Soviet submarine K-19

"K19" redirects here. For the 2002 movie about an accident involving the submarine K-19, see K-19: The Widowmaker.

Not to be confused with Soviet submarine K-219.

History
USSR
Name	«K-19»
Laid down	17 October 1958
Launched	8 April 1959
Completed	12 November 1960
Commissioned	30 April 1961
Decommissioned	19 April 1990
Fate	Recycled at Naval Yard 85 Nerpa.
General characteristics
Class and type	Hotel-class submarine
Displacement	4,030 long tons (4,095 t) surfaced 5,000 long tons (5,080 t) submerged
Length	114 m (374 ft 0 in)
Beam	9.2 m (30 ft 2 in)
Draft	7.1 m (23 ft 4 in)
Propulsion	2 × 70 MW VM-A reactors, 2 geared turbines, 2 shafts, 39,200 shp (29 MW)
Speed	15 knots (17 mph; 28 km/h) surfaced 26 knots (30 mph; 48 km/h) submerged
Range	35,700 mi (57,500 km) at 26 kn (30 mph; 48 km/h) 32,200 mi (51,800 km) at 24 kn (28 mph; 44 km/h) (80 % power)
Endurance	60 days (limited by food, and physical health)
Test depth	250 m (820 ft) test 300 m (980 ft) design
Complement	125 officers and men
Armament	• 3 × ballistic nuclear missiles (650 km range, 1.4 megatons) • 4 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes forward • 2 × 16 in (406 mm) tubes forward • 2 × 16 in (406 mm) tubes aft

K-19, KS-19, BS-19 was one of the first two Soviet submarines of the 658, 658м, 658с class (NATO reporting name Hotel-class submarine), the first generation nuclear submarine equipped with nuclear ballistic missiles. Her keel was laid down on 17 October 1958, christened on 8 April 1959 and launched on 11 October 1959. Her naval flag was first raised on 12 July 1960, and she completed all acceptance tests on 12 November 1960. Her official commissioning took place on 30 April 1961. Due to the large amount of accidents during her construction and service life, she gained an unofficial nickname «Hirosima» among naval sailors and officers. Over her service life, she ran 332,396 miles during 20,223 working hours.

Timeline of the nuclear submarine «K-19»

• 16 October 1957 Ordered by the Soviet Navy.
• 17 October 1958 Laid down at the naval yard in Severodvinsk as a main nuclear submarine cruiser equipped with ballistic missiles.
• 1959 Three people die as a result of a fire which broke out during the construction of the ballast tanks.
• 11 October 1959 Launching ceremony and christening. Champagne bottle thrown by Captain, 3rd rank V. V. Panov of the 5th Urgent Unit slides along the screws and bounces off the rubber coated hull without breaking. Many see this as a sign of bad luck.
• January 1960 Confusion while a watch change causes the crew to bend a reactor control rod. The damage is so extensive the reactor needs to be taken apart for repairs. As a result responsible officers are removed from their post and Captain Panov is demoted one rank.
• May through June 1960 During repair work on the reactor a worker finds large live insects (approximately 10-15mm) in the graphite lubricant used on fastening bolts. It is unknown how could they survive in an operational nuclear reactor and are send to one of the Soviet research institutes but no explanation is given.
• 30 April 1960 Commissioned.
• 12 July 1960 The submarine's ensign is hoisted for the first time.
• 13 through 17 July 1960 First sea trials.
• 12 August through 8 November 1960 Conducted several sea trials over a total course of 10779 miles. The rubber coating on the hull is found to have mostly come off after surfacing from a submerged full power run, which requires a total repainting of the boat. During a test dive to the maximum depth of 300 metres water leaks in the reactor compartment and causes the crew to do an emergency surfacing. The boat jumps out of the water dangerously close to her supply ship.
• October 1960 Wooden planks removed from crates containing equipment are disposed of through the galley's waste system blocking it. This causes flooding to the 9th compartment which subsequently fills to one third with water.
• 12 November 1960 The boat is commissioned and Captain, 2nd rank Nikolai Vladimirovich Zateyev becomes the first commander of the submarine.
• December 1960 First independent operation. Loss of coolant causes failure of the main circuit pump. Specialists called from Severodvinsk manage to repair it at sea in a week.
• 1961 While loading missiles a hatch cover slams shut and kills a sailor.
• 3 and 4 July 1961 The nuclear accident. See Nuclear accident.
• 6 August 1961 26 members of the crew are awarded decorations for courage and valor shown while dealing with the accident.
• 14 December 1961 Upgraded to the 658m (658м) variant.
• 15 November 1969 Collision with USS Gato. See Collision.
• 24 February 1972 A fire takes the lives of 28 sailors and 2 more while on board rescue ships. See Fire.
• 15 June through 5 November 1972 Repaired quickly and put back into service.
• November 1972 Another fire breaks out, no casualties.
• 28 November 1985 Upgraded to the 658s (658с) variant.
• 25 July 1977 Reclassified as a Large Submarine.
• 15 November 1978 Fire in compartment 6. No casualties. Extinguished by the chemical fire system.
• 26 July 1979 Reclassified as a communications submarine and given the symbol KS-19 (КС-19).
• 15 August 1982 Due to electrical short circuit, two sailors received burns of varying degrees. One of them, V. A. Kravchuk dies in a hospital on 20 August 1982.
• 19 April 1990 Decommissioned.
• March 2002 An US film studio tried to secure the boat as a set for its production but the navy declined.
• August 2003 The crew makes its last visit to the boat in Polyarny city after which the hull is scrapped save for the sail left for the purpose of forming a burial site for fallen crew members.

Nuclear accident

On 4 July 1961, under the command of Captain First Rank Nikolai Vladimirovich Zateyev, K-19 was conducting exercises in the North Atlantic close to Southern Greenland when she developed a major leak in her reactor coolant system, causing the water pressure in the aft reactor to drop to zero and causing failure of the coolant pumps. A separate accident had disabled her long-range radio system, so she could not contact Moscow. The reactor temperature rose uncontrollably, reaching 800 °C — almost the melting point of the fuel rods — and the chain reactions continued despite the control rods being inserted via a SCRAM mechanism. The reactor continued to heat up as coolant is still required during shutdown until the reactions decrease. Despite Zateyev's and others' earlier requests, no backup cooling system had been installed.

The captain was concerned that the nuclear emissions resulting from the accident – and any possible explosion – might be interpreted by the United States as a pre-emptive strike and trigger a nuclear war. The captain was also very keen to save the ship and his crew.

As a cooling back-up system had not been installed, Zateyev made a drastic decision: a team of seven engineering officers and crew worked for extended periods in high-radiation areas to implement a new coolant system, by cutting off an air vent valve and welding a water-supplying pipe into it. Since the ship carried chemical suits, instead of radiation suits, they were certain to be lethally contaminated. But the repair team was not aware of that, believing the suits they wore would protect them from contamination. The released radioactive steam, containing fission products, was drawn into the ventilation system and spread to other sections of the ship. However, the cooling water pumped from the reactor section worked well.

The incident contaminated the crew, parts of the ship, and some of the ballistic missiles carried on board; the entire crew received substantial doses of radiation, and all seven men in the repair crew died of radiation exposure within a week, and twenty more within the next few years. The captain decided to head south to meet diesel submarines expected to be there, instead of continuing on the mission's planned route. Worries about a potential crew mutiny prompted Zateyev to have all small arms thrown overboard except for five pistols distributed to his most trusted officers. A diesel submarine, S-270, picked up K-19's low-power distress transmissions and rendezvoused with her.

American warships nearby had also heard the transmission and offered to help, a rare event during the Cold War, but Zateyev, afraid of giving away Soviet military secrets to the West, refused and sailed to meet the S-270. Her crew was evacuated, and the boat was towed to the home base; after landing, the vessel contaminated a zone within 700 metres. The damaged reactors were removed and replaced, a process which took two years. During this time there was further radiation poisoning of the environment and the workers involved.

During the repair process, it was discovered that the catastrophe had been caused by a drop from a welding electrode that had fallen into the first cooling circuit of the aft reactor during her initial construction. K-19 returned to the fleet, now having acquired the additional nickname "Hiroshima".

On 1 February 2006, former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev proposed in a letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee that the crew of K-19 should be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for their actions on 4 July 1961. In late March 2006, Nikolai Zateyev was formally nominated for the award.

List of crew members who died after the accident on 4 July 1961

In the process of repair works on reserve coolant system of reactor 8 crew members got fatal doses of radiation. All of them died in the period of one till three weeks after the accident from the heaviest radiation sickness disease.

Name	Rank	Dose of radiation	Date of death
Boris Korchilov	Leutenent	5400 rem	10 July 1961
Boris Ryzhikov	Chief Starshina	720 röntgen	25 July 1961
Yuriy Ordochkin	Starshina, 1st class	990 röntgen	10 July 1961
Evgeny Kashenkov	Starshina, 2nd class	845 röntgen	10 July 1961
Semyon Penkov	Seaman	890 röntgen	18 July 1961
Nicolai Savkin	Seaman	930 röntgen	13 July 1961
Valery Charitonov	Seaman	935 röntgen	15 July 1961
Yuriy Povstyev	Captain Lieutenant, Commander of the division of movement	629 röntgen	22 July 1961

The rest of crew members also got doses of radiation that exceeded permissible several times. They passed medical treatment during the whole next year. The treatment included transplantation of bone marrow with the following transfusion of the blood. This method was offered by professor Z. Volynskiy and it saved among others Cheif Luitnant Mikhail Krasichkov and Captain, 3-rd class Vladimir Yenin. In the purposes of secrecy the official diagnosis was not the «radiation sickness», but «asteno-vegetative syndrome», in accordance with these rest of the crew later faced troubles with getting up in a job.

See also

Soviet naval officer Vasiliy Arkhipov — оn the moment of nuclear accident on 4 July 1961 acts as a deputy of the Commander Nikolai Zateev.

Collision

On 15 November 1969 at 07:13 AM, K-19 collided with the attack submarine USS Gato in the Barents Sea at a depth of 60 metres (200 ft). She was able to surface by means of an emergency main ballast tank blow. The impact completely destroyed the bow sonar systems and mangled the covers of the forward torpedo tubes. K-19 was again repaired and returned to the fleet.

Fire

On 24 February 1972, a fire broke out on board K-19 while the submarine was at a depth of 120 metres (380 ft), some 1300 km (800 miles) from Newfoundland. A total of 28 sailors died in the fire, caused by hydraulic fluid leaking onto a hot filter. The boat surfaced, and surface warships evacuated the crew, except for 12 men trapped in the aft torpedo room. Towing was delayed by a gale, and the aft torpedo room could not be reached because of conditions in the engine room. After the gale abated, the boat was towed to Severomorsk on 4 April, and the men were rescued after surviving 24 days in the lightless, heatless torpedo room. The rescue operation lasted more than 40 days and involved over 30 ships. K-19 was again repaired and returned to the fleet.

Decommissioning

The submarine was decommissioned in 1991, and was transferred in 1994 to the naval repair yard at Polyarny. In March 2002, she was towed to the Nerpa Shipyard, Snezhnogorsk, Murmansk to be scrapped. It was announced in October 2003 that scrapping would start soon.

In 2006, the K-19 was purchased by Vladimir Romanov, who once served on the sub as a conscript, with the intention of "Turning it into a Moscow-based meeting place to build links between submarine veterans from Russia and other countries." So far, the plans remain on hold, and many of K-19's survivors have objected to them.

Popular culture

The movie K-19: The Widowmaker (2002), starring Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson, is loosely based on the story of the K-19's first disaster.

References

• Stewart, Will: Romanov invites Soviet sub heroes to cup final; Scotsman newspaper article, Scotsman Publications; 12 May, 2006

External links

• K-19: the History (from National Geographic)
• K-19, prototype of Hollywood thriller, to be cut up (from Pravda)