Golf-II submarine
Posted on 02/21/2010 10:57:05 PM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
HE remembers the women sunbathing naked on the deck of a passing yacht. He remembers, too, the lurking menace of a Russian intelligence-gathering trawler, watching from afar as one of the most audacious American coups of the cold war unfolded on the ocean floor, 16,500ft beneath the Pacific surface.
David Sharp recalls every detail of the 1974 mission known as Project Azorian, one of the most ambitious, expensive and politically volatile clandestine operations launched by the CIA.
As one of the CIA’s agents in charge of recovering a sunken Soviet submarine and its cargo of nuclear-tipped missiles, Sharp spent 63 days at sea on what he described last week as a “marvellous engineering effort and a marvellous security effort to keep it under wraps”.
The broad outlines of the historic intelligence feat have been written about and debated for decades, have been publicly acknowledged by governments in both Washington and Moscow and have inspired countless conspiracy theories and malevolent accusations. Yet the man who knows most about the Hughes Glomar Explorer recovery ship and its effort to retrieve the Soviet Golf-II submarine K-129 is still being gagged by the CIA.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
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Cool story, well worth clicking the link and reading the whole thing.
I love this stuff.
One ping only....
I am very glad you enjoyed this article
Jeffrey Pelt: Andrei, you've lost another submarine?
More interesting then any stories of the recovery is that the sub was there at all. The Russian search and rescue mission was centered a thousand miles away. The sub was approaching Hawaii, instead of where they thought it should be.
If the Russian Fleet HQ didn’t send it there, what was a nuclear missile submarine doing in firing range of Pearl Harbor. Assuming the captain was either defecting or attacking, either way there would be cause for an unknown Russian to sacrifice his life and scuttle the boat.
I disregard the story about failsafe explosives on the missiles detonating with an unauthorized launch, thereby sinking the boat. As I understand it, all three missiles were accounted for on the derelict.
I have heard that story too. I have a different view. The Russian Permissive Action Link system during the Soviet era was virtually non-existent.Soviet nuclear security was based on thwarting American spies, so they paid no attention to the possibility that insiders might try to steal nuclear materials or equipment.Russia has a disturbing history of mistaking Norwegian scientific rockets for a US nuclear attack. The command on that staff had the means to launch without authority.
Bump for later
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The story I heard was more or less the same. The Soviet sub skipper had decided to launch World War 3 on his own and had attempted to fire his missiles at Pearl Harbor. Only the intervention of divine Providence in the form of an accidental missile explosion saved the world.
Red Star Rogue has an interesting take on why the K-129 was out of it’s patrol box.
I find it interesting that we can pick up a Russian sub off the ocean floor but we are content to guess at the reasons the Scorpion sank or perhaps we don’t want to expose why it sank, hence no recovery effort.
“with a video showing the burial at sea with military honors of the six submarine crew members whose bodies had been recovered.”
wasn’t this on an episode of J.A.G?
In May 1968 Barry Soetoro was in Indonesia attending classes as a registered Muslim and learning the Muslim prayers. In 1967 he had been legally adopted by stepdad Lolo Soetoro.
Thank you for that fascinating addition to a thread about a submarine.
Gulliver stuff.
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