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Editor’s Note: This is the second of a two-part feature on the sinking of the Mike. For a look at Soviet press coverage of the incident see “The Soviet View,” August 1989 Proceedings, pp. 114-115.)
By 15 April, the state commission investigating the loss of the submarine held a news conference for Soviet journalists. That commission included a secretary of the [party] Central Committee; a deputy chairman of the [government] Council of Ministers; Admiral Vladimir N. Cher- navin, the Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Navy; and two other full admirals from the Defense and Navy Main Political Directorates. At that conference, Admiral Chemavin responded frankly to hostile questions from the press about the Navy’s performance and equipment. Such questioning, however, persisted. For example, on 3 May Literary Gazette, the Soviet intellectuals’ newspaper, printed a letter to the Minister of Defense, posing five questions to which he responded on 17 May.
On 13 May, more than one month after the sinking, Admiral Chernavin gave a long and detailed interview to the editor of the naval department of Red Star. The interview, entitled “The Sinking of the Komsomolets: Reality and Conjecture,” included the following editorial introduction:
“The sinking of the Soviet nuclear submarine Komsomolets in the Norwegian Sea continues to worry the public. It is only natural that the mass media, which is not taking their eyes off the event, are playing a large role here. Unfortunately, far from all the information given by them is objective in nature; not all journalists’ ideas, conclusions, and deductions correspond to reality. . . .
“Even today, the state commission, which is continuing its work, has not completely clarified all issues. However, even incomplete information should not be distorted.”
In the interview, Admiral Chemavin acknowledged problems with the receipt of the distress signals:
“On the morning of 7 April the Northern Fleet Staff and the Navy Main Staff had received a signal Iron1 a submarine at 1141. The signal was greatly distorted and was therefore difficult to understand. ... At 1219. a clear signal was received from if and all immediately became clear. The kind of ship, its location, and the fact that there was a fire on board.
Then, Admiral Chernavin gave some insights into the Navy’s initial view of the situation:
“A fire on board a submarine ts not, unfortunately, so rare a thing- During my command of a nuclear submarine, I myself had to conten with various short circuits and fl‘lS
fires. . . . When I commanded a divt'
sion and flotilla, however, I had m deal with more serious incidents. So1 was not difficult to picture the init^ situation on the Komsomolets. The fact that it subsequently began to de velop in a pretty unusual fashion 151 another matter.
“The way of fighting a fire in
the
Bu1
Leningrad Admiralty Association, progress on a number of original su mersible projects, including an under*11 ter habitat, an autonomous hydrostat. prototype diver-rescue bell, and under water observation chambers, was inter rupted by World War II.
operation, EPRON assumed sole responsibility for emergency rescue, salvage, and underwater engineering work in the Soviet Union. In 1926, the Council of Labor and Defense, the predecessor of the Politburo’s Defense Council, approved the EPRON charter. A year later, the Central Committee authorized the Expedition’s military staff to wear the uniform and emblem of the Workers and Peasants Red Fleet. It also approved a stem flag and broad pennant for the expedition’s ships. Red Army statutes regulated EPRON operations, although the Expedition was officially equivalent to the border flotillas of the OGPU. In 1931, the Council of Labor and Defense transferred supervision of EPRON from the OGPU to the People’s Commissariat of Marine Transportation. It became an All-Union organization, but maintained its military structure.
The expedition rapidly expanded between the mid-1920s and late 1930s as it assimilated the diving and salvage properties nationalized by Vladimir Lenin in June 1919. EPRON included a main directorate in Leningrad; the Northern Expedition in Murmansk, with a subordinate emergency rescue detachment in Archangel; the Baltic Expedition in Leningrad; the Central Region Expedition in Moscow; the Black Sea Expedition in
Sevastopol, with subordinate detachments in Novorossiysk and Odessa; the Caspian Expedition in Baku, with a subordinate detachment in Astrakhan; the Pacific Ocean Expedition in Vladivostok; and the Naval Diving Technicum in Bala- klava. By 1940, EPRON had 3,200 men, including 600 divers; 28 rescue and other vessels and salvage pontoons, with an aggregate lifting capacity of 18,750 tons.6
EPRON became the center of Soviet diving and underwater technology development after the diving school of the People's Commissariat of the Army and Navy at Kronshtadt and the central diving base of the People’s Commissariat of Transportation combined with its own diving school to form the Naval Diving Technicum.7 In association with Military Medical Academy efforts, EPRON physiological experiments helped develop an oxygen device for exiting a submarine in an emergency and decompression tables for safe ascents.8 Such work enabled EPRON divers to set world records, including dives to 265 feet below the surface without a rigid diving suit, and to raise a submarine from 264 feet in the Gulf of Finland.
Although the expedition acquired pumps, compressors, and other salvage equipment through technology transfers with the West, its engineering seed01’ developed indigenous designs for spec1' rescue ships, diver boats, pontoons- deep-water submersibles, and other un derwater technologies. Two lead rescue ships, the Neptune and Saturn, for exa111 pie, were constructed by what is now
World War II: On 22 June 1941, lttf Soviet Navy absorbed EPRON, transfer^ ring Expedition subunits to the Soy1 Northern, Baltic, Black Sea, and Paci11 fleets as well as to the Caspian, Volg®’ and Dnieper flotillas. EPRON retained1 name until 1942, when it was des1? nated as the Soviet Navy’s Emergent Rescue Service (AvariynospasateT 9 sluzhba).9 The navy appointed Re ^ Admiral-Engineer Aleksandr Frolov head the service and M. N. KaznacheyCy as political commissar of the service - main directorate. ,s
A formal statute issued by the People^ Commissariat of the Navy in Augu 1941 assigned the service these tasks- ► Managing emergency rescue supp0
106
Proceedings / September
By Captain William H. J. Manthorpe, U. S. Navy (Retired)
Buried in the depths, the Komsomolets tested the frankness and openness 01 the post-glasnost Soviet press and military leadership.
compartment is well known to all submariners: The compartment is hermetically sealed to prevent ingress of air, and the fire-extinguisher system, which fixes the oxygen, comes into action. The system is usually effective enough. But we are now working on
the hypothesis, and will be testing it out» that the system is not so effective at Very high temperatures. But in general any fire on a submarine is—and the submariner understands this— very dangerous. . . .
“Even at 1518, Captain First Rank Vanin reported in his communication that there was no ingress of water and that the fire was being extinguished by the hermetic sealing. At 1650, a report was received from the submarine commander . . . ‘The fight for survival goes on.’
“As Captain First Rank B.
Kolyada, deputy division commander and second in command on board, subsequently told me, Vanin and he judged the situation as follows: The fire was localized in number six and seven compartments, speed had been lost, but there was no threat of sinking, and there was every possibility of being towed to base.
“The [subsequent] report of the foundering of the submarine was a surprise for everyone, of course, including me.”
In response to a question about working in “an atmosphere of glastnost. Admiral Chemavin commented:
“First, I consider [glastnost] quite right. Although, to be blunt, we had had no experience of [working under] conditions of glastnost’. Nor clearly had representatives of the mass media either. Difficulties and sometimes clashes arose, therefore.
“A conflict arose with Komsomol Pravda correspondents, for example. They wanted to board the cruiser
. e fleet, salvaging sunken ships, car- ins ^ °Ut underwater-technical and div- alo ass'§nments, and conducting ships ^ >ag internal waterways reeveloping new methods for salvage, ^ ivi6’ an<^ underwater engineering work gen ana2'n8 the special training of emer- jt „cy fescue personnel ^PPorting the navy with diving, sdp rgCnCy rescue’ salvage, and other ^ jClal equipment
actjv^cting/supervising military diving
(jj^n *942, the navy established a scien- dj research division within the main Sp eetorate to organize the manufacture of tech*3 emergency rescue and salvage batn°*°gies required to support its com- Var. Orations. The Soviets produced a the 6 ^ °* sa*vage and diving equipment '»m"1SClVeS’ ant* a*so exploited lend-lease lq^°ns to obtain U. S. technology. In nee ’ *°r example, a group of naval engi- Chars visited the United States to pur- aSsSe motors, electric pumps, welding rnblies, and other equipment.11 this rgency *tescue Service units received ^r„. tec*lno*°gy after it was shipped to p. angel, Murmansk, and Baku.
ResUring the “Great Patriotic War,” der Ue ^erv>ce units and associated un- vaater-engineering detachments sal- u sunken warships and military
t‘r<w,...
ea,nEs / September 1989
equipment, repaired underwater battle damage to combat ships, supported amphibious landings, cleared ports and river channels of mines and underwater debris, restored moorings, and laid underwater cables and pipelines. Military divers drawn from the detachments also may have been used for naval special operations that required underwater demolitions or similar specialized skills.
Post-War Evolution: After the end of the war, the State Defense Committee assigned the rescue service responsibility for clearing all ports and river channels of mines and debris, salvaging naval and commercial ships, raising military equipment and destroyed bridges, restoring water development projects, and providing emergency rescue assistance to vessels in distress.12 The scope of these salvage tasks was immense, given the wartime damage suffered by the Soviet naval and merchant fleets. By the mid- 1950s, for example, the Soviets had salvaged approximately 3,916 ships with a collective displacement of 2,721,000 tons from the various theaters.13 In comparison Allied shipping losses to the Germans totaled 15,619,853 tons.
The Soviet Navy’s postwar expansion from a coastal defense force to an open- ocean power generated new technological requirements for search, rescue, and salvage in the 1960s. As Rear Admiral Nikolai Chiker, the head of the service from 1957 to 1972, stated:
“The technical reequipping of the Fleet, the supplying of all its forces with nuclear missile arms, the considerable increase in the cruising depth of submarines and their switch to atomic energy fundamentally changed the conditions and character of the Emergency-Rescue Service’s activities. There emerged the necessity to train divers to work at great depths, to create new, more advanced rescue and salvage ships and equipment.”14
Indeed, Soviet sources indicate that the USS Thresher (SSN-593) disaster in April 1963 made as strong an impression on the Soviet Navy as it did on the U. S. Navy.15 Although the submarine was lost far beyond her collapse depth in 8,400 feet of water, crew rescue still would have been impossible since the U. S. Navy’s rescue system at the time—the McCann diving bell—was limited to about 675 feet. In response to the disaster, the U. S. Navy initiated the Deep Submergence Systems Project. Similarly, the Thresher's loss provided a stimulus to the Soviet development of modem emergency rescue and salvage technologies.
Kirov, which had brought back the rescued sailors. They were refused and given explanations for the refusal. The correspondents did not want to listen. . . .
“[For them] to accuse us of a desire for undue secrecy and a bias toward protecting our own bureaucratic interests is, 1 think, incorrect. And yet when someone, even if a journalist, seeks to place his professional interests above all others, surely that [constitutes] a narrow, bureaucratic approach?
“The offense felt by the Komsomol Pravda correspondents took the form of their publishing articles that misinformed the whole country.
Admiral Chernavin then continued: “On the first day of the state commission’s work in the fleet, a press center was set up under [a] commission member. ... On the very first evening, he was ready to give journalists the information that he had, but only the representatives of two central newspapers . . . came to the meeting with him. . . . Subsequently, we tried to provide the most important information at regular intervals. But that, apparently, was not enough. The journalists thought that we were still hiding something from them all the time. In fact, we ourselves constantly wanted more information than we actually had. . . .
“That is why glastnost’, in my view, demands the utmost responsibility. It is a bad thing when there is a shortage of information, but it is incomparably worse when deeply worried people are given disinformation. Issue number 18 of [the popular weekly magazine] Ogonyok, for example, published an article entitled ‘Tragedy in the Norwegian Sea: Myths and Realities,’ by Vaiz Yunisov. Generally speaking, there were so many mistakes in that article that ... if the crew of the Komsomo- lets had made even a fraction of that number [of mistakes], the submarine would have sunk without having time to surface.”
Admiral Chernavin concluded:
“But times are changing fast and the Main [navy] Staff’s functions in its relationship with the mass media are being reviewed from day to day. And opposition here is simply futile.
Fair criticism, no matter how unpleasant, is beneficial. But uninformed criticism and unfounded complaints-" what do they contribute apart fronl an eruption of bitterness among tlie public?”
When asked about allegations ot “the fleet command’s desire to prevent the top secret nature of the Komsomolets fron1 becoming known,” Chernavin answered'
“Neither the illustration in [*he German newspaper] Stern, which was reprinted in the Komsomol Pravdm the illustration from [the Norwegi311 newspaper] Aftenposten, which aP' peared in [the Communist Party jour' nal] Arguments and Facts; nor the tactical and technical characteristic5 cited there, have anything to do wit the stricken submarine. If those West em publications had studied J°ne 5 [Fighting Ships] more closely, 0IJ page 554 they could have found what they needed: a photograph of the Komsomolets [a Mike-class subma rine, according to NATO classify0 tion] and its data. It is all quite accu rately described there, apart from the number of reactors: The Komsomole,s has one reactor, not two. The d*s
The Modern Search, Rescue and Salvage Service: In 1979, the service became the Search, Rescue, and Salvage Service (Poiskovo spasatel’ nay a sluzhba) of the Soviet Navy.16 The change in name may have been prompted by the introduction of new capabilities into the service’s force structure. Since the late 1960s, for example, the Search, Rescue, and Salvage Service has acquired the El’brus-, Pioner Moskvvy-, Ingul-, and A'epa-class submarine rescue ships; India-class auxiliary salvage and rescue submarines (AGSSs); 11.3- and 12.1- meter deep-submergence rescue vehicles (DSRVs); the 13.7-meter El’brus deep- submergence vehicle; various remotely operated vehicles, deep-water observation chambers; and diving bells.17
The Soviets employed some of these capabilities, including the 13.7-meter submersible, in the search for the flight data and cockpit voice recorders from Korean Airlines Flight 007, which a So-
Soviet research in emergency salvage and rescue, begun in the 1920s, has produced the Mir (here, being lowered for a test in a 1988 oceanologi- cal expedition) and deep-submergence rescue vehicles, seen here on board an India-class submarine.
viet aircraft shot down in September 1983.18 In August 1987, the Soviets used a Pacific Fleet India-class AGSS carrying two 12.1-meter DSRVs in a salvage operation in the Sea of Okhotsk to search for the wreckage—and possibly retrieve sensitive equipment—of an aircraft believed to be either a MiG-27 Flogger or Su-17 Fitter that crashed during a low- altitude mission the previous month.19
In their efforts to locate and examine the Komsomolets on the bottom of the Norwegian Sea in May and June, Soviet authorities evidently found it necessary to supplement the capabilities of the Search, Rescue, and Salvage Service with resources from the Academy of Sciences.
In early May, the Soviet Union dis patched the Academy’s oceanography ship Akademik Mstislav Keldysh along with the salvage ship Mikhail RudnitsW and the Leningrad Naval Base hydr° graphic ship Persey to locate the subma rine and make salvage recommendation5- Once the Komsomolets was found, 6,000-meter-capable Mir submersibk-j carried on board the Keldysh, was sen down for photographs. The deep-divin^ vehicle, designed and built in Finland by Rauma-Repola, is reportedly equipPe with cameras for still, motion picture and wide-format stereoscopic photog’W phy.20 It also has manipulators, with 7 0 free movement, capable of lifting 80 hi
Placement, crew size, and speed are somewhat exaggerated. As Jane’s Points out, this particular submarine is Ihe only one of its kind in the Soviet Navy. It cannot be the largest in the 'vorld, because the largest submarines have a displacement of 20,000 tons, whereas the Komsornolets has a displacement of just 5,700 tons. And our fastest submarine is a completely dif- erent one. Therefore, this reprint has n'erely increased the number of people who have been misinformed.” went on to note:
1 haven’t heard anybody put such a request to us, but we would, of c°urse, have reported general information. There is nothing special to mde here. The submarine was deigned back in the 1960s and was a °ng time under construction [launched in 1983]. It has one special eature: It has a reinforced titanium hall, enabling it to dive to 1,000 met- e,rs [3,250 feet]. ... It was planned that at great depths, the ballast tanks would be blown, not using compressed air, which is less efficient 7®re> but using special powder charges situated outside the reinforced
hull.”
When asked, “What is the most likely scenario of the event?” Admiral Cher- navin replied:
“A tragic concatenation of rare circumstances occurred on the submarine that required conflicting methods to save the ship. . . . The fire required the sealing off of one compartment, but the rupturing of the main high pressure [air] pipe and the air filling the compartment meant that it had to be unsealed. There was a third factor: Short circuits in the power network caused a large number of small fires virtually throughout the submarine. . . . The situation was aggravated by a leak in the ship’s special fixed breathing system, intended for lengthy use by the crew in compartments filled with gas and combustion products. The people who plugged into the system were poisoned.
“The rear three compartments on this submarine contained the turbine oil, and that oil presents a heightened risk of fire and explosion. At high temperature, it evaporates and can be detonated by an spark. . . .
“Submarines are usually designed in such a way that when on the surface they do not lose their stability or buoyancy if one compartment and two adjacent ballast tanks fill with water. If two adjacent compartments are flooded, any submarine will sink. Clearly, on the Komsornolets, the water entered the two rear compartments, which were ablaze.
“In the stem compartment there are many fittings through which electrical cables pass. When a cable catches fire, water pours in through the fitting. In addition, mechanisms undergo mechanical deformation in a fire. If that results in the failure of their seals, water can get in.” Finally, Admiral Chernavin described the problems now facing the Soviet Navy.
“The feasibility of raising the submarine was considered immediately. But clearly a categorical answer will not be given until later. . . .
“The Komsornolets tragedy emphasizes once again the need to revise the approaches to . . . rescuing people at sea. ... All existing Soviet and foreign experience will be used. This work will be conducted vigorously.”
baoi.arriS un<Jerwater, as well as a feed- fjj system, which enables it to handle Poif k Ejects.21 Thus, the submersible rCcMb'y could also have been used to froOVer sensitive equipment or weapons ^ 'he sunken SSN.
Ihe bdttiled, close-up investigation of the <’ubrnarme should help to determine tjQCauses of the accident and the condi- i^of the boat. It should also provide the efat'rrnat*°n necc[ct*10 plan a salvage op- notl0n- However, the Soviet Navy does vaCUrrentIy have the capability to saint^6 tbe submarine. Igor Belousov, dep- 1^. chairman of the Soviet Council of sionlsters and a member of the commis- cstablished to investigate the accident, has stated that “no existing technical systems for carrying out such an operation exist in the world today.”22 Indeed, the Soviet Union does not have any vessel similar to the Glomar Explorer, which the United States, reportedly, employed in an attempt to salvage a Golf-class submarine that had sunk in the Pacific Ocean in 1968.23
The Soviet media has reported that the Komsornolets investigating commission is currently considering proposals for constructing special capabilities to salvage the submarine.24 As one Soviet commentator noted, however, “it appears that many years will go by before such a resource will be available.”25 'Quoted in Francis X. Clines, “Russians Planning Recovery of Sub,” The New York Times, 12 April 1989, p. A8.
2N.K. Chiker, Sluzhha osobogo naznacheniya: Kronika geroicheskikh del (The Special Purpose Service: A Chronical of Heroic Deeds) (Moscow: DOSAAF, 1975), pp. 6-14; and RAdm.-Engineer N. Chiker, “To EPRON on its 50th Anniversary,” Morskoy Sbornik, No. 12, 1973, pp. 67-68. 3Chiker, Sluzhba osobogo naznacheniya, p. 9. 4Ibid., p. 10.
5Ibid.
6Chiker, “To EPRON on its 50th Anniversary,” pp. 67-68.
7Capt. 1st Rank-Engineer L. Nezhmakov and Col. of Medical Service V. Tyurin (Ret.), “The Centennial,” Morskoy Sbornik, No. 5, 1982, pp. 66-67. 8V. P. Sochivko, Man and Automatic Systems in the Hydrosphere (Leningrad: Sudostroyeniye, 1974), translated by Joint Publications Research Service, JPRS-63411 (Arlington, VA: Joint Publications Research Service, 1974), p. 48.
9Chiker, Sluzhba osobogo naznacheniya, p. 152. l0Ibid., p. 155.
"Ibid., p. 153
,2N. Chiker, “To EPRON on its 50th Anniversary,” pp. 67-68.
13Capt. N. Rezimov, “Scientific-Practical Conference,” Krasnaya Zvezda, 8 May 1982, p. 2. 14Chiker, Sluzhba osobogo naznacheniya, p. 221. ,5V. Molchanov, Vozrasheniye iz glubin (Return From the Depths) (Leningrad: Sudostroyeniye, 1982).
,6S. F. Akhromeyev, Voyenny Entsiklopedicheskiy Slovar’ (Military Encyclopedic Dictionary), 2nd Edition (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1986), p. 567.
,7Nomian Polmar, Guide to the Soviet Navy, 3rd Edition (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1983), pp. 121-122, 264-270; John N. Moore, Editor, Jane's Fighting Ships (London: Jane’s Publishing Co., 1987), pp. 566-567.
109
dings / September 1989