpedoes. The commanders of our nuclear-powered ships are full of courage and will to win. Just don't test their patience.
After a boat collision in 1992, a former submariner from the first crew of the first nuclear submarine of the Soviet Union, retired Rear Admiral N. Mormul, wrote an article that was published in Komsomolskaya Pravda entitled “Don’t be a fool, America!” with the question in the subtitle: "Why don't we sue the US Navy?" In the article, he described this collision, concluding that “... the authorship of the clumsy maneuver belongs to the commander of the US submarine. Why shouldn’t the American side, in this case, pay the cost of repairing our damaged boat?” And then he expressed the idea “that the CIS Navy should file a claim with the International Court of Justice and its restoration should be carried out at the expense of the US Navy.” “Restoring our boat will require serious material costs. Friendship is friendship, but if you are guilty, pay... If we remain silent today, if we do not act according to the laws accepted in a civilized society, we simply will not be understood – especially abroad.”
N. Mormul then addressed a letter to the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy, Fleet Admiral V. Chernavin. Got an answer. This was a report from the Chief of the Main Staff of the Navy, Admiral K. Makarov, with the resolution of the Commander-in-Chief - “I agree.” This is the report to the Commander-in-Chief, it is cited in his book “Disasters Under Water” by N. Mormul.
“To the Commander of the Navy, Admiral of the Fleet V.N. Chernavin. I am reporting: an appeal to you from Rear Admiral of the Reserve N.G. Mormul. compensation for damages at the expense of the US Navy through the International Court of Justice for the collision of our submarine with the Baton Rouge submarine in February 1992 was considered.
The following has been established.
1. There are no international rules for preventing collisions between submarines while underwater. COLREG-72 ensures the safety of navigation of ships and vessels that are only on the surface, in visual or radar visibility of each other.
2. Considering that the issue of preventing submarine collisions is not regulated by international law, there are no grounds for appealing to an international court.
3. Both commanders are to blame for the collision of these submarines, as well as any other ships.
It is not possible to establish the degree of guilt of each of them in this case.
4. On the occasion of this clash, a note was presented to the US government on behalf of the Russian government. The main cause of the collision was the violation of Russian territorial waters by a US Navy submarine. The American side denies the fact of violating our terrorist regulations. The issue of this incident was discussed at the 6th Congress of People's Deputies of the Russian Federation.
5. The Russian and American sides recognized the existence of the problem of preventing incidents with submarines. In May 1992, the first working meeting of representatives of the Russian Navy and the US Navy on this issue took place in Moscow, during which we proposed specific measures to prevent collisions between submarines of our countries in the Navy’s combat training grounds.
The parties agreed to continue dialogue on this issue.
Regarding the establishment of mutually recognized boundaries of territorial waters, negotiations between experts of the two countries will begin in the near future through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.
Admiral of the Fleet K. Makarov.”
In 1992, after the collision of the K-276 nuclear submarine Kostroma and Baton Rouge, the Main Headquarters of the Navy prepared a draft “Agreement between the government of the Russian Federation and the government of the United States of America on the prevention of incidents with submarines underwater outside the territorial water." It included organizational, technical, navigation and international legal activities. Since the fall of 1992, negotiations have been ongoing between the headquarters of the Russian Navy and the US Navy. According to eyewitnesses, in 1995 in Washington, Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev and First Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Admiral Igor Kasatonov, were told: “Let this remain between us. We will not sign any agreements. You will never have questions from us about this problem again.” However, soon after this, the then Chief of Staff of the US Navy, Admiral Burda, shot himself, and NATO nuclear submarines continue to sail into the Barents Sea as if it were their own backyard, endangering the submarines of the Russian Navy, the lives of their crews and threatening environmental disasters throughout Northern Europe. So this agreement was not signed, and questions about this problem with the death of the Kursk only increased.
American and Soviet submarines crashed into each other off the coast of Scotland 40 years ago, a declassified CIA document says.
In November 1974, the strategic missile submarine James Madison, designed to carry Poseidon nuclear missiles, crashed into a Soviet submarine that was sailing near the base of Holy Loch. The American boat surfaced, but the Soviet one disappeared.
Reports about this incident were made public, but only now it has been officially confirmed.
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During the Cold War, Soviet and American submarines collided more than once. The blogger tried to compile the most complete of such incidents:
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Collision of the nuclear submarine K-276 (SF) with the nuclear submarine Baton Rouge (US Navy)
One of the most famous collisions in the history of nuclear submarines is the incident on February 11, 1992. The Soviet nuclear submarine of the Northern Fleet K-276 of project 945 "Barracuda" (commander - captain 2nd rank Loktev) was in the combat training area near the coast of the Rybachy Peninsula at a depth of 22.8 meters. The actions of our sailors were secretly observed by the crew of the Los Angeles-class nuclear submarine Baton Rouge of the US Navy.
He talks about the incident:
The Russian nuclear torpedo submarine was at a combat training range near the Rybachy Peninsula, in Russian territorial waters. The submarine was commanded by Captain 2nd Rank I. Loktev. The crew of the boat passed the second course task (the so-called “L-2”) and the submarine followed at a depth of 22.8 meters. The American nuclear-powered submarine carried out reconnaissance missions and monitored its Russian “brother”, following at a depth of about 15 meters.
In the process of maneuvering, the acoustics of the American boat lost contact with the Sierra, and since there were five fishing vessels in the area, the noise of the propellers of which was similar to the noise of the propellers of a nuclear submarine, the commander of the Baton Rouge decided at 20 hours 8 minutes to surface to periscope depth and figure out environment. At that moment, the Russian boat was lower than the American one and at 20:13 it also began to ascend to conduct a communication session with the shore. The fact that Russian hydroacoustics were tracking their ship was not detected, and at 20:16 a submarine collision occurred. During the collision, "Kostroma" rammed the bottom of the American "filer" with its wheelhouse. Only the low speed of the Russian boat and the shallow depth during ascent allowed the American submarine to avoid death. Traces of a collision remained on the deckhouse of the Kostroma, which made it possible to identify the violator of the territorial waters. The Pentagon was forced to admit its involvement in the incident.
Photo of Kostroma after the collision 
Photo of Kostroma after the collision 
Photo of Kostroma after the collision As a result of the collision, Kostroma damaged its wheelhouse fence and was soon repaired. There were no casualties on our side. "Baton Rouge" was completely disabled. One American sailor died. A good thing, however, is the titanium case. At the moment, there are 4 such buildings in the Northern Fleet: Kostroma, Nizhny Novgorod, Pskov and Karp.
And here is what our leaders, our professionals, wrote about the analysis of this incident:
Reasons for the collision of the submarine SF K - 276 with the submarine "BATON ROUGE" of the US Navy
1. Objective:
Violation of Russian territorial waters by foreign submarines
Incorrect classification of submarine noise due to the alleged use of equipment for masking the acoustic field as RT noise (GNATS).
2. Disadvantages in organizing surveillance:
Poor quality analysis of information on the OI and the recorder of the 7A-1 GAK MGK-500 device (the fact of observing a collision object was not revealed - target N-14 at a minimum distance in terms of the S/P ratio in various frequency ranges)
Unjustifiably large (up to 10 min) gaps in measuring bearings to the target, which did not allow the use of methods for clarifying the distance to the target based on the VIP value
Incompetent use of active and passive means on the course of listening to stern heading angles, which led to the use of the entire time spent on this course only for the work of P/N echo direction finding, and in the ShP mode the horizon remained virtually unlistened
Weak leadership of the SAC operators on the part of the SAC commander, which led to an incomplete analysis of information and erroneous classification of the target.
3. Disadvantages in the activities of the crew “GKP-BIP-SHTURMAN”:
The estimated time for crossing the horizon at courses of 160 and 310 degrees, which led to a short time spent on these courses and the creation of suboptimal conditions for the work of the SAC operators;
Poor quality documentation of the situation and measured MPCs;
Lack of organization of secondary classification of goals;
The commander of the warhead-7 did not fulfill his responsibilities for issuing recommendations to the submarine commander for special maneuvering to clarify the control center in accordance with Article 59 of the RRTS-1;
The danger of a collision with a low-noise, short-range maneuvering target was not identified.
As always, our calculations GKP-BIP-SHTURMAN are to blame. And no one cared about the technical capabilities of our acoustics at that time. Of course, conclusions were drawn from the accident. But they were made not in the direction of improving the quality of our technical means of observation, but in the direction of the appearance of a bunch of different “instructions” about what is allowed and what is not allowed, so that it would be better and so that suddenly again we would not accidentally ram our “friends” into our tervodakh.
Hearing the name “K-10”, someone may remember metal doors - that’s the name of the brand of one of them; some use ceramic capacitors; someone - microprocessors: some of them have the same abbreviation... Submariners will immediately think of the nuclear-powered submarine of the Pacific Fleet, commanded by Captain 1st Rank Valery Medvedev. And, of course, they will immediately remember the rumors about how Medvedev sank a Chinese submarine, as a result of which about a hundred people allegedly died.
01/21/1983. Nuclear missile submarine K-10. Project 675, NATO designation Echo-II. While underwater, she collided with an unknown object. After surfacing, nothing but solarium stains were found. None of the countries in the Pacific region reported accidents of their submarines. Only two years later, an obituary appeared in the Chinese press regarding the death on that day of a group of scientists on a submarine. These events were not officially compared.
We will try to compare. If only because Medvedev himself has been living with this memory for 28 years.
Secrets of the Cold War
We recently met with the former captain of the K-10 nuclear submarine Valery Nikolaevich. Obninsk, Moscow region. An ordinary apartment with ordinary furnishings. Paintings on the walls depicting the sea and submarines indicate that a sailor’s family lives here. On the coffee table you can see a thick piece of metal - part of the casing of a durable case: it is clear that the commander was preparing for a meeting with a journalist. Valery Nikolaevich in an officer's uniform. For courage?
To begin with, let us remember that the collision of “K-10” with “some” boat was neither the first nor the last. If you list all the underwater collisions, you might get the impression that the World Ocean is teeming with submarines floating in it, like minestroni soup is teeming with boiled vegetables. By the way, among the recent versions of the accident of the Concordia passenger liner off the Italian coast, there is also a version of a collision with a submarine. Among other memorable rumors: the Americans were more than once accused that it was their fault that the Kursk disaster occurred: they say that two US submarines of the Los Angeles project - Memphis and Toledo - were in the area of the Northern Fleet exercises on August 12, 2000. And after the disaster, Memphis called at the Norwegian port of Bergen for repairs. But the US Department of Defense did not allow the Russian side to inspect these ships to make sure that none of them was damaged.
Hero of the Soviet Union, Vice Admiral Yevgeny Chernov, recalled the incident when our K-306 rammed the American Patrick Henry so much that it surfaced, and its crew began to energetically fight for survivability.
Admiral Igor Kasatonov in his memoirs “The Fleet Entered the Ocean” writes: “20 underwater collisions, largely due to the fault of the Americans, have occurred recently. The heaviest was the K-19 ram on November 15, 1969, which laid the American boat Getow to the bottom of the Barents Sea. Then only a miracle saved the Americans from death.”
...There are dozens, if not hundreds, of such examples. Accidents and disasters, as a rule, were not described in the press - during the Cold War, and even after them, it was customary to classify everything. And then there was no Internet and WikiLeaks. And sailors, by force of habit, are not inclined to stir up the past. But although very late, the truth is trying to emerge. This is how an oily stain floats up, signaling that an accident has occurred somewhere in the depths of the sea. And only the short-sighted will dismiss it when looking at this stain. The truth is not needed to delve into an old wound. It is needed at least in order to learn lessons and prevent a repetition of the tragedy.
A submariner friend of mine, now retired, Anatoly Safonov wrote on his website: “...captain 1st rank Valery Medvedev is a patriot of his country, which he selflessly served all his life. He showed his love for the Motherland in the exemplary performance of his official duties...”
It looks like a line from a party profile. But, according to Safonov himself, who is not inclined to either sentimentality or great respect for party political bodies, these words in relation to Medvedev are fair and accurate.
The only thing that did not go well with Safonov in his exemplary characterization of the brave sailor was the silent question of history: why was he silent for so long and did not dare to tell the truth about what happened? Looking ahead, I’ll note: it seemed to me that during our conversation Valery Nikolaevich did not say everything.
So, sitting in front of me was a short, strong pensioner. He spoke quietly, not the way commanders usually speak in the fleet.
Valery Nikolaevich recalled...
Chinese ram
On January 22, 1983, K-10 was in the South China Sea. Military service went on as usual, and, as they write in such cases, “nothing foreshadowed trouble.” The depth under the keel is 4,500 meters (submariners joke: “It’s a five-minute bus ride”). It was Saturday. After washing, the submarine personnel watched a feature film in the first compartment.
The area designated for contact was reached eight hours ahead of schedule. It was necessary to enter the area itself at a strictly appointed time.
Commander Medvedev decided to check the lack of tracking by the US and Japanese anti-submarine forces. When turning on the opposite course, I received relevant reports from hydroacoustics. Everything was clean! Immersion depth is 54 meters.
Suddenly there was a shock: it felt as if the boat had collided with some kind of obstacle. The blow was soft but powerful. The entire hull of the submarine shook violently from the collision. "K-10", as if grappling with an unknown object, moved with it for some time. Then they disengaged. An emergency alarm was immediately declared. The first three nasal compartments were sealed along with the people in them.
Over the speakerphone, Medvedev requested the first compartment. The answer is silence. Deafening. One can imagine the commander’s feelings at these moments. Meanwhile, the boat followed its own course and a given depth, with a slight drop in speed. The trim on the bow has increased slightly.
Medvedev says: “I constantly asked for the first compartment. The sailors probably received severe stress from the impact of the collision; they had to find out the situation... After two minutes, which seemed like an eternity to me, a report came from the first: the compartment is sealed!”
At 21:31 we surfaced. A typhoon was raging over the sea. The monstrous wind and huge waves tossed the boat like a small piece of wood. The nights in those latitudes are dark, maybe that’s why, looking through the periscope optics of the sea, Medvedev, according to him, saw nothing. Gave the command to return to the point of collision. Arriving there, he, the navigator and the signalman saw the orange flashing light of a retreating submarine. After about 30-40 seconds the fire disappeared.
Medvedev repeated several times: “I’m talking about seeing the flashing lights of a submarine now for the first time...”
Valery Nikolaevich fell silent. Apparently, he remembered those difficult moments. He mentally returned to that area hundreds of times and tried to understand which boat the collision had occurred with. I came to the conclusion that it was from Chinese. And that's why. In accordance with the Decree of the USSR Government of January 9, 1959, TsKB-16 from March to December 1959 prepared working drawings and technical documentation for Project 629 with the D-1 complex with R-11FM missiles for transfer to the People's Republic of China. By the fall of 1960, the laying of the first of the Chinese submarines of Project 629 took place at the shipyard in Dalian (China, formerly Dalny). To speed up its construction, Soviet designs were widely used, as well as equipment and mechanisms from the K-139 submarine (launched on water in May 1960). The construction of the Chinese submarine was completed at the end of 1961 and received hull number 200. At the same time, a submarine with serial number 138 was laid down in Komsomolsk-on-Amur.
After construction, the ship was transported in parts to China and at the end of 1962 it was put into operation under number 208. Later, two years after the K-10 incident, it became known that in 1983 this Chinese submarine No. 208 perished with its entire crew and a group of scientists and engineers during testing of the Chinese JL-1 ballistic missile.
Considering that the Project 629 boats have a crew of about 100 people and that there was also a group of civilian specialists, we can only guess the exact number of casualties.
It is noteworthy that the Chinese side never officially linked the collision with the death of this boat. Now we can say with almost one hundred percent certainty that the PRC submarine was lost as a result of a collision with the K-10. If the K-10 submarine had been at the point of impact five seconds earlier, perhaps it would now be lying at a depth of 4,500 meters.
...Medvedev, of course, immediately reported the collision to the fleet. In response, it was ordered to proceed on the surface to the Cam Ranh base, located in South Vietnam. They were escorted by the approaching BOD Petropavlovsk. When inspecting the boat (for this purpose a trim was made to the stern), it turned out that its bow was severely damaged. Pieces of alien metal were found among the mangled nose of the K-10. The K-10 steel keel track, 30 mm thick and about 32 meters long, was cut off like a razor during the collision.
After inspecting the submarine, the fleet command decided that in emergency condition it could overcome 4,500 kilometers to the main base in a submerged position, forcing the passage of Bashi, Okinawa and the Korean Strait on the surface. Of course, this was almost madness: with such and such damage - and in a submerged position! But an order is an order. Without acoustic stations, almost to the touch, but 4500 km went well. Medvedev was confident in his crew. And the crew did not let their commander down. In a different situation, the sailors would have received awards for such a transition.
But not at this time. This time, Commander-in-Chief of the USSR Navy S.G. Gorshkov reprimanded Medvedev.
"Blind" and "Dead"
Not only the details of that incident emerge, but also the questions: how could this happen? Complex hydrology in the area? Poor capabilities of hydroacoustic stations? Poor training of hydroacoustics? Are there so-called blind or dead spots? Why did the crew of the PRC boat make the same mistakes?
It is known that there was an investigation into the causes of the accident by specialists from the technical management commission of the Pacific Fleet and the Navy. Why, in this case, didn’t even the submariners of the Pacific Fleet know about it?
There is an opinion from a participant in those events. Alexander Dobrogorsky served on the K-10, and on that day he acted as a mechanical engineer on watch. This is what he wrote to me: “As far as I remember - and a lot of time has passed - we began to circulate to the left, and a blow followed. That is a collision. This means that they (the Chinese submarine - author's note) were on our tail. Or this is a fatal accident, which I do not believe: the World Ocean is too large for such accidents.
...Why didn’t the Chinese figure out our maneuver, i.e. circulation? Only God knows. Most likely their hydroacoustics were poorly trained. As far as I know, when tracking submarine after submarine, the depths must be different and there must be a certain distance to the object, so that if something happens, you can have time to make a counter-maneuver. But that time it didn’t happen: two grains of sand met in the boundless depths, it’s just some kind of phenomenon...
…Upon arrival in Cam Ranh, members of the State Commission were already waiting for us. They didn’t let us go to the pier; they put us at anchor. A boat with members of the commission and divers approached. No one was allowed upstairs. The specialists examined everything. The findings of the inspection were not reported to us. Medvedev seems to have been crushed by the academy, not given a capraz (the rank of captain of the 1st rank - Ed.) and reprimanded on behalf of the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy.
...After returning to Pavlovsk, we began to cut out mutilated torpedo tubes, the covers of which were torn off at the moment of impact, and there were torpedoes with nuclear warheads (nuclear ammunition).
After talking with some other submariners, it turned out that the senior officer on board the K-10 was the chief of staff of the 29-1 submarine division, Captain 2nd Rank Krylov. After the boats collided, a special department officer seized the logbooks of the central post and the navigator. Krylov talked for a long time with the special officer. As a result of a private conversation, it was decided to rewrite these journals. They even rewrote the log of the main power plant, because... the speed limit of the nuclear submarine when moving to the combat duty area was greatly violated and the boat arrived in the area 3 hours earlier. It was impossible to enter the duty area before. So we hung around him until we ran into the Chinese.”
And here is the opinion of the former commander of the nuclear submarine Viktor Bondarenko, with whom we met there, in Obninsk:
– Valery Nikolaevich did everything correctly. Why did he approach the area 8 hours earlier, apparently there were some reasons for this, but that’s his problem. The bad thing is that there are no time parameters - when they collided, when they returned to the collision site, what the speeds were, etc.
The tracking of a nuclear-powered submarine by a Chinese diesel submarine - only an amateur can reason this way. The Chinese were conducting the next stage of testing, the crew was not trained, they were generally forbidden to be distracted by unusual tasks, except for testing. Even if they discovered a Soviet nuclear-powered submarine, they should have radioed about it to the shore and continued their work. What the submarines had in common was that, in terms of technical characteristics, they had almost identical acoustic stations.
The crew on the K-10 was trained, and the maneuver to check the stern heading angles is very important, and the acousticians are very attentive to this.
Let's think. Since the boats collided, it means they were at the same depth - 54 meters. Medvedev goes on to say that at that time a storm was raging above. And if so, then the noise of both submarines was masked by the noise of the sea. In this situation, even good acoustics and an excellent hydroacoustics specialist will not distinguish the noise of a submarine from the noise of the sea - this is an axiom.
Medvedev notes that after surfacing, he discovered an orange flashing light. This means that the Chinese boat also surfaced, but why it sank after that is a question. If she did not drown after the collision, but surfaced and then drowned, then this is completely incomprehensible. This means that they did something wrong, because miracles do not happen, if everything was so complicated, then after the collision they would have sunk like a stone, remembering Mao. So there is no need for Valery Nikolaevich to hang all the dogs on himself.
Acoustic shadow
In 1981, at one of the Northern Fleet training grounds near the Kola Bay, a collision occurred between Soviet and American nuclear submarines. Then the American submarine, with its wheelhouse, rammed the stern of the Soviet newest strategic missile submarine cruiser K-211, which had just joined the Northern Fleet and was practicing elements of combat training. The American boat in the area of the collision did not surface. But a few days later, a US nuclear submarine appeared in the area of the English naval base of Holy Loch with pronounced damage to the wheelhouse. Our boat surfaced and arrived at the base under its own power. Here a commission consisting of specialists from the navy, industry, science and the designer was waiting for her.
The commission, having simulated the maneuver situation of two boats and examined the damage sites, found that the American boat was following our boat in its aft sectors, remaining in the acoustic shadow for it. As soon as our boat changed course, the American boat lost contact and blindly crashed its wheelhouse into the stern of the Soviet boat. She was docked, and there, upon inspection, holes were found in two aft tanks of the main ballast, damage to the right propeller blades and the horizontal stabilizer. Bolts with countersunk heads, pieces of metal and plexi from the wheelhouse of an American submarine were found in the damaged main ballast tanks. Moreover, based on individual details, the commission was able to establish that the collision occurred precisely with an American submarine of the Sturgeon class, which was later confirmed by the appearance in Holy Loch of a boat with a damaged conning tower of this particular class.
... Projecting this case into the case of a collision with a Chinese boat, you involuntarily come to the version that the cause of the collision could have been these notorious “stern sectors with acoustic shadows.”
We can also recall another incident - the collision of the Sierra-class nuclear submarine (Northern Fleet) with the Baton Rouge nuclear submarine (US Navy) on February 11, 1992. The Soviet nuclear torpedo submarine (presumably it was the K-239 Karp) was in a combat training area near the Rybachy Peninsula, in Russian territorial waters. The submarine was commanded by Captain 2nd Rank I. Loktev. The boat was traveling at a depth of 22.8 meters. The American nuclear-powered ship was tracking its Russian “brother”, following at a depth of about 15 meters. In the process of maneuvering, the acoustics of the American boat lost contact with the Sierra, and since there were five fishing vessels in the area, the noise of the propellers of which was similar to the noise of the propellers of a nuclear submarine, the commander of the Baton Rouge decided at 20 hours 8 minutes to surface to periscope depth and find out in the setting. At that moment, the Russian boat was lower than the American one and also began to ascend to conduct a communication session with the shore. There was a submarine collision. During the collision, the Sierra rammed the bottom of the American submarine with its wheelhouse. Only the low speed of the Russian boat and the shallow depth during ascent allowed the American submarine to avoid death.
...This is an example of what seems to be an accident. But, as we know, there are no accidents at sea. Statistics show: from 1968 to 2000, there were about 25 collisions of foreign nuclear submarines (mostly American) with Soviet and Russian submarines underwater. Of these, 12 are off our coasts, on the approaches to the main bases of nuclear submarines in the Northern (nine collisions) and Pacific fleets (three collisions). As a rule, incidents occurred at combat training ranges (CT), where submarines, after changing part of the crew, practice the tasks of the combat training course.
According to the Defense Express research center, in the history of the fleet there have been seven cases of sinking of nuclear submarines: two American (Thresher and Scorpion) and five Soviet (K-8, K-219, K-278) "Komsomolets", "K-27", nuclear submarine "Kursk"). Four Soviet nuclear submarines were lost as a result of the accident, and one was sunk in the Kara Sea by decision of the responsible government departments due to the impossibility of restoration and the high cost of disposal.
In most cases, if it was not possible to accurately determine the reasons for the death of a submarine, the perpetrators preferred to deny their involvement in it. And sometimes even despite obvious evidence, using the good old principle “If you’re not caught, you’re not a thief.”
Default figure
I once met the US naval attaché in Russia. Small in stature, strong, with a bunch of awards on his snow-white uniform shirt... He seemed to radiate joy from the success of his life. The straightened shoulders actually demonstrated this joy. It turned out that he was the former commander of the Los Angeles-class nuclear submarine. “I was a commander for four years!” – he said with genuine pride.
“Just think, four years,” I answered, “we have 8-9 years as commanders...” He looked at me with disbelief. But I called an admiral I knew, also a former commander of a nuclear submarine, and asked him to confirm my words. He confirmed.
The American was very surprised. “Why,” he couldn’t believe it completely, “I know how hard it is... Eight years... It’s impossible.”
Well, yes, well, yes... For a German (an American in this case) to die is quite possible for a Russian.
And I remembered Medvedev, who was a nuclear submarine commander for nine (!) years. Pensioner Medvedev looked good. But during our conversation about the prestige of the service, his shoulders were not turned back from a feeling of pride. I remember this well. As well as the fact that the former commander never told me something about that collision...