Sea Story Time!: I got home from leave just as the October War was starting in the Med. After two weeks they sent me back to Naples to Submarine Group 8, who just happened to have Captain Bo Bohannan who was the skipper of the first submarine I actually sailed on as the US Chief of Staff to ADM Kenny McKey. Captain Bohannan assigned me to write the “Patrol Report” for SUBBRU 8, since they hadn’t had time to do it themselves. When I couldn’t keep up, they brought the Commissioning Crew from Los Angeles over to help me. That gave me some slack, so they sent me out to Independence CV-62 as the “Submarine Liaison Officer”. So that sets the scene.
We had a Russian Kashin that was shadowing the Task Force 69, and OPSEC on Independence was not really great. They would start night flight ops at 1800 like clock work. The great thing was they were down one ship for Starboard Plane Guard, so five minutes before Flight Ops, the Kashin turns to assume the Starboard Plane Guard position in perfect formation when the Independence came around to launch course.
Sweet and totally believable.
In their prime they had a helluva Navy.
If one was to die at sea, I'd rather die from a Russian hit than the Norks or Chinese. It'd be far more honorable.