Underwater underworld. Underwater Hell K 19 when it sank

Louis Naura Artists Carl Juliusson, Michael Novotny, Arvinder Grewal, more

• After reading the film's script, the surviving crew members were so outraged that they sent an open letter about it to Harrison Ford, the film's director and screenwriter Kathryn Bigelow, and producers Chris Whitaker and Stephen-Charles Jaffe. In addition to the less-than-reliable description of the details of the incident, they objected to foul language, hostility between two high-ranking officers, insubordination of the crew, drunken crew members, attempted mutiny, weapons (which were kept in a secret location) and handcuffs (which were used only by police officers).
• The film's director and producers were the first Western civilians allowed into the Russian naval base on the Kola Peninsula.
• The character of officer Mikhail Polenin is based on the naval figure Vasily Arkhipov. Arkhipov was the backup commander on the K-19 during the 1961 incident. Arkhipov later served on the B-59 submarine during the Cuban missile crisis. Then he was the senior man on board the submarine, and when, after provocation from the American military, the commander on their submarine wanted to use an atomic torpedo, Arkhipov stopped him. If that torpedo had been fired, it most likely would have led to World War III. By 1981, Arkhipov had risen to the rank of vice admiral, and a few years later he retired.
• Thanks to the K-19 drawings, which were available to the film’s producers, the film managed to recreate the internal structure of the submarine in identical-sized sets. Since the corridors on the submarine were very narrow, a rail system for moving the camera was mounted on the ceiling. The rails themselves were painted to blend in with the rest of the interior.
• The scene in which Captain Vostrikov receives mission instructions for K-19 was filmed in a former secret Soviet military command center.
• In November 1969, the K-19 submarine collided with the American submarine USS Gato. The collision occurred in the Barents Sea, near Edge Island, at a depth of about 60 meters.
• The blue glow inside a nuclear reactor is known as the Vavilov–Cherenkov effect. To create a similar glow in the film, the filmmakers filled a tank with 700 two-liter bottles of Canada Dry tonic and illuminated it with ultraviolet light. The tonic contains quinine, which gives a blue glow under ultraviolet light.
• According to actor Jacob Pitts, during the filming of one of the scenes, the director of photography could not catch the direction of Harrison Ford's gaze. When he asked Ford where he was looking, he replied that he was looking into his soul. Then the operator tried to clarify where his soul was, to which he received the answer - “under a pile of money.”
• The Soviet submarine used during filming was later donated as an exhibit to the Uss Saratoga Museum Foundation in Rhode Island. She subsequently sank in Providence during a severe storm and was used by the US Navy as part of a salvage exercise. After a while, when the boat was raised from the bottom, it was no longer suitable for the museum, and it was sold for scrap.
• The Soviet submarine K-77 was used as the K-19 submarine in the film. It was restored and modified (the boat had to be lengthened by approximately 30 meters) to make it more reminiscent of the K-19.
• In reality, “K-19” was under the command of Captain 2nd Rank Nikolai Zateev, and the position of backup commander was held by Vasily Arkhipov.
• In 1972, the K-19 submarine suffered a disaster, resulting in the death of 28 people.
• Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson previously starred in the Star Wars film franchise. Ford played Han Solo from Episodes 4 to 7, and Neeson played Qui-Gon in Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace (1999).
• The rescue of the K-19 crew was carried out by the S-270 submarine. The rescue submarine used in the film was the SSK 73 RCN Onondaga, which was first launched only in 1965 (4 years after the K-19 incident).
• The Soviet army band that plays at the submarine's launch ceremony was made up of Canadian Forces musicians during filming.
• Natalia Vintilova played Katya in the film - the only female character in the entire film who has her own lines.
• Tom Stoppard made changes to the film's script, but was not credited.
• Joss Ackland previously played a Russian in The Hunt for Red October (1990), which also featured a Soviet submarine that had problems with a nuclear reactor.
• This is the first feature film in Sam Spruell's career.

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Errors

• When Vadim Radchenko kisses his girlfriend, he tries to catch a car that resembles a Soviet GAZ-66 4x4 truck. Production of this car began only in 1966, that is, five years after the events of the film.
• The film shows how a political officer reveals to civilians all the violations that were committed in Birmingham in 1964. Exactly four years after the launch of K-19.
• A bottle of champagne that does not break during the K-19 christening is called (in Russian) "Soviet Sparkling". The Soviet Sparkling trademark was not registered until 1969, and even after that, it was sold exclusively in the West. It appeared within the country under this name only in the mid-1990s. But in the Soviet Union you could buy “Soviet champagne”, which was exactly the same, only had a different name.
• At the beginning of the film, Alexey Vostrikov arrives at the naval base in a military truck weighing ¾ ton. This vehicle is a Dodge WC56 model that was used by the US Army during World War II. Despite the fact that during the war, Soviet troops often used many American trucks (because the countries were allies), such equipment was already out of use in the early 60s.
• At the end of the film, the aged crew members meet each other. Mikhail Polenin informs Alexey Vostrikov that this particular day is very important for the meeting. On this date, twenty-eight years have passed since the accident at the reactor. This tragedy occurred on the K-19 submarine on July 4, 1961, but the scene, as you might guess, was filmed in winter.
• The sound that the camera makes during a group shot of the crew on the ice is the sound of a stationary shutter, but the camera used (either Leica or some Russian equivalent) would have a focal plane shutter.
• In the scene in the cemetery, towards the end of the film, you can see the reflection of a microphone boom in the headdress of one of the characters.
• When the captain enters the radioactive reactor room to pull out the last man who was working, he does not close the hatch door. This error significantly increases the volume of leaks.
• Reactor employee Vadim Radchenko says that the accident could trigger a “thermonuclear” explosion. This is impossible because a thermonuclear explosion is a fusion of nuclear (combining hydrogen and helium atoms and thereby releasing energy), and, obviously, a nuclear reactor on a submarine takes nuclear fission as its basis (destroying uranium atoms, and also releasing energy).
• When Alexey Vostrikov comes to a meeting with the admiral, his rank, until that moment, was “captain of the second rank.” However, during the meeting, the viewer may notice that he wears epaulets on his shoulders, indicating that he belongs to the “captain of the first rank.” In the next scene, when he boards the K-19, he is again wearing the shoulder straps of a “captain of the second rank.”
• At the beginning of the picture, Vostrikov wears a wedding ring on his left hand. Closer to the middle and in the finale, the ring moves to the right hand, as is customary according to Russian traditions.
• When "K-19" leaves the pier for the first time, the order is given to unite all the ropes. This means that one set of ropes has already been removed, but the boat is still attached to the dock (by another set of "ropes"). Immediately after giving the order, the crew removes both sets of ropes and the boat sets sail.
• When the boat leaves the pier, two captains are at the top of the tower, and a flag flutters next to them. In the next frame you can clearly see that the flag is developing in the other direction (the wind could not change its direction so quickly).
• At the beginning of the film, when the radio officer checks communication with Moscow during training, a shot on the dashboard shows an active green light and two white lights. Literally a second later this panel is shown again, but now the two white lights do not light up, and the green one is still on.
• When the submarine descends to a depth of about three hundred meters during a test dive, the viewer may notice how one of the sides of the boat is slightly deformed. However, these dents appear nowhere else throughout the entire painting.
• The submarine, on its way to testing, is shown traveling so fast that bubbles fly out from under its propeller. This effect is called cavitation, it creates certain noises. A stealthy submarine on its way to launch missiles would never make such a mistake. Only in emergency situations.
• The film is a loose account of the events that occurred on the K-19 submarine, but the disaster resulted in the deaths of eight people, not seven.
• While the engine on board is burning, gas injectors can be seen at the bottom of the flame, which feed the flame.
• In all the outdoor scenes (including when the boat breaks through the ice), you can see that the sun is high in the sky. The action takes place almost at the North Pole, which means that the time of year must be summer. However, in the scenes showing the Russian high command, it snows. Therefore, at the North Pole, where the submarine worked, there should be constant darkness.
• When the second group of repairmen begins to weld the new cooling pipe, you can see that the model of the welding machine is "Uniweld Products Inc", but it simply could not have been in the Soviet Union at that time.
• The high command of the USSR Navy is located in a large white building. To the left of the entrance you can see a sign: “Cultural Center of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation named after M.V. Frunze.” The Russian Federation was created after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Consequently, such wording simply could not appear in any form on the official building until the end of 1991. Mikhail Frunze was a highly respected officer during the Russian Revolution, who continues to be revered in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

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Plot

Beware, the text may contain spoilers!

The film is based on real events. The story takes place during the height of the infamous Cold War. The USSR is designing a new submarine that will be equipped not only with nuclear weapons, but with an onboard nuclear reactor. Alexey Vostrikov, a fan of his work, was appointed commander of the vessel. He is so devoted to service that he forces all his subordinates to work overtime, and in rather extreme conditions.

The ballistic missile must undergo initial testing. After the missile launch was completed, K-19 continued its move. However, a breakdown occurred in the reactor cooling system, and the temperature of the core began to rise sharply. If the accident is not eliminated, then soon the temperature of the nuclear fuel will reach the melting point, and an explosion will occur. The K-19 officers call an emergency meeting and decide to run a backup water supply that will carry cold water and bring the temperature back to normal. Several people break into pairs and carry out repair work.

The next moment, a radiation leak begins, which spreads to all compartments. At the same time, the antenna is damaged, and communication with the ground becomes impossible. Suddenly, an American ship passes near K-19 and offers help, but Vostrikov refuses it. A mutiny begins on the ship, the political officer wants to remove Vostrikov, but the mutiny was soon suppressed.

At this time, the newly installed cooling system began to leak, and the temperature around the reactor began to rise sharply. Engineer Radchenko went to this compartment to fix the problem, and he succeeded. However, he himself instantly lost his sight. Vostrikov makes a key decision: to evacuate the crew to an American ship and drown K-19.

After all the events, Vostrikov was put on trial, but was acquitted, however, he was removed from command for life. After these events, 27 K-19 crew members died from severe radiation.

Instead of an introduction

I had the opportunity to see the “K-19” for the first time in all the fullness of its ill-fame in the mid-70s, when two port tugs, slowly, unwrapped the body of a 1st generation submarine missile carrier, which seemed awkward to me, in a factory bucket in the polar Pala Guba. Its conning tower, extended in length by 3 vertical ballistic missile silos and mounted on the fast spindle of the submarine’s hull, seemed at any moment to simply tip the ship upside down.

"Hiroshima",- our venerable mechanic standing next to him said quietly, - remember, lieutenant".

A day later, her crew was placed in a barracks building on the floor below ours.

I had to be on the ship and communicate with the people. I remember that something vaguely alarming came from the neighbors, although it only seemed so, because... after that radiation accident (and another no less high-profile catastrophe), there were no old-timers left on the boat.

Many years later, I encountered “Hiroshima” again in the Hollywood interpretation of the story of July 1961, and the choice of topic seemed strange to me from the point of view of commercial success in Russia. Skeptical, he went to the session, expecting to see some kind of “fantasy based on”, full of absurdities and unprofessional blunders.

The screening proceeded in a half-empty hall without any special emotions until I suddenly realized that I perceived what was happening on the screen as, although an extreme, but quite common situation on boats, devoid of the fantastic effects characteristic of today's action films, and instead of Hollywood superstars playing Ford and Neeson - I see a real commander and first mate of a submarine cruiser.

And this achievement of the most important authenticity of film history immediately reconciled me with a truly considerable number of absurdities, including the fantastic passage with the arrest of the commander by a “faltering political officer.”

The film appeared in Russian distribution on the wave of active publication of materials devoted to the life of the submarine fleet. The country's reputable television channels with enviable consistency introduced viewers to stories and cases that were previously hidden under the headings of secrecy. Provincial media did not lag behind them. What caused this surge of interest and increased attention?

This is a consequence of a national tragedy, which inextricably attached a black association to the name of the glorious ancient Russian city and which did not at all unite people in this misfortune, demonstrating to the whole world the just anger, despair and helplessness of some, the deceit, resourcefulness of others, the indifference and hypocrisy of others, etc.

Another reason is the current government's demonstration of its policy of commitment to the cause of transparency and overcoming the consequences of the Cold War (at sea in particular).

Another opinion - the officer corps of the submarine forces is the elite of the world fleets, and in the United States in the mass consciousness it is positioned as the elite of the nation - and Russia is also now trying to comply with world canons (not sincerely, since this is done with the hands and speeches of officials and biased journalists, but thus no less).

And here is the “PR” explanation: the current Commander-in-Chief of the Navy really wanted to become Secretary of the Security Council, who charmed the president with submarine rides and initiated him into “submariners.” This “want” was clearly supported by the efforts of the information “forces and means” allied to him. And, probably, he would have managed to become one, but then “Kursk” “happened”, with all the lies that accompanied it. The lie was open, it was directly pointed out, but everything worked out. None of the multi-star leaders, in a fit of moral responsibility (like “I have the honor!”) used a personal pistol, no one was put on trial, the criminal case was closed, apparently seriously and for a long time... and you can continue to “follow your course.”

“Tragedy produces heroes,” the film says. But she shows the world other human qualities.

And the purpose of our narrative is to show, against the backdrop of the history of Hiroshima, people capable of bright, noble, and even somewhat frantic actions, people who are atypical and uncharacteristic for our society, where spiritual values ​​are declarative and tertiary, to show not for the purpose of moralizing and edification, but simply to express to them - the “pieces” - my belated gratitude.

Today many people write about the fleet.

Its first commanders, heroes of the Soviet Union Nikolai Osipenko and Nikolai Zhiltsov, left vivid, interesting memories of their glorious service on the lead Soviet nuclear-powered ship "K-3" ("Leninsky Komsomol"), extensive material was presented to readers by Rear Admiral Mormul, a worthy writer is Captain 1 retired rank E.A. Kovalev is a sailor “to the core”, who left bright sketches of his command on nuclear submarine cruisers, seasoned with a hefty dose of healthy naval sarcasm.

Thanks to the memories of professionals, society sees the people of the submarine in the fullness of their merits and characteristics, where the color of mourning that “covered the profession” after the losses of Komsomolets and Kursk is by no means predominant.

The “testimonies” published by professional “knights of the pen” from the words of direct participants and heroes of the events are often superficial, contradictory and simply illiterate. At their instigation, an American naval base appeared on the island of Jan Mayen. With sad constancy, “submarine captains”, reports and movements “to the Central Post”, “ceremonial jackets”, “squadron commanders” and all sorts of other “cummings platforms” wander through the pages of printed publications and television screens.

It is a pity that not all submariners are inclined towards literary creativity.

"Hiroshima"

Everyone knows that the prevailing attitude during the Cold War was to maintain parity in arms with the adversary, forcing the state to strain its efforts and each time respond to the emergence of a new type of enemy weapon by urgently creating its own, similar to the enemy. This is how they actually appeared among Soviet nuclear-powered ships "nuclear submarines with ballistic missiles" (SSBN) of the 658th project, one of which “became famous” first in the fleets of the USSR, and then in the world as “Hiroshima” - “K-19”.

The boat was laid down on October 17, 1958, launched on October 11, 1959. Mooring tests were carried out from October 17, 1959 to July 12, 1960. Factory commissioning was carried out from July 13 to July 17, 1960. State tests took place from August 12 to November 12, 1960. On November 12, 1960, the State Commission signed an acceptance certificate on the completion of state tests.

The mention in the press that this nuclear-powered ship was an analogue of the American missile carrier George Washington is incorrect - the Washington carried 16 ballistic missiles. In passing, we note that there was no such variety of boat designs as in the Soviet fleet in any fleet in the world.

Tactical and technical elements of SSBNs of project 658 and 658M(**)

Tactical and technical elements	Project 658	Project 658M
Length, m.	114	114
Width, m.	9,2	9,2
Draft, m	7,68	7,68
Displacement:
surface, m 3	4.039	4.096
underwater, m 3
Maximum immersion depth, m.	300	300
Nuclear power plant:
Steam generating plant:
reactor (water-water), pcs.	2 types VM-A	2 types VM-A
rated power, mW	2x70	2x70
steam generators, pcs.	2x8	2x8
steam capacity, t/hour	2x90	2x90
Steam turbine plant:
main turbo gear unit, pcs.	2	2
power, hp	2х17.500	2х17.500
propeller speed, rpm.	500	500
Electric power plant:
generator, pcs.	2	2
power, kWt	2х1.400	2х1.400
diesel generator, pcs.	2	2
power, kWt	2x460	2x460
rowing electric motors, pcs.	2	2
power, kW (hp)	331(450)	331(450)
battery, number of groups	3	3
number of elements in group	112	112
Surface speed, knots	15,0	15,0
Submarine speed, knots	26,0	26,0
Cruising range*, miles
surface passage	15.000	15.000
underwater	30.000	30.000
Autonomy, days	50	50
Team, people	104	104
Missile weapons:
R-13 ballistic missiles of the D-2 complex, surface launch, pcs.	3	-
R-21 ballistic missiles of the D-4 complex, underwater launch, pcs.	-	3
Torpedo armament:
533 mm bow torpedo tubes, pcs.	4	4
400 mm bow torpedo tubes, pcs.	2	2
400 mm stern torpedo tubes, pcs.	2	2
torpedoes caliber 533 mm, pcs.	4 in devices	4 in devices
400mm torpedoes, pcs.	4 in devices	4 in devices
spare torpedoes of 400 mm caliber, pcs.	8 (4 in the bow, 4 in the stern)	8 (4 in the bow, 4 in the stern)

Notes:

* Cruising range according to formal calculation (speed x autonomy). In fact, the cruising range for nuclear submarines is much higher.

** TFC after modernization.

The cruising boat "K-19" under the command of captain 2nd rank Nikolai Vladimirovich Zateev could be considered an "ordinary" nuclear missile carrier of the Cold War era, if not for the chain of incidents and accidents that consistently plagued it. After all, radiation accidents account for more than a dozen cases in the Navy, fires are an emergency, but familiar to almost any sailor who has been submerged, collisions with other submarines underwater and on the surface (often with their own) are also not uncommon. Why this entire set of naval misfortunes was concentrated on one boat - no one will answer this question.

And this boat encountered a reactor accident a little more than six months after joining the fleet.

But even during the first start-up of the reactor under plant conditions, due to poor organization of work, the primary circuit system was supplied with pressure twice as high as the calculated one (the so-called overpressure of the system occurred). Then the necessary audit of the circuit was not carried out, since this would have entailed postponing the commissioning of the ship for many months, additional financial costs and punishment of those responsible. The accident was hidden. During the same mooring tests, one reactor was disabled, which delayed the commissioning of the boat for a long time. This is what later led to the events of July 1961 (from the memoirs of the former head of the Technical Directorate of the Northern Fleet, Rear Admiral N.G. Mormul).

Reactor accident. Lieutenant Korchilov

At the large naval exercises "Polar Circle" in 1961, she was supposed to, pretending to be an enemy nuclear-powered ship, overcome a curtain of several dozen Soviet diesel submarines deployed on her likely routes, and surface (at that time she had a missile system that could only be launched from surface position) and launch a missile strike on the territory of the specified training ground (Meshenskaya Bay).

On June 18, "K-19" left the base in Zapadnaya Litsa and, at the appointed time, entered the expanses of the North Atlantic, from where it was supposed to begin the breakthrough.

But on July 4, at 4:15 a.m., the emergency protection of the aft reactor was activated. Due to a primary circuit water leak, the main and auxiliary circulation pumps jammed - uncontrolled heating of the core began, which, according to the ship's engineers, threatened with an atomic explosion (the instructions suggested cooling the core by pouring fresh water, but there was no standard system for this pouring in the reactor design). There was no communication with the shore due to the failure of the antenna, damaged by ice in the Denmark Strait. Zateev called an emergency command and engineering meeting (there were two backup commanders of the submarine on board - the commanders of the boats following the K-19 in the series - Vladimir Pershin and Vasily Arkhipov, there was someone from the fleet headquarters), which in his memoirs later bitterly will ironically call the “council in Fili near Jan Mayen”, at which a technological solution to the problem of cooling the reactor core, proposed by Lieutenant Yuri Filin, was approved. However, the installation of a non-standard system inevitably had to be carried out in the immediate vicinity of the emergency reactor, and the performers of this installation doomed themselves to certain death.

Think about it, 23-year-old Leningrader, Lieutenant Boris Korchilov, accepts this fate, and all the diversity of the world shrinks for him to the volume of a cramped reactor enclosure. The same young people were those who went with him.

These guys are:

• Chief Petty Officer Boris Ryzhikov,
• foreman 1st article Yuri Ordochkin,
• foreman 2 articles Evgeniy Kashenkov,
• sailor Semyon Penkov,
• sailor Nikolai Savkin,
• sailor Valery Kharitonov,
• sailor Gennady Starkov.

They supervised the installation of the emergency system and were next to them in the reactor compartment, the commander of the warhead-5, mechanical engineer, captain 3rd rank Anatoly Kozyrev, and the commander of the movement division, captain-lieutenant Yuri Povstev.

As a result of their efforts, the temperature of the reactor began to drop, but the radiation level continued to increase and disable the crew of the boat.

Zateev decided to move on one reactor not towards his home base, which was more than one and a half thousand miles away, but to the south - towards the curtain of our diesel boats, periodically transmitting a message using a backup low-power transmitter: “I have a reactor accident. over-irradiated. My coordinates...” According to the submarine commander’s recollections, the situation was difficult: the radiation situation continued to deteriorate, the crew was given alcohol as a radioprotectant, several officers demanded that the crew be landed on the island of Jan Mayen and the boat sunk.

There are contradictions in Zateev’s various memoirs: in the materials of Nikolai Cherkashin (“Hiroshima” emerges at noon” 1993), without naming names, he accuses his political officer and backup commander of alarmism (the backup is easily recognized, because he is not mentioned in the order below on the issuance of personal weapons to several officers). mutiny in that difficult situation, he says that “he ordered the commander of the warhead-2, captain-lieutenant Mukhin, to drown the small arms on board, leaving pistols for himself, first mate Enin, captain 2nd rank Andreev, backup commander captain 2nd rank Arkhipov and captain Mukhin, which was immediately done."

Perm journalist Ivan Gurin cites the testimony of his fellow countryman V.F. Leshkov, who served on the K-19 as an electrician, that shortly before the accident, the commander of the propulsion division (KDD), captain-lieutenant Povstev, for refusing to increase the reactor power from 75% to 100%, was arrested by Zateev and was in the cabin (I. Gurin "And four hours until death").

Perhaps over time, materials from interrogations of crew members conducted by special officers upon return will be made public, but for now we have to be content with fragmentary and rather contradictory information.

Captain 3rd Rank Sverbilov

The message about the accident was received by the S-270 located at the Polyarninsk position under the command of Captain 3rd Rank Sverbilov. The commander of the "Eski" left the position and headed at full speed to the indicated coordinates.

Fortunately for the emergency crew, Zhan Sverbilov was an independent, decisive and heroic person, for he made a decision that not every commander would dare to make in principle (and even more so in those now distant and difficult 60s). Just for information, and not for assessment, we will inform you that when in 1986, after a collision with an American submarine in the Bermuda area, the K-219 under the command of Britanov sank, Captain 1st Rank Popov (future Commander of the Northern Fleet) was en route from combat service to the base. Having received information about the emergency, after much thought, he did not change the course of the nuclear-powered vessel entrusted to him. As follows from the book by submariner Igor Kurdin (formerly the first officer of the K-219, and then the commander of the missile submarine) “Hostile Waters,” an important factor in Popov’s decision not to change course were the consequences that he “felt” in 1961 for leaving the position without an order commander of the S-270... Zhan Sverbilov.

The weather was favorable for the sailors: the ocean was calm and the sun was shining. Following at full speed, the "eska" after 4 hours discovered a point on the horizon, which, when approaching, turned out to be "K-19", the bow superstructure of the nuclear-powered ship was full of people.

According to the stories of senior fellow submariners, the appearance of the first nuclear-powered submarines in the North was accompanied by special secrecy measures, to the point that when they left the base, surface ships were required to go beyond their visibility, and diesel submarines were forced to submerge. The commander of the first domestic nuclear-powered ship ("K-3", later "Leninsky Komsomol") Leonid Gavrilovich Osipenko mentions the smoke screens put up by escort ships when domestic ships appear on the oncoming course of the nuclear-powered ship.

In any case, Sverbilov testifies that this was the first time he had seen a domestic nuclear submarine.

At 14:00 on July 4, he approached the nuclear-powered ship. The radiation level here reached 7 roentgens/hour. When asked what kind of help they needed, Zateev asked to ensure communication with the shore and take seriously ill people on board.

Since boats leaving their gangplanks on the pier when going to sea, the victims had to be evacuated from the nuclear-powered ship along the fallen bow rudders, under which Sverbilov drove the stem of his "esque". Three - Korchilov, Ryzhikov and Ordochkin - were carried along them on stretchers, eight ran across on their own (still on their own). All eleven were placed in the 1st compartment, the radiation level in which immediately reached 9 r/hour, the victims were vomiting, doctor Yuri Salienko provided them with all possible assistance.

A radio message was sent to the fleet command post: “I’m standing at the side of K-19. I received 11 seriously ill patients. I’m providing K-19 with radio communications. I’m waiting for instructions. Commander S-270,” to which an hour later a “radio message” of almost the same content was received from Commander-in-Chief S. G. Gorshkov and the Fleet Commander A.T. Chabanenko: “Why did you leave the curtain? What are you doing at the side of the “19th”? You will answer for your arbitrariness...”

Only a day after the accident (about 3 o’clock in the morning on July 5), having received an order from the fleet command post, Grigory Vasser’s S-159 and Gennady Nefedov’s S-266 approached.

The weather continued to be good. No aircraft, no surface ships or vessels were observed.

From the command post of the fleet, the command was received for the personnel of the nuclear-powered submarine to switch to diesel submarines, and Nefedov should move 1 mile away from the zone of increased radioactivity and wait for the arrival of the surface ships of the Northern Fleet, and Sverbilov and Vasser should move at full speed towards the base to transfer the affected ones to the surface ships that had already left towards. And to the base it was (we repeat again) about one and a half thousand miles!

Another 68 people transferred to the S-270 and bags with secret documentation were accepted. The sailors walked along the fallen rudders of the nuclear-powered ship naked, carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles in their hands, which were taken from them by the first mate of the 270th, Ivan Svishch, and thrown (?) overboard. Documents (party and Komsomol tickets) and money were placed in a sealed fender.

Zateev, being the last to leave the ship, settled on Vasser’s boat along with the rest of his crew.

The K-19, abandoned by the crew, remained under the “supervision” of the torpedo tubes of the Nefedovskaya “eska” to await the arrival of the rescue squad.

The weather changed, and three days of passage to the rendezvous point passed in stormy conditions, with large waves, rain and wind. At the time of the meeting with a detachment of three destroyers, there were no conditions for evacuating the victims, but the detachment commander, who was on the "Experienced" destroyer, insisted on the transfer via VHF, referring to the categorical order of the Northern Fleet Commander. At this time, a doctor climbed onto the bridge of the boat and reported that the condition of several people was critical, and he was doing everything he could. Only then did Sverbilov decide to transfer the victims.

Standing against the wave with our left side under the starboard side of the "Experienced", and covered by another destroyer facing the waves, we tried to start the transmission. Thirty of the healthiest people managed to run aboard the "Experienced" along the steeply dropped ladder onto the boathouse before the destroyer covering the operation, carried away by the waves and wind, set sail to avoid the pile-up. The boat with the "Experienced" was turned around by the wave and began to hit each other, the side keel of the destroyer ripped open the entire left side of the "esque".

All those seriously affected remained on the S-270, which, having leveled out the resulting roll by filling the ballast tanks on the starboard side, fighting the storm, continued on its way at a 6-knot speed.

At the end of the second day (!), a “radio” was received that in the North Cape area (northern coast of Norway) evacuees from the K-19 would be accepted onto surface ships. The weather improved somewhat, but, according to Sverbilov, continued to pose a danger to his seriously damaged "esque". A meeting with two Project 30bis destroyers took place, and Vasser’s boat soon arrived.

For greater reliability, on July 11, Sverbilov, having moored to the "thirty-bis", transferred the remaining 49 people on calm water, entering a deserted fiord in the Nordkin area (territory and waters of Norway). Here Vasser handed over people in boats lowered from another destroyer.

Having left someone else's fiord, the boats headed for Polyarny.

We could end here, but we will not rush to part with Zhan Mikhailovich and his glorious crew.

The third pier of the Catherine Harbor was full of authorities - the entire headquarters of the Northern Fleet, headed by the chief, Vice Admiral A.I. Rassokho, and the medical service generals who had arrived from Leningrad stood out with red stripes.

After the report of the commander of the “S-270” to the chief of staff of the fleet, bags with evacuated secret documents were taken to the pier, and when radiation monitoring showed a high degree of contamination, the commander of the fleet, Major General Ivan Trofimovich Tsipichev, who happened to be nearby, energetically demanded their immediate burning in a cavalry manner.

It is worth mentioning that the party documents of the K-19 personnel, handed over later by Sverbilov and his political officer S. Safonov to the head of the political department of their brigade, Captain 1st Rank M. Repin, caused the latter to be in a state close to shock, and he instructed a young civilian secretary to take them away into a safe and lock it there.

After forming up on the pier, the entire crew underwent a thorough wash with dosimetric control in the bathhouse, then everyone was dressed in sailor's robes and placed on a specially fitted floating base "Pinega". The crew of Grigory Vasser was also placed there: the sailors were in the cockpits, and the officers were in the cabins.

Even while serving on boats, I heard about an episode of an attempt at insubordination that was stopped by Sverbilov during a rescue operation. The point was that the first to jump on board the "eska" (even before the evacuation of the stretcher victims) was one of the crew members of the nuclear-powered ship. Sverbilov, addressing him as a sailor (I think he knew that this was not a sailor in front of him), instructed Zateev to give a receipt for the transmitted radiogram on board, to which he heard that he was not a sailor at all, but a senior officer of one of the headquarters departments the fleet will not go back to the emergency boat. Then Sverbilov ordered him to follow to the first compartment of the "eska", but having received a refusal this time, he ordered his first mate to take the pistol to the bridge and shoot the rebel at the stern flag. Realizing that they were not joking with him, the staff officer obeyed. In the memoirs of the commander of the "eski" there is this episode; according to him, he does not name the coward because "later he was awarded an order for his participation in these events, but here we don’t award orders in vain."

And I would like to quote the freethinker Zhan Mikhailovich’s mention of a meeting with his fellow commanders on board the Pinega verbatim.

These are the lines:

“We talked and drank a lot that night. We separated at 4 in the morning. Before falling asleep, I thought that our crew had done a holy deed. All the boats participating in the exercises received Kolya Zateev’s radio, but nobody, except for us, he didn’t go to him. If it weren’t for our S-270, they would all have died, and there were more than 100 of them...

And if there is a God, I suggested, we will be in heaven. With this hope I fell asleep."

The command of the Northern Fleet nominated the commander of the S-270 for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, but the head of state, perhaps not understanding who the accident happened to, wrote on the presentation for the title: “We do not award awards for accidents!” Naturally, no one found the courage to insist.

The crew of "S-270" will have to spend another week in conditions of increased radioactivity - cutting down all wooden structures, removing linoleum coverings, etc. because the radiation safety service will not give permission to carry out docking work to repair the torn side, as they pose a danger to health of ship repair workers.

No notes about the received doses were made in the medical records of the crew members of all three “esoks” participating in the rescue operation.

The manly, direct and honest memoirs of Zhan Sverbilov were published in 1991 (“An Emergency That Never Happened,” Zvezda magazine No. 3).

Sailors "K-19", who received prohibitive doses of radiation and died in the clinic of the Military Medical Academy (Leningrad) and the Institute of Biophysics (Moscow), will be buried without publicity in the cemeteries of these cities (Chief Petty Officer Boris Ryzhikov - in Zelenogorsk).

Lieutenant Boris Aleksandrovich Korchilov will be nominated for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously), but this request will not be granted. A street in the closed garrison (village Zaozerny - Zapadnaya Litsa) will be named after him.

The damaged K-19 will be towed to Severodvinsk, where its reactor compartment will be replaced, its navigation and missile systems will be repaired and modernized. In 1963, she will become a ship of the 658M project.

In total, seven missile submarines will be converted under Project 658M - “K-16”, “K-19”, “K-33”, “K-40”, “K-55”, “K-149”, “K-178” ".

Her first commander will not return on board after treatment.

But the boat under the command of Captain 1st Rank Vladimir Aleksandrovich Vaganov returned to the fleet and became part of the 31st Division of the 12th Squadron. According to the memoirs of retired captain 1st rank Erik Aleksandrovich Kovalev, who replaced Vaganov in 1965, the boat, painted in a light gray color unusual for nuclear-powered ships, sailed a lot during this period, successfully fired missiles and solved combat training tasks, although it differed in still, like all boats of the first (and even the second generation), high noise, which made it very vulnerable to underwater counteraction to enemy boats.

Encounter with "Gato"

And in November 1969, while practicing combat training tasks in the Barents Sea training grounds under the command of now captain 2nd rank Valentin Shabanov, the K-19 collided at a depth of 80 meters with the American submarine Getow.

In general, this name - "Gato" ("sea cat") is as well known in the US Navy as we have "Pike". Diesel boats of the "Gatow" type were the basis of the American submarine fleet of the Second World War.

But in 1969 it was already a nuclear-powered ship (SSN 615).

How events developed on the K-19 was briefly described by the commander of the navigational combat unit, Lieutenant Commander Kim Kostin (now a retired captain of the 3rd rank) in his notes “The K-19 Black Zone. The story of two collisions between the crew of the nuclear submarine nicknamed “Hiroshima”:

“In November 1969, my first trip to sea on a nuclear submarine took place. For insurance, they took another navigator - Lieutenant Commander Fedotov. The senior on board was the deputy division commander for power supply, Captain 1st Rank Vladimir Georgievich Lebedko. On the morning of November 15, we were in the Teriberka area . Neutral waters, about 25 miles to the shore. I was in the navigation room. In the central post (CP) Lebedko “taught” Shabanov “in real life”: he shouted and stomped his feet. In the navigation room, he hit the table with his fist so hard that it was a miracle. I didn’t break the glass of the autopilot. There was a depressing atmosphere in the central office, the tension was at its limit after the crew was told to have breakfast. Before that, I remember that the boat’s progress was, fortunately, small. , obviously, did not understand the situation and did not hear the noises of the American boat, which we soon encountered... Only many years later did I find out that it was the nuclear submarine "Getou", and, as I heard, its commander was awarded, but our Shabanov was slightly they didn’t take it off and almost led to a heart attack.”

The boat surfaced without visible damage and, after a report of the collision, was ordered to proceed to the base. An inspection of the underwater part of the hull showed that repairs were needed.

Only at the dock in the village of Roslyakovo did everyone see the result of the mentioned collision: the bow of the K-19 below the waterline was crushed right up to the torpedo tubes, and the dent had a cylindrical shape. The strong hull of the "Getow" was that "cylinder" - the blow hit the American boat almost at a right angle.

It was only in 1975 that information appeared in “their” press about that long-standing reconnaissance mission “Getow” in polar waters, which ended in a collision. The blow fell in the area of ​​the reactor compartment; the Americans observed the surfaced “19th” through the periscope and almost attacked, but the ship’s commander, Commodore Burchardt L., overruled the decision of his commander of the mine-torpedo warhead to use weapons and led the “Getow” to the west.

And captain 2nd rank V. Shabanov, who during the dock repairs of the K-19 went to sea as a commander on the same type K-40 and, even before returning to base, was actually removed from command by the senior on board (V. Lebedko), after collision with a fishing vessel upon return (already under the leadership of V. Lebedko himself) will still be removed from the post of commander.

The meeting of the crew members of "K-19" and "Getow" took place in St. Petersburg on July 8, 2002. Among those present on the Russian side, the eldest was, of course, Rear Admiral V. G. Lebedko.

Fire. Chief Petty Officer Vasiliev

February 1972 - the nuclear submarine "K-19" under the command of Captain 2nd Rank Viktor Pavlovich Kulibaba was returning from a combat patrol in the North Atlantic. The senior officer on board was the chief of staff of the formation, Captain 1st Rank Viktor Mikhailovich Nechaev. There were a few days left before arriving at the base.

On February 24 at 10.23, when the 3rd combat shift was on watch, an emergency alarm sounded in the compartments. “There’s a fire in the ninth compartment,” shouted “Kashtan.” It later turned out that the watchman of the 9th compartment, having discovered a burning electrical appliance for burning carbon monoxide, ran to wake up Chief Petty Officer Alexander Vasilyev, instead of starting to extinguish it. The time to eliminate the source of the fire was lost - after the rupture of the fittings of the high-pressure air system, the fire became voluminous. Chief Petty Officer A.P. Vasilyev, who managed to give the command to the watchman to raise the vacationers and bravely rushed into the inferno with an air-foam fire extinguishing hose, was the first to die in the fire.

He could have been the first to leave the compartment and stay alive to the joy of his family and friends, but he made a different - heroic - choice. Alexander Vasiliev died saving his comrades. Look closely at his face.

He saved his comrades.

The personal breathing apparatus (IBA) of many sailors resting in the 9th was stored at combat posts in other compartments, so the CPU (central post) ordered the personnel of the ninth to be accepted into the eighth compartment. When the bulkhead door was cleared, clouds of toxic smoke mixed with high-pressure air rushed into the compartment; through the left side ventilation system, the fire penetrated to the control panel of the main power plant (GPU), located in the same compartment.

Kulibaba ordered the personnel not occupied at combat posts to leave the aft compartments.

The boat did not surface in emergency mode. Electricians (commander of the electrical division, captain 3rd rank L.G. Tsygankov), who ensured the operation of the power plant and were not included in the IDA, died at their combat posts. The commander of the movement division, Lieutenant-Commander Viktor Milovanov, joined the devices together with Senior Lieutenant Sergei Yarchuk and began shutting down the reactors in the smoke that filled the cramped control room. Yarchuk suddenly began to choke and tore off his mask. Milovanov had to manage both reactors. He could not help his comrade who was dying nearby.

Having made sure that the reactors were shut down, Milovanov left the console and, going out into the seventh compartment, lost consciousness. One of the turbine operators brought him to the central one.

The aft compartments were filled with gas. In the seventh turbine compartment, the commander of the turbine group, Lieutenant V.V., who went out on his first campaign, died. Khrychikov, midshipman A.I. Novichkov and foreman 2 articles K.P. Marach.

The boat surfaced and transmitted a message about the accident.

A force nine storm was raging overhead. Through the flaps of the air supply to the diesel engines, which the exhausted personnel of the 5th compartment, who were preparing the diesel engines for launch to generate the necessary electricity, failed to completely close, a huge amount of water poured into the compartment. In addition, a lot of sea water also got into the 9th compartment when, to prevent the spread of fire, the flood valve of the compartment was opened for some time from the central compartment.

Diesel generators, fans of the ship's general ventilation system, and remote control equipment for the reactor compartment mechanisms were disabled. The boat had a slight trim to the stern and a list to starboard.

And in the fencing of the felling, under the leadership of the chief of medicine M. Piskunov, they tried to “breathe” those poisoned by carbon monoxide - there were many of them... and the storm was 9 points!

Sent to the stern for reconnaissance, Lieutenant Commander V.N. Zavarin, in continuous smoke and heat, bypassing compartment after compartment, reached the burning hand of the ninth bulkhead. There was no way to move on.

Captain-Lieutenant Polyakov.

And in the tenth compartment, cut off from the rest of the boat by the ongoing fire, they were under the command of Lieutenant Commander B.A. Polyakov 12 sailors, contact with whom was maintained for some time via an emergency telephone from the first compartment.

The tenth compartment on all first-generation boats is residential; there are also two torpedo tubes and a supply of torpedoes. On the 658 project, the aft hatch is in the ninth compartment.

The fact that Boris Polyakov was among the dozen sailors largely saved their lives. At that time, he was not the commander of the 10th compartment, but was the first manager and a real sailor: he had experience of repeated combat service and knew the structure of the boat well.

Since the misadventures of the Hiroshima were an integral part of naval folklore, the following was heard about Polyakov: after the rescue operation was completed, the crew members were thoroughly and repeatedly interrogated and it was decided to reward, they decided to nominate Lieutenant-Commander Polyakov for the title of Hero. A request was sent to the native school about the correspondence of the moral and political qualities of the applicant to the high award. And the native school (represented by its valiant leaders), just in case, gave such an “evasive” description of its pupil that “The Star did not find its Hero,” and the submariner was awarded the Order of the “Red Banner of Battle” (certainly a high and respected award ).

This is the version.

In fact, the school had nothing to do with it - all the “fuss” died down at the level of the Navy Personnel Department. Then there was service in a top-secret detachment of aquanauts, and again - a “Hero” performance... And again it didn’t happen: two “Sheriff Stars” were added to the existing Order of the Red Banner.

Today, retired captain 1st rank Boris Aleksandrovich Polyakov lives in Gatchina. He left written memories of those difficult 23 days and nights spent fighting for life in the complete darkness of the gas-polluted 10th compartment of the Hiroshima.

Immediately upon receipt by the Northern Fleet command of the message about the accident, the light cruiser Alexander Nevsky was sent to the area with a reserve crew for the boat and a traveling headquarters to lead the rescue operation, led by Vice Admiral L.G. Garkusha. The SS-44 rescuer, who accompanied the cruiser, was thrown onto the rocks by a storm while still in the Kola Bay. The cruiser, despite a lot of damage caused by the elements, arrived at the point of the accident. Later, the rescue operation was headed by First Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Admiral V.A. Kasatonov.

The first Soviet ship (the cargo ship "Angarles") arrived two days later; a rescue boat launched from its side tried to approach the boat in order to transfer the towing line to it, but this was not possible in the conditions of the ongoing storm.

Even before the arrival of the "Alexander Nevsky", the sailors from the "K-19", excluding members of the emergency party, were evacuated to the BOD "Vice Admiral Drozd" by its ship's helicopter and ("wet method") - to the rescue tug "SB-38".

In order to start ventilating the boat, it was necessary to supply electricity to it from the “rescuer” who was storming nearby, however, the weather did not allow this to be done in full (there was a danger of damage to the central heating unit, after which the boat would inevitably sink): the power ends from the tug were connected to the submarine’s electrical panel , but were cut short by a storm.

These difficult connections, during which we managed to sequentially ventilate the compartments of the boat being towed to the base, continued for three weeks.

A large number of ships and vessels of the Navy took part in the rescue operation. In the final part of the operation, rescuers "Tobol", "Equator", and "Hercules" came to the aid of the single-shaft laborer "SB-38". The helicopter carrier Leningrad arrived from the Black Sea.

On March 18, the head of the rescue operation decided to remove the sailors from the 10th compartment."

Another rare piece of evidence: in 1975, at the Polyarny hospital, I happened to talk with a radiologist, above the breast pocket of whose jacket there was a single red shoe - the Order of the Red Star (which was rare then, before Afghanistan, especially for a junior medical officer). When I asked what the order was for, the captain replied that “during the towing of the Hiroshima, he - a senior lieutenant - a doctor of some coastal unit - was landed by helicopter on board the submarine and was given the task of removing the burnt-out compartments from the sides of the upper deck before the emergency party passed the bodies of the dead, after which they were put into a self-contained breathing apparatus, and it descended through the aft hatch into the strong hull of the nuclear-powered ship.”

His name was Oleg Molchanov.

The prisoners of the 10th compartment in isolation devices and blindfolded were taken by the emergency party to the central (3rd compartment), and from there they were transported by helicopter to the infirmary of the Magomed Gadzhiev submarine base, which also arrived in the area of ​​the rescue operation.

Almost a month earlier - on March 8, 1972 - in accordance with the naval ritual, Lieutenant Vyacheslav Khrychikov and Petty Officer 2nd Article Kazimir Marach were buried at sea from the BOD "Vice Admiral Drozd" at a point with coordinates 59 degrees 29 min north. . and 28 degrees 54 min west.

The rest of the dead, recovered from the Hiroshima compartments at the base, with the exception of captain 3rd rank L.G. Tsygankov (whose body was sent to Sevastopol), with the words “The Motherland will not forget you!” were buried in Kislaya Bay on the outskirts of the city of Polyarny. The fleet command later granted the request of the parents of Chief Petty Officer Vasiliev, and he was reburied in his homeland - in the village of Glubokoye, Opochetsky district, Pskov region.

And naval folklore was replenished with the most famous among submariners, an ingenuous song, the last lines of which could be an epitaph for Chief Petty Officer Alexander Petrovich Vasiliev:

"Our missile submarine, our nuclear fleet
Salutes the fallen heroes!"

But instead, in the demobilization albums of our fools, I came across dedications of this song (guess who?) to the commander of the American nuclear submarine Thrasher... Such is the memory.

Sleep well, Comrade Chief Petty Officer Vasiliev, your posthumous Order of the Red Star is higher than any government award.

As Rear Admiral Mormul, who was part of the campaign headquarters headed by Vice Admiral Garkusha during the period described, recalls, a detailed analytical report was written about this operation, containing many practical recommendations and suggestions. But, as the accident of the Komsomolets submarine in 1989 showed, this experience turned out to be unclaimed.

And they repaired the “K-19” again in Severodvinsk, announcing to Sudprom “a mobilization exercise to repair a nuclear-powered missile carrier in the shortest possible time during a special period” - on June 15, 1972, the boat was put in for repairs, and already on November 15, 1972 it was handed over to the fleet and returned to military service.

From 01.76 to 30.11.79, "K-19" was at the Navy Shipyard No. 10 (Polyarny) undergoing medium repair with re-equipment according to project 658C.

The missile system was removed from it and "K-19" began to be called "KS-19".

In 1988, the command of the Northern Fleet filed a petition to the General Staff of the Navy and the Main Technical Directorate of the Navy to remove the KS-19 from combat service.

In 1990, "KS-19" was withdrawn from the Navy into reserve, and in 1991 it was written off to the Department of Stock Property (OFI). Perhaps today it is already “cut into needles.”

The last commander of Hiroshima was Captain 1st Rank Oleg Evtikhevich Adamov.

There is one truth, but the truth is different for everyone (among the Soviet films about submariners there was “The Truth of Lieutenant Klimov”). And different people’s assessments of the same event can be very different: the general secretary or president has one, the admiral has another, the commander has another, the officer has often completely different. How can one assess the scale of a tragedy if a person’s life is interrupted? A worker on a slipway or a sailor died during repair work in a tank - an accident (and he is someone's brother), died on a boat at sea - non-compliance with safety regulations or an "emergency" situation (and he is someone's son), in an autonomous situation three managers at the control panel died in the fire - small victims, unnoticeable on the scale of the flotilla (and in Sevastopol, where the dead were natives and graduates of one of the schools, flags on the ships were lowered at half-staff upon the arrival of their bodies) ...

Here they died 9 guys from "K-19" also seem to be few,
and here 63 person ( the whole crew!) "S-80" in the same 1961,
and also - 39 sailors on "K-3" ("Leninsky Komsomol") 09/08/1967,
and also 97 sailors ( the whole crew!) K-129 in 1968,
more to come 52 person on "K-8" 07/04/1970,
Then 28 man again on "K-19" 24.02. 1972
(and also 17 people - on "K-429" 06/23/1983,
and also 14 guys - on "K-131" 06/18/1984,
and then 42 person on the unique "K-278" "Komsomolets" 04/07/1989).

And this incomplete (far from complete) mournful martyrology of “imperceptible” losses was completed by the national tragedy “K-141” - "KURSK".

And three years later - the absurd death of a K-159 being towed for dismantling with officers on board.

The reader, having seen these figures, will draw his own conclusions. And this will also be “its own truth.”

Afterword

Zhan Mikhailovich Sverbilov, who saved the crew of the missile carrier K-19 (Hiroshima), died on September 1, 1991 at the age of 64 and was buried in one of the St. Petersburg cemeteries. His memory is not immortalized according to his feat.

I hope he is in heaven.

The famous Soviet submarine K-19, whose history is one of the most significant in the Russian fleet, is known due to its unfortunate fate. Over the years, many incidents occurred on it that took the lives of sailors.

Fame K-19

What is the K-19 submarine best known for? The history of this ship was remembered by the modern public thanks to the 2002 feature film starring Harrison Ford. This picture, under the same name “K-19,” went around most of the world’s cinemas and reminded how close the world was to However, the film, due to its format, did not show everything that happened on the ship.

K-19, the story of which would not fit into several Hollywood action films, began in 1958. Then the Soviet government decided that it was time to create the first nuclear-powered missile carrier in the fleet. It could become an important argument in the escalated dispute with the United States. Most of the submarine's service occurred during the Cold War. Due to the fact that K-19 almost caused a radiation leak, it was unofficially called “Hiroshima”.

Nuclear submarine project

When the K-19 submarine still existed only on paper, it became clear to Soviet designers that this project of theirs would become a stage in the next race with the United States. Also in 1958, American authorities created a secret bureau that developed a similar ship, the George Washington.

Soviet engineers were no less in a hurry. On October 17, 1958, work began on the creation of the first nuclear submarine in the USSR. Shipbuilders and designers worked on the project around the clock without a break. The process was continuous. There were three shifts that worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. One such “stream” could involve three thousand people. The overly hasty process of preparing the vessel made itself felt very quickly. While painting the holds at the shipyard, a fire occurred. Two workers died.

Failures during creation

The unfortunate submarine K-19, whose history is literally teeming with various incidents, ran into trouble again during the first launch of the reactor. A technological error led to the pressure inside the chamber exceeding safety standards twice as much. It was only by luck that no one received a lethal dose of radiation.

In addition, the designers allowed a slight roll of the vessel of one degree. This defect led to the fact that when the K-19 submarine plunged into the water, it almost capsized. It had to be raised in emergency mode within a matter of seconds. During this operation, the nuclear-powered missile carrier almost rammed neighboring ships that were participating in the tests.

Political importance

Later, experts argued among themselves about whether it was worth rushing to create the submarine in such a hurry. Professional arguments in this case took a back seat. The politicians had the final say. The communist leadership wanted to get K-19 as quickly as possible in order to have an argument in their dispute with the United States. Few people in Moscow were interested in possible operational errors. They hoped that the defects could be corrected as the submarine was in use.

Some designers and military experts justified this point of view from a professional perspective. When it comes to new generation ships (like the Soviet submarine K-19), it is impossible to predict on paper all the likely complications. Errors in this case have to be corrected after they exist.

First incident at sea

K-19 was launched on October 11, 1959. A few months earlier, she received a similar “George Washington” at her disposal. However, at the beginning of operation it was better than the Soviet one. It had a higher damage radius and could carry more atomic missiles. The shells on the George Washington were several times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

In 1961, on the day when Yuri Gagarin triumphantly traveled into space, a tragedy almost struck in the Barents Sea, from which the whole world could have suffered. K-19 sailed very close to the Nautilus submarine, which belonged to the United States and was conducting reconnaissance off the Soviet coast. The collision was avoided at the last moment. However, due to a sharp maneuver, the submarine collided with the bottom. It was only by a lucky coincidence that the ship was not damaged.

Breakdown in the reactor

In the summer of the same 1961, a tragedy occurred on K-19, which became known many years later, after the documents were declassified. Then the submarine participated in naval exercises in the Arctic. The reactor broke down, causing some compartments to be exposed to radiation. The crew had to, without special means and tools, get rid of the defect. The ship was saved from destruction, but some sailors paid with their own lives. They were exposed to radiation and died in terrible agony.

The consequences of an accident under bad circumstances would be terrifying. The entire world's oceans could be contaminated. And the reason for this would be just one K-19 submarine. The story of that incident during the exercise turned out to be classified. The victims received state awards.

Returning the submarine to service

After the tragedy of 1961, the Soviet military department decided to sink the K-19. The history of the submarine in such a short period of time was already full of all kinds of misfortunes, and its hull was damaged by radiation. However, at this critical moment the crew had their say. The sailors themselves volunteered to decontaminate the emergency jet compartment and remove dangerous warheads. People worked in unbearable conditions. Many later died in the same way as their comrades during the Arctic incident. The higher ranks turned a blind eye to the situation. The military wanted to save the strategically important ship at any cost, regardless of the casualties.

When K-19 was finally washed, she was taken to her home port. However, on the way, the unexpected happened again. Not far from Severodvinsk, the boat became stranded. The stuck ship ran out of power and its generators went dead. The crew was running out of food. The fleet had to conduct another rescue operation. After those events, the old rocket compartment was flooded near Novaya Zemlya. The K-19 submarine (its dimensions, mainly) has undergone changes and modernization. Only after 1961 was it able to fire from underwater thanks to an increase in its firing radius.

Encounter with Gato

For some time, the fate of the submarine K-19 did not cause concern. In 1967, she was recognized as the best ship in the service of the Command and the sailors it seemed that the misfortunes associated with the K-19 were left behind. However, this was not the case.

On November 15, 1969, on a training mission in the Barents Sea, a Soviet submarine collided with an American “sister”. Gato conducted reconnaissance near the coast of the USSR. The collision was accidental, but the Americans decided that the Russians deliberately went for the ram. Then the commander of the torpedo compartment on Gato gave the order to open fire on the enemy. The Americans also had a nuclear warhead. The fight to the death could have caused World War III. However, the captain of the entire ship did not dare to attack his neighbor and ordered to turn back. A disaster was avoided.

Fire in 1972

On February 24, 1972, the ship's crew noticed smoke in the ninth compartment. Soon a fire started. Sailors from other parts of the ship heard muffled screams and coughing. The death of the submarine K-19 was closer than ever. According to the rules, sailors could not open a compartment engulfed in fire to avoid a fire throughout the ship. The sealed part of K-19 turned into a furnace in which it was impossible to survive. Despite the crew's precautions, the fire began to spread throughout the submarine.

Then Captain Kulibaba gave the order to surface. It was a difficult decision. Now the Americans could notice the K-19. The history of the submarine, photos, main characteristics - all this was in Washington. However, even there they could not imagine that the unlucky ship would again get into trouble without ever engaging in battle.

Crew rescue

The incident was reported to Moscow. A few hours later, party leaders learned about the fire. It was decided to communicate with the submarine only once a day in order to minimize the chance of the Americans intercepting the message. At the same time, eight auxiliary ships went to the rescue of K-19.

The situation was complicated by the fact that a storm was raging in the area where the submarine was located. The storm prevented the arriving ships from helping K-19 for three weeks. Rescuers tried to tow her away. However, the ropes necessary for this operation broke every time.

Meanwhile, the crew underwater tried to do everything to survive. His other task was to prevent the fire from spreading to the missile compartment. If this happened, the atomic warheads would detonate. On the third day, the command room received a call from an emergency phone in one of the closed compartments. The sailors who were locked there survived. Nobody hoped for this anymore. However, it was now necessary to help isolated people. They could simply suffocate. The air was released through a pipe that was originally intended for emergency pumping of water.

All sailors tried not to waste their energy and waste precious oxygen. The crew was rescued only on the 23rd day, when the weather finally calmed down. 2 rescuers and 28 sailors on the submarine were killed. After the incident, debate flared up again in the Navy about whether the K-19 should be written off. The submarine again found powerful defenders at the top who defended the nuclear submarine.

End of service

In subsequent years, K-19 service was relatively calm. She was withdrawn from the fleet in 1990. In 2003, a decision was made to dismantle the unfortunate submarine. Only the cutting was preserved, which is still located in the city of Snezhnogorsk, Murmansk region.

During its service, the K-19 completed more than three hundred thousand missions. The ship conducted several combat operations and launched a total of two dozen ballistic missiles. However, despite these completed tasks, K-19 is best known for its numerous accidents and incidents.

Autumn 1969 Barents Sea in the north of the USSR. The most technically advanced Soviet submarine tested to the limit of its capabilities.

"K-19" the pride of the USSR submarine fleet

« K-19"was the most first nuclear submarine capable of launching a nuclear missile against an unsuspecting enemy within 3 minutes. It was a combination of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union counted on its success. Boat " K-19"was a technical miracle and proved the triumph of politics. It was the most advanced addition to Khrushchev's nuclear arsenal.

In the late 50s and early 60s, each of the most powerful powers with nuclear weapons sought to gain an advantage over the other. Soviet leader N. S. Khrushchev boasted of his superiority. The Soviet leader really enjoyed playing with nuclear weapons in the international political game, making big bets, and the boat " K-19"was one of the trump cards. Khrushchev decided to turn the entire navy into a submarine fleet. In his opinion, large surface ships are a relic of the past.

The deadliest Soviet submarine « K-19"was under the command of captain 2nd rank Nikolai Zateev. At 33, Zateev quickly made a career in the Soviet Navy. He was the best one you could trust." K-19" in the sea. Under his command was a team of 139 people. Most were only 20 years old. The average age of officers is 26 years. These people were the elite Soviet submarine fleet and pioneers nuclear submarines.

submarine "K-19"

Zateev and his crew were “pioneers” on the path of a new form of underwater warfare. Before the atomic age, submarines were powered by diesel-electric engines. They could only stay underwater for a limited time, as they had to surface to replenish their air supplies and charge their batteries. In the mid-50s, nuclear energy changed, making it possible to remain under water for an unlimited time. The first nuclear submarine in the United States was submarine entitled " Nautilus" Then the race began. The USSR created its own first nuclear submarine « Leninsky Komsomol"in 1958.

Boat " K-19"was launched on October 11, 1959. She was much faster and twice as fast as . On the surface she could sail at 26 knots.

on deck "K-19"

Submarine " K-19"was the pride of the Soviet submarine fleet. Inside it were two nuclear reactors, providing colossal energy to the submarine's steam turbine engine. For the Soviet Union " K-19"was a secret technical achievement. Only two years have passed since the laying of the nuclear submarine, commissioning and first mission. Neither the designers of the bureau nor the designers at the plant had the relevant experience.

Nuclear submarines were mobile and silent. Missiles from them could be launched from any ocean, at any time, and completely unnoticed by the enemy. Boat " K-19"was created for the purpose of being off the coast of the United States awaiting an order to strike. She was armed with the latest in Soviet missile technology: three missiles " R-13"had a range of 600 km, but could only fire on the surface.

boat "K-19" tests and trip

In 1960, captain 2nd rank Zateev commanded the boat " K-19"During sea trials, he tested a completely new ballistic missile and the operation of nuclear reactors. After sea trials, the nuclear submarine joined the Northern Fleet.

As international tension increased, the commander of the submarine, Zateev, received an order to withdraw the boat." K-19"on a combat patrol in the North Atlantic for three weeks and take part in naval exercises of the USSR Navy, code-named "Polar Circle".

The Soviet war games were more than exercises - they were a show of force in which it was necessary to show that the USSR was ready for serious action.

boat "K-19" at sea

After preparation, Captain 2nd Rank Zateev led Soviet submarine from a top-secret base in the Barents Sea. The commander headed west into the Norwegian Sea, heading into the waters patrolled by NATO ships between Iceland and Great Britain. Bye " K-19” was following its course, because of Berlin, a crisis broke out between the superpowers, putting the crew on the very brink of war. The Soviet leadership wanted to safely lock Berlin behind the Iron Curtain. The West wanted Berlin to remain a free city. General Secretary Khrushchev met with President Kennedy at the Vienna summit, where he warned that he would take active measures regarding Berlin. He believed he could intimidate the US President by using his nuclear advantage. In such a tense atmosphere, NATO ships and aircraft patrolled the seas on the approaches north of the Atlantic. Boat " K-19“I had to bypass these zones and remain undetected. This was the first real test for submariners. Walls Soviet submarine allowed to descend to a depth where sonars could not reach it - this is 220 meters. The tactic worked and " K-19"overcame NATO barriers and entered the North Atlantic. Now she had to hide until the next stage of her mission.

USSR naval exercises began in the Atlantic, where a large number of ships took part. Naturally, this could not go unnoticed by the Americans - they began to persistently listen to the broadcast by all means. The role of the nuclear submarine " K-19"in these exercises it was simple - to depict American submarine missile carrier. If " K-19 If she managed to outwit the hunter, she had to move on to the next stage of the mission - practical missile firing at a target in northern Russia. Taking on the role of captain of an American submarine, Zateev went under the pack ice to avoid detection. Its course ran between Greenland and Iceland through the ice-clogged Denmark Strait. There were huge icebergs along the course. Even at a depth of 180 meters there was no guarantee that the K-19 would not encounter one of them. Both nuclear reactors of the Soviet submarine operated without interruption. The heat generated by the nuclear reaction produces steam, which turns the submarine's propellers. The reactor is always under very high pressure. This brings the heat sink to 150 degrees Celsius. One small leak could cause a disaster.

disaster at K-19

The task was completed according to plan. " K-19“- the pride of the Soviet submarine fleet justified its purpose in the best possible way. Captain 2nd Rank Zateev at the command post checked the course laid out by the navigator and went to his cabin in the second compartment. On July 4, 1961, at 04:15, the reactor compartment alarm sounded sharply. On the control panel, the instruments showed the pressure drop on the first perimeter to zero, the compensating mufflers - at zero. This was the worst that could be expected. To the commander " K-19“It was reported that radiation was leaking from the rector and was not responding to the control system. Instant temperature rise in the internal pipes of the reactor.

Zateev went to the reactor compartment to personally familiarize himself with the situation. He learned that the situation was becoming critical. According to the instructions, an inevitable thermal explosion awaited them. The reactor was no longer cooled. If the temperature of the core continued to rise, this would cause a catastrophic release of steam and, as a result, complete destruction. " K-19" was no longer the most hidden with the most modern weapons. It turned into an underwater atomic bomb. Zateev gave the order to surface and sent a distress signal to Moscow.

At this critical moment, when the USSR and the USA were on the brink of war over Berlin, Soviet submariners faced a nuclear disaster at sea. Khrushchev visited the US Embassy in Moscow - he wanted to check the “political tension”, and 3000 km away, in the Norwegian Sea, a submarine was drifting “ K-19" The commander urgently needed to contact the General Staff. Something terrible happened to nuclear reactors. A radiation leak has begun. A radiation hazard was announced on the ship, but no one had any idea about the permissible radiation doses. Captain 2nd Rank Zateev gathered all the mechanics at the control room.

The radio operator could not contact the main headquarters. Sea water has damaged the seal of the long-range antenna. Boat " K-19“I was left to my own devices, no one could come to the rescue. But one of the youngest officers proposed a plan to eliminate the accident that could save the nuclear submarine. Engineer Yuri Filin proposed laying an additional pipeline to the reactor oxygen removal system. Theoretically, the plan could have worked, but it was necessary to weld the pipes in the reactor compartment. Under these critical circumstances, this was the only option. The sailors needed emergency equipment, including pipes, hoses, gas masks, radiation protection suits and an electric welding machine. It was necessary to start the diesel engine to provide electricity to the welding machine. While the equipment was being moved, precious minutes passed, and the temperature in the reactor core continued to rise. In order not to waste time, we decided to connect a rubber hose with an emergency cooling pump. The reactor responded by tearing the rubber hose to shreds, which is when a serious breakdown occurred. The overheated reactor, when cold water hit it, produced an explosion of steam, which tore the entire rubber line and people received their first large dose of radiation.

The first attempt to fix the system only made the situation worse. The radiation level outside the compartment also crept up. The captain of the reactor compartment, Lieutenant Commander Krasichkov, insisted that Zateev leave the compartment. Now the radiation has begun to spread throughout nuclear submarine. The emergency welding team was preparing to enter the radiation-emitting compartment. They had no idea of ​​the horror that awaited them. With welding equipment in place, two welding crews of three now attempted to set up the cooling system a second time, this time with a metal pipe. The high level of radiation forced us to work in 10-minute shifts. The temperature reached 399 degrees Celsius, but the reactor survived. The lives of 139 crew members were at stake." K-19».

The submarine commander still had to send people into the radiation-emitting compartment to finish the job. But one man, Lieutenant Boris Korchilov, freed him from this responsibility and volunteered to go there himself. He replaced his colleague Mikhail Krasichkov. The welding team is almost finished installing the cooling pipe. Now the moment of truth had come - it was necessary to turn on the improvised cooling system. Finally, after 4 hours, the temperature began to drop. Lieutenant Korchilov's team did their job, but success came at a terrible price. There was no more oxygen inside the reactor compartment; everything there glowed with the purple color of ionized hydrogen. The shock cooling of the reactor led to a powerful release of radiation. By this time, many had already received a lethal dose of radiation. At first the submariners looked fine, then they began to vomit yellowish mucus, some of them lost their hair very quickly, then their faces began to burn and they began to swell. Through the dedication and skillful actions of a handful of volunteers, the rest of the crew were saved. Finally the rector was controlled, but the horror continued. Radiation contamination spread across " K-19».

hydrogen ionization

Without knowing the situation Soviet submarine "K-19""The USSR Navy continued its war games. Attempts to subordinate the long-distance communication antenna led to nothing. The only thing left was the transmission of the SOS signal from the Western transmitter, but there was no answer.

The waiting was nerve-wracking. Captain 2nd Rank Zateev lost all hope, and he needed to somehow remove the team from nuclear submarine. He decided to head southeast in the direction of the Soviet fleet on the emergency engine. He hoped that he would be found. When " K-19" was walking on a given course, two officers suggested a completely different way out. They tried to convince the captain to go north to the island of Jan Mayen in the Norwegian Sea, disembark the crew there and sink the submarine. Zateev understood that a riot was impending on the ship.

"K-19" rescue

« K-19" was top secret nuclear submarine. US intelligence did not even know about its existence. Flooding it would mean the greatest success for the West. The commander did not allow a Soviet submarine to be sent there, where, according to intelligence data, a NATO naval base was located. Suspecting a conspiracy, Captain 2nd Rank Zateev ordered all personal weapons thrown overboard with the exception of five pistols, which he distributed to the most reliable officers.

The submarine commander ordered the weakest to be taken to the deck. Finally, help was spotted on the horizon. " K-19 and her crew were no longer alone. It was a Soviet submarine of the " Foxtrot" The submariners were horrified by what they saw: many were vomiting, the sailors were sitting or lying on the deck. The commander understood that people needed to get off the submarine as soon as possible and receive medical assistance. Through the submarine rescuer, he requested further instructions and awaited a response. However, the General Staff, paralyzed by indecision, did not respond. The next morning, no instructions were received, then Captain 2nd Rank Zateev decided to take the initiative into his own hands. Transfer your people to the rescue submarine. Transporting people was not an easy task in the conditions of ocean waves. Only along the protruding planes and rudders was the crew able to move to another submarine. 11 submariners were carried on stretchers, they received a huge dose of radiation and could not walk. The first Soviet rescue submarine left for base with most of the crew." K-19" The crew of the second submarine " S-270“As soon as he arrived at the scene of the tragedy, he immediately began to save the victims. Captain Zateev and another officer made a decision that, as he knew, could cost him his shoulder straps. He decided to abandon the only nuclear-powered missile submarine. There was no fire, there was no flooding - he could have been considered a coward for such an action, but it is easy to judge the actions of others while sitting in a warm chair in Moscow. As befits a captain, he was the last to leave the ship.

Captain 2nd Rank Zateev ordered the rescuer “S-270” to load the torpedo tubes of another boat and get ready to fire. If NATO ships tried to capture " K-19“He would order torpedo and send her to the bottom. Finally a radiogram arrived from Moscow: “Another Soviet submarine is approaching to provide security for the emergency.” K-19" The ordeal ended with 14 deaths.

the fate of the K-19 submarine continues

By the time we return to base, " K-19"was completely contaminated with radiation. One of the two reactors was destroyed. But the Soviet leadership decided that it was too valuable to be scrapped. Her designers were ordered to refit her. It was a serious and dangerous undertaking that took three years to complete. Two months after the incident with the infected “ K-19"A rocket was launched to determine the effects of radiation. The missiles performed flawlessly.

After all, it is the rapid pace of construction that “ K-19" and deficiencies in welding led to a tragic failure. This is exactly what the first mate Vladimir Vaganov learned many years later. "K-19" was built in less than a year. In a hurry, the welding machine was damaged and a drop from the electrode got into the pipeline of the first cooling circuit.

The Soviet Union did not confirm a dangerous incident on board " K-19" many years. Only a few weeks after the nuclear submarine was towed to base, it was widely boasted that missile-carrying submarines were the backbone of the navy. Actually "K-19" first Soviet submarine, which had an accident and went out of order. The nuclear submarine incident deprived the Soviet Union of a key component - its nuclear arsenal at the very peak of the Cold War, but soon the West took another technological leap forward - new American satellites replaced the modern U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. The United States received a complete image of the USSR from space using the Corona satellite. At the time, the United States believed that the USSR had 250 ICBM launch sites. Satellites confirmed that the Soviet Union was deceiving the American leadership. Instead of hundreds of launch sites, only fifteen were discovered. Having received such information, US President Kennedy called Khrushchev's statement a “nuclear bluff” and refused to concede on the Berlin issue. The crisis stalled when the Soviets began building the notorious Berlin Wall.

"K-19" in the database

« K-19"reentered service in 1965, after being completely decontaminated and rebuilt. It was converted to launch a rocket from under water. It continued to form part of the USSR's strategic submarine forces. Disaster on " K-19"led to an urgent revision of the design of all Soviet nuclear submarines, on which additional reactor cooling systems began to be installed. For a while" K-19"was rusting in the harbor of the Kola Peninsula, awaiting disposal.

Ironically, submariners are still proud of this submarine - a symbol of the sacrifices made on the altar of the Cold War. Those who survived the disaster on the K-19 owe their lives to a handful of sailors who selflessly fulfilled their duty and sacrificed their own lives.

Here they are:
Boris Korchilov, Yuri Ardoshkin, Evgeniy Koshenkov, Nikolai Savkin, Semyon Penkov, Valery Kharitonov, Boris Ryzhkov and Yuri Povstev.

Despite all the fears for his fate and its uncertainty, Captain 1st Rank Nikolai Vladimirovich Zateev was not subject to punishment as the only culprit. He continued to serve in the submarine fleet and died 27 years after the incident in 1998.

disposal of "K-19"

Technical characteristics of the Project 658 nuclear submarine “K-19”:
Length - 114 m;
Width - 9.2 m;
Displacement - 5375 tons;
Ship's power plant - two nuclear reactors;
Speed ​​- 26 knots;
Immersion depth - 330 m;
Crew - 104 people;
Autonomy - 50 days;
Weapons:
D-2 missile system with three R-13 missiles;
Torpedo tubes 533 mm - 4;
Torpedo tubes 400 mm - 4;

K-19 was the very first nuclear submarine capable of firing a nuclear missile against an unsuspecting enemy within 3 minutes. It was a combination of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union counted on its success. The K-19 boat was a technical miracle and proved the triumph of politics. It was the most advanced addition to Khrushchev's nuclear arsenal.

In the late 50s and early 60s, each of the most powerful powers with nuclear weapons sought to gain an advantage over the other. Soviet leader N. S. Khrushchev boasted of his superiority. The Soviet leader really liked to play with nuclear weapons in the international political game, making large bets, and the K-19 boat was one of the trump cards. Khrushchev decided to turn the entire navy into a submarine fleet. In his opinion, large surface ships are a relic of the past.

The deadliest Soviet submarine, K-19, was under the command of Captain 2nd Rank Nikolai Zateev. At 33, Zateev quickly made a career in the Soviet Navy. He was the best person the K-19 could be trusted at sea. Under his command was a team of 139 people. Most were only 20 years old. The average age of officers is 26 years. These men were the elite of the Soviet submarine fleet and pioneers of nuclear submarines.

Zateev and his crew were “pioneers” on the path of a new form of underwater warfare. Before the atomic age, submarines were powered by diesel-electric engines. They could only stay underwater for a limited time, as they had to surface to replenish their air supplies and charge their batteries. In the mid-50s, nuclear energy changed the submarine, making it possible to remain under water for an unlimited time. The first nuclear submarine in the United States was a submarine called Nautilus. Then the race began. The USSR created its first nuclear submarine, Leninsky Komsomol, in 1958.

The K-19 boat was launched on October 11, 1959. She was significantly faster and twice as fast as diesel submarines. On the surface she could sail at 26 knots.
The K-19 submarine was the pride of the Soviet submarine fleet. Inside it were two nuclear reactors, providing colossal energy to the submarine's steam turbine engine. For the Soviet Union, the K-19 was a secret technical achievement. Only two years have passed since the laying of the nuclear submarine, commissioning and first mission. Neither the designers of the bureau nor the designers at the plant had the relevant experience.

Nuclear submarines were agile and silent. Missiles from them could be launched from any ocean, at any time, and completely unnoticed by the enemy. The K-19 boat was created with the purpose of being off the coast of the United States awaiting an order to strike. It was armed with the latest in Soviet missile technology: three R-13 missiles had a range of 600 km, but could only fire on the surface.

boat "K-19" tests and trip

In 1960, Captain 2nd Rank Zateev commanded the K-19 boat during sea trials, checking a completely new ballistic missile and the operation of nuclear reactors. After sea trials, the nuclear submarine joined the Northern Fleet.

As international tensions increased, submarine commander Zateev was ordered to take the K-19 boat out on combat patrol in the North Atlantic for three weeks and take part in naval exercises of the USSR Navy, code-named “Polar Circle”.

The Soviet war games were more than exercises - they were a show of force in which it was necessary to show that the USSR was ready for serious action. After preparation, Captain 2nd Rank Zateev led the Soviet submarine from a top-secret base into the Barents Sea. The commander headed west into the Norwegian Sea, heading into the waters patrolled by NATO ships between Iceland and Great Britain. While the K-19 was on its course, a crisis broke out between the superpowers over Berlin, putting the crew on the very brink of war. The Soviet leadership wanted to safely lock Berlin behind the Iron Curtain. The West wanted Berlin to remain a free city. General Secretary Khrushchev met with President Kennedy at the Vienna summit, where he warned that he would take active measures regarding Berlin. He believed he could intimidate the US President by using his nuclear advantage. In such a tense atmosphere, NATO ships and aircraft patrolled the seas on the approaches north of the Atlantic. The K-19 boat had to bypass these zones and remain undetected. This was the first real test for submariners. The walls of the Soviet submarine allowed it to descend to a depth where sonar could not reach it - this is 220 meters. The tactic worked and the K-19 overcame NATO barriers and entered the North Atlantic. Now she had to hide until the next stage of her mission.

USSR naval exercises began in the Atlantic, where a large number of ships took part. Naturally, this could not go unnoticed by the Americans - they began to persistently listen to the broadcast by all means. The role of the nuclear submarine K-19 in these exercises was simple - to portray an American missile-carrying submarine. If the K-19 managed to outwit the hunter, it would move on to the next stage of the mission - practical missile firing at a target in northern Russia. Taking on the role of captain of an American submarine, Zateev went under the pack ice to avoid detection. Its course ran between Greenland and Iceland through the ice-clogged Denmark Strait. There were huge icebergs along the course. Even at a depth of 180 meters there was no guarantee that the K-19 would not encounter one of them. Both nuclear reactors of the Soviet submarine operated without interruption. The heat generated by the nuclear reaction produces steam, which turns the submarine's propellers. The reactor is always under very high pressure. This brings the heat transfer agent to 150 degrees Celsius. One small leak could cause a disaster.

disaster at K-19

The task was completed according to plan. "K-19" - the pride of the Soviet submarine fleet, justified its purpose in the best possible way. Captain 2nd Rank Zateev at the command post checked the course laid out by the navigator and went to his cabin in the second compartment. On July 4, 1961, at 04:15, the reactor compartment alarm sounded sharply. On the control panel, the instruments showed the pressure drop on the first perimeter to zero, the compensating mufflers - at zero. This was the worst that could be expected. The K-19 commander was informed that radiation was leaking from the rector and was not responding to the control system. Instant temperature rise in the internal pipes of the reactor.

Zateev went to the reactor compartment to personally familiarize himself with the situation. He learned that the situation was becoming critical. According to the instructions, an inevitable thermal explosion awaited them. The reactor was no longer cooled. If the temperature of the core continued to rise, this would cause a catastrophic release of steam and, as a result, complete destruction. K-19 was no longer the most stealthy with the most modern weapons. It turned into an underwater atomic bomb. Zateev gave the order to surface and sent a distress signal to Moscow.

At this critical moment, when the USSR and the USA were on the brink of war over Berlin, Soviet submariners faced a nuclear disaster at sea. Khrushchev visited the US Embassy in Moscow - he wanted to check the “political tension”, and 3000 km away, the K-19 submarine was drifting in the Norwegian Sea. The commander urgently needed to contact the General Staff. Something terrible happened to nuclear reactors. A radiation leak has begun. A radiation hazard was announced on the ship, but no one had any idea about the permissible radiation doses. Captain 2nd Rank Zateev gathered all the mechanics at the control room.

The radio operator could not contact the main headquarters. Sea water has damaged the seal of the long-range antenna. The K-19 boat was left to its own devices; no one could come to the rescue. But one of the youngest officers proposed a plan to eliminate the accident that could save the nuclear submarine. Engineer Yuri Filin proposed laying an additional pipeline to the reactor oxygen removal system. Theoretically, the plan could have worked, but it was necessary to weld the pipes in the reactor compartment. Under these critical circumstances, this was the only option. The sailors needed emergency equipment, including pipes, hoses, gas masks, radiation protection suits and an electric welding machine. It was necessary to start the diesel engine to provide electricity to the welding machine. While the equipment was being moved, precious minutes passed, and the temperature in the reactor core continued to rise. In order not to waste time, we decided to connect a rubber hose with an emergency cooling pump. The reactor responded by tearing the rubber hose to shreds, which is when a serious breakdown occurred. The overheated reactor, when cold water hit it, produced an explosion of steam, which tore the entire rubber line and people received their first large dose of radiation.

The first attempt to fix the system only made the situation worse. The radiation level outside the compartment also crept up. The captain of the reactor compartment, Lieutenant Commander Krasichkov, insisted that Zateev leave the compartment. Now the radiation began to spread throughout the nuclear submarine. The emergency welding team was preparing to enter the radiation-emitting compartment. They had no idea of ​​the horror that awaited them. With welding equipment in place, two welding crews of three now attempted to set up the cooling system a second time, this time with a metal pipe. The high level of radiation forced us to work in 10-minute shifts. The temperature reached 399 degrees Celsius, but the reactor survived. The lives of 139 K-19 crew members were at stake.

The submarine commander still had to send people into the radiation-emitting compartment to finish the job. But one man, Lieutenant Boris Korchilov, freed him from this responsibility and volunteered to go there himself. He replaced his colleague Mikhail Krasichkov. The welding team is almost finished installing the cooling pipe. Now the moment of truth had come - it was necessary to turn on the improvised cooling system. Finally, after 4 hours, the temperature began to drop. Lieutenant Korchilov's team did their job, but success came at a terrible price. There was no more oxygen inside the reactor compartment; everything there glowed with the purple color of ionized hydrogen. The shock cooling of the reactor led to a powerful release of radiation. By this time, many had already received a lethal dose of radiation. At first the submariners looked fine, then they began to vomit yellowish mucus, some of them lost their hair very quickly, then their faces began to burn and they began to swell. Through the dedication and skillful actions of a handful of volunteers, the rest of the crew were saved. Finally the rector was controlled, but the horror continued. Radiation contamination spread throughout K-19. Not knowing the situation on the Soviet submarine "K-19", the ships and vessels of the USSR Navy continued their war games. Attempts to subordinate the long-distance communication antenna led to nothing. The only thing left was the transmission of the SOS signal from the Western transmitter, but there was no answer.

The waiting was nerve-wracking. Captain 2nd Rank Zateev lost all hope, and he needed to somehow remove the crew from the nuclear submarine. He decided to head southeast in the direction of the Soviet fleet on the emergency engine. He hoped that he would be found. When K-19 was on its intended course, two officers suggested a completely different way out. They tried to convince the captain to go north to the island of Jan Mayen in the Norwegian Sea, disembark the crew there and sink the submarine. Zateev understood that a riot was impending on the ship.

"K-19" rescue

K-19 was a top-secret nuclear submarine. US intelligence did not even know about its existence. Flooding it would mean the greatest success for the West. The commander did not allow a Soviet submarine to be sent there, where, according to intelligence data, a NATO naval base was located. Suspecting a conspiracy, Captain 2nd Rank Zateev ordered all personal weapons thrown overboard with the exception of five pistols, which he distributed to the most reliable officers.

The submarine commander ordered the weakest to be taken to the deck. Finally, help was spotted on the horizon. K-19 and her crew were no longer alone. It was a Soviet Foxtrot-class submarine. The submariners were horrified by what they saw: many were vomiting, the sailors were sitting or lying on the deck. The commander understood that people needed to get off the submarine as soon as possible and receive medical assistance. Through the submarine rescuer, he requested further instructions and awaited a response. However, the General Staff, paralyzed by indecision, did not respond. The next morning, no instructions were received, then Captain 2nd Rank Zateev decided to take the initiative into his own hands. Transfer your people to the rescue submarine. Transporting people was not an easy task in the conditions of ocean waves. Only along the protruding planes and rudders was the crew able to move to another submarine. 11 submariners were carried on stretchers, they received a huge dose of radiation and could not walk. The first Soviet rescue submarine left for base with most of the K-19 crew. The crew of the second submarine “S-270”, which had just arrived at the scene of the tragedy, immediately began to rescue the victims. Captain Zateev and another officer made a decision that, as he knew, could cost him his shoulder straps. He decided to abandon the only nuclear-powered missile submarine. There was no fire, there was no flooding - he could have been considered a coward for such an action, but it is easy to judge the actions of others while sitting in a warm chair in Moscow. As befits a captain, he was the last to leave the ship.

Captain 2nd Rank Zateev ordered the rescuer “S-270” to load the torpedo tubes of another boat and get ready to fire. If NATO ships had tried to capture the K-19, he would have ordered it to be torpedoed and sent to the bottom. Finally, a radiogram arrived from Moscow: “Another Soviet submarine is approaching to provide security for the damaged K-19.” The ordeal ended with 14 deaths.

the fate of the K-19 submarine continues

By the time they returned to base, K-19 was completely contaminated with radiation. One of the two reactors was destroyed. But the Soviet leadership decided that it was too valuable to be scrapped. Her designers were ordered to refit her. It was a serious and dangerous undertaking that took three years to complete. Two months after the incident with the infected K-19, a rocket was launched to determine the effects of radiation. The missiles performed flawlessly.

In the end, it was the rapid pace of construction of the K-19 and deficiencies in welding that led to the tragic failure. This is exactly what the first mate Vladimir Vaganov learned many years later. "K-19" was built in less than a year. In a hurry, the welding machine was damaged and a drop from the electrode got into the pipeline of the first cooling circuit.

The Soviet Union did not confirm a dangerous incident on board the K-19 for many years. Only a few weeks after the nuclear submarine was towed to base, it was widely boasted that missile-carrying submarines were the backbone of the navy. In fact, “K-19” is the first Soviet submarine that suffered an accident and went out of commission. The nuclear submarine incident deprived the Soviet Union of a key component - its nuclear arsenal at the very peak of the Cold War, but soon the West took another technological leap forward - new American satellites replaced the modern U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. The United States received a complete image of the USSR from space using the Corona satellite. At the time, the United States believed that the USSR had 250 ICBM launch sites. Satellites confirmed that the Soviet Union was deceiving the American leadership. Instead of hundreds of launch sites, only fifteen were discovered. Having received such information, US President Kennedy called Khrushchev's statement a “nuclear bluff” and refused to concede on the Berlin issue. The crisis stalled when the Soviets began building the notorious Berlin Wall.
K-19 returned to service in 1965, after being completely deactivated and rebuilt. It was converted to launch a rocket from under water. It continued to form part of the USSR's strategic submarine forces. The K-19 disaster led to an urgent review of the design of all Soviet nuclear submarines, which began to be equipped with additional reactor cooling systems. For some time, the K-19 rusted in the harbor of the Kola Peninsula, awaiting disposal.

Ironically, submariners are still proud of this submarine - a symbol of the sacrifices made on the altar of the Cold War. Those who survived the disaster on the K-19 owe their lives to a handful of sailors who selflessly fulfilled their duty and sacrificed their own lives.

Here they are:
Boris Korchilov, Yuri Ardoshkin, Evgeniy Koshenkov, Nikolai Savkin, Semyon Penkov, Valery Kharitonov, Boris Ryzhkov and Yuri Povstev.

Despite all the fears for his fate and its uncertainty, Captain 1st Rank Nikolai Vladimirovich Zateev was not subject to punishment as the only culprit. He continued to serve in the submarine fleet and died 27 years after the incident in 1998.

Technical characteristics of the Project 658 nuclear submarine “K-19”:
Length - 114 m;
Width - 9.2 m;
Displacement - 5375 tons;
Ship's power plant - two nuclear reactors;
Speed ​​- 26 knots;
Immersion depth - 330 m;
Crew - 104 people;
Autonomy - 50 days;
Weapons:
D-2 missile system with three R-13 missiles;
Torpedo tubes 533 mm - 4;
Torpedo tubes 400 mm - 4;