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171
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2007
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Publié par
Date de parution
03 août 2007
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9780470244845
Langue
English
-- TOM CLANCY
Drama on the high seas as the world holds its breath
It was the most spectacular display of brinkmanship in the Cold War era. In October 1962, President Kennedy risked inciting a nuclear war to prevent the Soviet Union from establishing missile bases in Cuba. The risk, however, was far greater than Kennedy realized.
October Fury uncovers startling new information about the Cuban missile crisis and the potentially calamitous confrontation between U.S. Navy destroyers and Soviet submarines in the Atlantic. Peter Huchthausen, who served as a junior ensign aboard one of the destroyers, reveals that a single shot fired by any U.S. warship could have led to an immediate nuclear response from the Soviet submarines.
This riveting account re-creates those desperate days of confrontation from both the American and Russian points of view and discloses detailed information about Soviet operational plans and the secret orders given to submarine commanders. It provides an engrossing, behind-the-scenes look at the technical and tactical functions of two great navies along with stunning portraits of the officers and sailors on both sides who were determined to do their duty even in the most extreme circumstances.
As absorbing and detailed as a Tom Clancy novel, this real-life suspense thriller is destined to become a classic of naval literature.
Preface.
Prologue.
Part I. Cuba Libre.
Operation Anadyr.
Destroyer USS Blandy.
The Art of Antisubmarine Warfare.
Operation Kama Departure.
October Fury.
Part II. Spies and Diplomats.
Part III. Russian Roulette.
Atlantic Datum.
Carrier Randolph Finds Savitsky's B-59.
Cecil vs. Dubivko in B-36.
Blandy vs. Shumkov in B-130.
Part IV. Hide-and-Seek.
Soviet Shell Game.
Ketov Evades in B-4.
Part V. Endgame.
Kola Homecoming.
Newport Farewell.
Notes.
Bibliography.
Index.
Publié par
Date de parution
03 août 2007
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9780470244845
Langue
English
O CTOBER F URY
P ETER A. H UCHTHAUSEN
John Wiley Sons, Inc.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Copyright 2002 by Peter Huchthausen. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey Published simultaneously in Canada
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 750-4470, or on the web at www.copyright.com . Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, email: permcoordinator@wiley.com.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
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Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Huchthausen, Peter A., date.
October fury / Peter Huchthausen. p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-471-41534-0 (acid-free paper)
1. Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962. 2. United States. Navy-History-20th century.
3. Soviet Union. Voenne-Morsko Flot-History. 4. Destroyers (Warships)-Cuba-History-20th century. 5. Submarines (Ships)-Cuba-History-20th century. I. Title.
E841.H83 2002 973.922-dc21
2002071333
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
C ONTENTS
Preface
Prologue
P ART I. Cuba Libre
Operation Anadyr
Destroyer USS Blandy
The Art of Antisubmarine Warfare
Operation Kama Departure
October Fury
P ART II. Spies and Diplomats
P ART III. Russian Roulette
Atlantic Datum
Carrier Randolph Finds Savitsky s B-59
Cecil vs. Dubivko in B-36
Blandy vs. Shumkov in B-130
P ART IV. Hide-and-Seek
Soviet Shell Game
Ketov Evades in B-4
P ART V. Endgame
Kola Homecoming
Newport Farewell
Notes
Bibliography
Index
P REFACE
The actions and maneuvers made by the Soviet and U.S. ships and submarines, related on the following pages, were reconstructed from interviews and conversations with members of the crews on both sides. The author corrected the dates, sequence, and locations of the actions given by the sources, based on their memories, using the antisubmarine warfare records of October and November 1962. The dialogue was formed directly from the accounts given by the men who were there. On the U.S. side indeed a larger number of ships and aircraft participated in each encounter than are mentioned. The three destroyers whose actions are described in detail, however, were the ships primarily responsible for forcing their Soviet prey to surface.
I am deeply grateful to Captain First Rank Lev Vtorygin, Russian Navy Retired, a close friend now for more than fourteen years, for his tenacity and zeal in finding the participants on the Soviet side, and recording their accounts. His many contributions were instrumental to my completing this narrative with accurate accounts from both sides. I am thankful to the Russian officers who gave their excellent accounts from memory, and am also indebted to the men of the three destroyers: Gary Slaughter of the USS Cony; Charles Rozier, John Hunter, Jim Jordan, and others from the USS Charles P. Cecil; and my many shipmates and friends of the USS Blandy for their invaluable input. I am especially indebted to Mrs. Grace Kelley, who helped so many former Blandy sailors rekindle the spirit and leadership of our beloved skipper, the late Edward G. Kelley.
P ROLOGUE
If I take the wings of the morning And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there your hand will lead me And your right hand hold me fast.
Psalm 139:9-10
In the fall of 1962, the United States and the Soviet Union came as close as they ever would to global nuclear war. The confrontation came after Soviet premier Nikita S. Khrushchev was caught in the act of secretly deploying nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles to Fidel Castro s Cuba. What is not widely known is that the showdown with the Soviet Union nearly led to an exchange of tactical nuclear weapons at sea between ships and submarines of the opposing navies. We now know from participants on both sides that a naval shoot-out very nearly occurred. This account is based on the recollections of men who had their fingers on the triggers.
The gravity of the encounter was first revealed in 1992, when parts of the long-guarded files of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union were opened. Although many KGB and Ministry of Defense files were released to researchers shortly after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the Central Committee files were stored separately and guarded as politically sensitive. Items from these files have been selectively released by the government of the Russian Federation.
Central Committee files released in January 1992 state that the Soviet Politburo had given their military commander in Cuba in 1962, General Issa Pliyev, the authority to use tactical nuclear weapons against U.S. ships and landing forces without prior approval from Moscow. The following quote from a dispatch from Soviet defense minister Rodion Malinovsky to General Pliyev in Havana in early October 1962 was made public in 1992:
Only in the event of a landing of the opponent s forces on the island of Cuba and if there is a concentration of enemy ships with landing forces near the coast of Cuba, in its territorial waters and there is no possibility of receiving orders from the USSR Ministry of Defense, you are personally allowed as an exception to take the decision to apply the tactical LUNA missiles as a means of local destruction of the opponent on land and on the coast with the aim of a full crushing defeat of troops on the territory of Cuba and the defense of the Cuban Revolution. 1
General Anatoly Gribkov, who was chief of operational planning on the Soviet General Staff in 1962, stated during a Cuban crisis reunion hosted by Fidel Castro in Havana in January 1992 that in addition to medium-range SS-4 missiles in Cuba, Luna (also known as Frog by NATO) missiles with nuclear warheads had already been provided to Soviet forces. These had one-hundred-kiloton warheads and a twenty-five-mile range. It has since been learned from Soviet records that the four submarines sent as the advance brigade to make its home port in Cuba as part of Operation Kama (the naval phase of Operation Anadyr , the code name for the overall plot to introduce strategic weapons in Cuba) had been equipped with tactical nuclear-tipped torpedoes and given the same authority to use them if an attack by U.S. Navy ships appeared imminent.
The Cuban missile crisis and its outcome provide a classic study of the successful use of diplomacy backed by superior sea power. The Soviet Navy was operating in unfamiliar waters with inferior naval forces and without air support. The advantageous naval position enjoyed by the United States forced a choice on Khrushchev between hostilities and certain defeat, or withdrawal and a major diplomatic setback. The major reversal for the Soviet leader eventually resulted in his political defeat and forced retirement.
The confrontation was a pivotal moment for the Soviet fleet, leading to resumption of an aggressive naval construction program, which continued until the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991. By that time the USSR had achieved status as the world s largest and second most powerful navy.
Historians and command and control experts have pondered the Cuban missile crisis in great depth and continue to offer new analysis. During the thirty-year anniversary observations of the Cuban episode in 1992, a number of surviving senior decision makers from the three sides met in Havana and Moscow for reunions and roundtable critiques. New information revealed at those gatherings confirmed that the situation came even closer to a nuclear exchange than either the United States or the Soviet Union leadership realized. Escalation to a nuclear exchange might have resulted in grave injury to the United States, but it certainly would have led to a disastrous Soviet defeat. The results of the crisis had a profound impact on subsequent overall Soviet military policy as well as the naval construction program.
The Soviet Navy before the Cuban confrontation consisted of twenty-five conventional cruisers, fewer than one hundred destroyers, and large numbers of small combatants. It also included more than three hundred diesel-powered submarines, more than half of which were long-range attack boats. The Soviet Union already possessed more than the total number of diesel attack submarines Nazi
