Soviet submarine K-129 (1960)

Golf II Class ballistic missile submarine
History
Diesel-electric powered submarine of the Soviet Pacific Fleet
Name	"K-129"
Ordered	26 January 1954
Builder	Nr. 402 Severodvinsk or Nr. 199 Komsomol Na Amur
Launched	1959-62
Commissioned	1959-62
Fate	Declared lost 03/08/1968
Status	Partially recovered in salvage operation
General characteristics as ballistic missile submarine
Class and type	Golf II
Displacement	2700 tons submerged
Length	328 feet
Beam	28 feet
Draft	28 feet
Propulsion	Three shaft propulsion system
Speed	15-17 knots Surface, 12-14 knots Submerged
Endurance	70 days
Complement	83 men
Armament	D-4 launch system with 3 R-21 missiles
Notes	Said to be armed with SS-N-5 Serb Missile with 750-900nm range and one megaton warhead

Several views of a Project 629A (Golf II) ballistic missile submarine

K-129 was a Project 629A (NATO reporting name Golf-II) diesel-electric powered submarine of the Soviet Pacific Fleet, one of six Project 629 strategic ballistic missile submarines attached to the 15th Submarine Squadron based at Rybachiy Naval Base, Kamchatka, commanded by Rear Admiral Rudolf A. Golosov. In January 1968, the 15th Submarine Squadron was part of the 29th Ballistic Missile Division at Rybachiy, commanded by Admiral Viktor A. Dygalo. K-129's commander was Captain First Rank V.I. Kobzar. K-129 carried hull number 722 on her final deployment.

After having successfully completed two 70-day ballistic-missile combat patrols in 1967, K-129 was tasked with her third patrol to commence 24 February 1968 with an expected completion date of May 5 1968. Upon departure 24 February, K-129 reached deep water, conducted its test dive, returned to the surface to report by radio that all was well, and proceeded on patrol. No further communication was ever received from K-129, despite normal radio check-ins expected when the submarine crossed the 180th meridian, and when it arrived at its patrol area.

By mid-March, Soviet naval authorities at Kamchatka became concerned that K-129 had missed two consecutive radio check-ins. First, K-129 was instructed by normal fleet broadcast to break radio silence and contact headquarters; later and more urgent communications all went unanswered. By the third week of March, Soviet naval headquarters declared K-129 "missing", and organized a massive air, surface and sub-surface search and rescue effort into the North Pacific from Kamchatka and Vladivostok.

This highly unusual Soviet surge deployment into the Pacific was correctly analyzed by U.S. intelligence as probably in reaction to a submarine loss. U.S. SOSUS Naval Facilities (NAVFACs) in the North Pacific were alerted and requested to review recent acoustic records to identify any possible associated signal. Several SOSUS arrays recorded a possibly related event on March 8 1968, and upon examination produced sufficient triangulation by lines-of-bearing to provide the U.S. Navy with a locus for the probable wreck site. One source characterized the acoustic signal as "an isolated, single sound of an explosion or implosion, 'a good-sized bang'." The acoustic event is claimed to have originated from near 40 N, 180^th longitude, .

Soviet search efforts, lacking the equivalent of the U.S. SOSUS system, proved unable to locate K-129, and eventually Soviet naval activity in the North Pacific returned to normal. K-129 was subsequently declared lost with all hands.

With the aid of SOSUS triangulation, American intelligence resources would later locate the K-129 wreck, photograph it in-situ at its 16,000-foot (4,900 m) depth, and (several years later) partially salvage it.

Discovery and salvage - Project Jennifer

In early August 1968, the wreck of K-129 was pin-pointed by the USS Halibut (SSGN-587) northwest of Oahu, at an approximate depth of 16,000 feet (4,900 m). The wreck was surveyed in detail over the next three weeks by Halibut (reportedly with over 20,000 close-up photos), and later also possibly by Trieste II. Given a unique opportunity to snatch a Soviet SS-N-5 SERB nuclear missile without the knowledge of the Soviet Union, the K-129 wreck came to the attention of U.S. national authorities. After consideration by the Secretary of Defense and the White House, President Nixon authorized a salvage attempt. To ensure the salvage attempt remained "black" (i.e. clandestine and secret), the CIA rather than the Navy was tasked to conduct the operation. Hughes Glomar Explorer was designed and built under CIA contract, solely for the purpose of conducting a clandestine salvage of K-129. Under the cover name Operation Jennifer, this project would be one of the most expensive and deepest secrets of the Cold War.

According to an official account, in July/August 1974 the Glomar Explorer grappled with and was able to lift the forward half of the wreck of K-129, but as it was raised the claw suffered a critical failure resulting in the forward section breaking into two pieces with the all-important sail area/center-section falling back to the ocean floor. Thus, the center sail area and the after portions of K-129 were not recovered. What exactly was retrieved in the section that was successfully recovered is highly classified, but the Soviets assumed that the United States recovered torpedoes with nuclear warheads, operations manuals, codebooks and coding machines. Another source (unofficial) states that the U.S. recovered the bow area, which contained two nuclear torpedoes, but no cryptographic equipment nor codebooks. [1]

The United States announced that in the section they recovered were the bodies of six men. Due to radioactive contamination, the bodies were buried at sea in a steel chamber on September 4 1974 with full military honors about 90 nautical miles (167 km) southwest of Hawaii. The videotape of that ceremony was given to Russia by U.S. Director of Central Intelligence, Robert Gates, when he visited Moscow in October 1992. The relatives of the crew members were eventually shown the video some years later.

Specific location

The location of the wreck remains an official secret of the United States intelligence services. However, Dr. John P. Craven points to a location nearly 40-degrees North, and almost exactly on the 180th meridian (International Date Line).

Explaining the disaster

The official Soviet Navy hypothesis is that K-129, while operating in snorkel mode, slipped below its operating depth. Such an event, combined with a mechanical failure or improper crew reaction, can cause flooding sufficient to sink the ship..

This account, however, has not been accepted by many, and four alternative theories have been advanced to explain the loss of K-129:

1. A hydrogen explosion in the batteries while charging;
2. A collision with USS Swordfish (SSN-579);
3. A missile explosion caused by a leaking missile door seal;
4. Violence due to K-129 violating normal operating procedures and/or departing from authorized operating areas.

At least the official account, and the first theory, could be the consequence of a report that as many as 40 of the complement of 98 were new to the submarine for this deployment.

Hydrogen explosion

Lead-acid batteries vent explosive hydrogen gas during the charging process. If not properly vented, that gas could have accumulated into an explosive concentration. Still, submariners have understood this risk -- and had procedures to mitigate it -- for nearly a century.

Concerning the hydrogen explosion theory, Dr. John P. Craven, former chief scientist of the U.S. Navy's Special Projects Office and former head of the DSSP and DSRV programs, commented:

"I have never seen or heard of a submarine disaster that was not accompanied by the notion that the battery blew up and started it all. [...] Naive investigators, examining the damage in salvaged battery compartments, invariably blame the sinking on battery explosions until they learn that any fully charged battery suddenly exposed to seawater will explode. It is an inevitable effect of a sinking and almost never a cause."

Collision with USS Swordfish

The collision theory is the unofficial opinion of many Soviet Navy officers , and is officially denied by the United States Navy. According to U.S. Navy sources, Swordfish put into Yokosuka, Japan on May 17 1968, shortly after the disappearance of K-129, and received emergency repairs to a bent periscope, reportedly caused by ice impacted during surfacing while conducting classified operations in the Sea of Japan. The theory that Swordfish's periscope caused damage to K-129's pressure hull in a collision during a trailing mission is contra-indicated, as the K-129's pressure hull could be breached by the much weaker sail area and periscope of USS Swordfish only in a high speed collision scenario. Swordfish's damage was apparently sufficiently modest that it could be repaired by the submarine tender in Yokosuka, thus not supportive of a high-speed impact theory which would have caused extensive damage to Swordfish's sail-area/conning tower. The theory that Swordfish fatally damaged the K-129 by collision is thus not supported by reconstruction or the damage experienced by Swordfish. However, Swordfish's logs for the period remain highly classified (apparently due to security concerning its operations in the Sea of Japan at the time), and Russian calls for full disclosure remain unsatisfied.

It should be noted that the USS Pueblo (AGER-2) seizure by the North Korean government occurred in the Sea of Japan 23 January 1968, and the U.S. Navy response to this incident included the deployment and maintenance of naval assets in the area off the eastern North Korean coast for some time thereafter.

In response to Russian efforts to ascertain whether K-129 had been lost due to damage resulting from a collision with a U.S. submarine, an official U.S. statement by Ambassador Malcolm Toon to a Russian delegation during a meeting in the Kremlin in August 1993 related:

"At my request, U.S. naval intelligence searched the logs of all U.S. subs that were active in 1968. As a result, our director of naval intelligence has concluded that no U.S. sub was within 300 nautical miles (560 km) of your sub when it sank."

A news release in 2000 demonstrates that Russian suspicion and sensitivity concerning the collision possibility, and indeed their preference for such an explanation, remains active:

"As recently as [1999], Russian government officials complained that Washington was covering up its involvement. One accused the Americans of acting like a "criminal that had been caught and now claimed that guilt must be proved," according to the notes of a U.S. participant in a November 1999 meeting on the topic."

Missile explosion due to leaking hatch seal

On 3 October 1986, the Soviet Yankee-class SSBN K-219 while on combat patrol in the Atlantic, suffered an explosion to a liquid-fueled SS-N-6 missile in one of its 16 missile tubes. Cause of this explosion was determined to be a leaking missile tube hatch seal, allowing sea water to come into contact with the residue of the missile's propellants, which caused a spontaneous fire resulting in an explosion first of the missile booster, then a subsequent explosion of the warhead detonator charge. In the case of the Yankee-class SSBN, the missiles were located within the pressure hull and the explosion did not cause damage sufficient to immediately sink the ship. It did, however, cause extensive radioactive contamination throughout, requiring the submarine to surface and the evacuation of the crew to the weather deck, and later to a rescue vessel which had responded to the emergency. Subsequently, the K-219 sank into the Hatteras Abyss with the loss of 4 crewmen, and presently rests at a depth of about 18,000 feet (5,500 m). It is revealing that the Soviet Navy claimed that the leak was caused by a collision with USS Augusta (SSN-710).

There are indicators suggesting K-129 suffered a similar explosion in 1968, eighteen years earlier. First, the radioactive contamination of the recovered bow section and the six crewmen of K-129 by weapons grade plutonium very strongly indicates the explosion of the warhead detonator charge of one of the missiles, prior to the ship reaching crush depth. The report that the forward section was crushed and that charring in the bow section indicated dieseling from an implosion (or alternatively from a fire), would indicate that the explosion occurred while K-129 was submerged and at depth. The report found in Blind Man's Bluff that the wreck revealed K-129 with a 10-foot (3 m) hole immediately abaft the conning tower would support the theory of an explosion of one of the three missiles in the sail (possibly missile #3). Since K-129's missiles were housed in the sail, much less structural mass (compared to the Yankee-class) was available to contain such an explosion, and total loss of depth control of the submarine would be instantaneous.

There does not appear to be sufficient data yet available within the public domain, to determine if K-129 had suffered an earlier casualty and was sinking toward crush depth prior to such a missile hatch leak (thus a missile explosion being a symptom of great depth), or whether a missile hatch leak was the "first cause" of the chain of events leading to the K-129 loss.

K-129 off-course or out of area

According to Dr. John P. Craven, K-129 crossed the International Date Line at latitude 40 north, which was far south of her expected position:

"When [K-129] passed [longitude] 180, it should have been farther north, at a latitude of 45 degrees, or more than three hundred miles away. If that was a navigational mistake it would be an error of historic proportions. Thus if the sub were not somewhere in the vicinity of where the Soviets supposed it to be, there would be a high probability, if not a certainty, that the submarine was a rogue, off on its own, in grave disobedience of its orders."

Craven does not explain why he eliminated the possibilities that K-129 was proceeding to a newly assigned and officially approved patrol area, or utilizing a new track to an established patrol area, nor why he concluded that K-129 was acting in an abnormal or criminal manner for a Soviet strategic missile submarine.

Craven also noted, in a strangely worded statement:

"While the Russian submarine was presumed to be at sea, an oceanographic ship of the University of Hawaii was conducting research in the oceanic waters off Hawaii's Leeward Islands. The researchers discovered a large slick on the surface of the ocean, collected a sample, and found that it was highly radioactive. They reported this to George Woolard, the director of the Hawaii Institute of Geophysical Research."

Craven does not reconcile a sinking location at 40 N latitude with an oil slick hundreds of miles south of that latitude, nor does he reconcile the date/time of the sinking, with date/time of the recovery of radioactive oil by the oceanographic research ship.

Conspiracy theory - unauthorized missile launch?

In 2005, the book Red Star Rogue claimed that K-129 ventured much further south, some 300 nautical miles (560 km) north west of Oahu on 7 March 1968 positioning to launch one of her three ballistic missiles in a rogue attack on Pearl Harbor. The manner of the launch was purportedly designed to mimic an attack by a Chinese submarine, with the intention of igniting a war between the U.S. and China.

Red Star Rogue posits that the sinking of K-129 was caused by the explosion of one of the ballistic missiles while it was being readied for launch. While such an event could have been due to a failure in the liquid-fuel system, Craven's The Silent War (p.218) postulates that the explosion was due to a fail-safe mechanism intended to prevent an unauthorized launch.

The theory presented in Red Star Rogue has been criticized as speculative conspiracy theory by the head of the contemporary history branch of the U.S. Naval Historical Center. Evidence against the logic of such a false flag operation include the fact that United States intelligence knew China had not developed a missile for its Golf class submarines in 1968[2]. Furthermore, China did not have a thermonuclear weapon small enough to be launched from a submarine [3]. What is not known is if the Soviets knew of the United States intelligence community's conclusions and of China's lack of a small thermonuclear weapon.

Administrative inconsistencies

Russian President Boris Yeltsin posthumously awarded the Order of Valor to 98 sailors who died aboard the K-129. Some have pointed to this level of manning as anomalous, because the normal complement of a diesel-electric Golf-class Russian submarine was about 83. Boosting total submarine complement by almost 20% might tax the logistical capabilities of the submarine (reducing patrol duration), and could potentially hamper the operations of the boat. No explanation for this level of submarine manning has been provided by the Russian Navy. However, it should be noted that the unique real-world environment of a deployed strategic asset, such as a ballistic missile submarine or a U.S. aircraft carrier, nearly always attracts riders to study personnel, equipment and systems while deployed. Such riders are a normal consequence of such U.S. deployments and it is not unreasonable to expect the Soviet Navy to behave similarly.

Much has also be made of the following reported administrative and operational peculiarities preceding K-129's departure:

1. The official ship's crew manifest was missing from K-129's deployment folder when the ship was declared "missing".
2. Normal crew rest, refitting and retraining time was violated, and K-129 was required to conduct an unusual sudden deployment after only 8 weeks in port following the completion of her previous combat patrol.
3. As many as 40% of the crew were new to the ship for this deployment, thus never having had the opportunity to train as a unit.

These crew anomalies, especially the last, may in fact have had an effect on the crew's ability to handle unexpected systems failures and/or mechanical casualties.

Alternate theories on Project Jennifer

Red Star Rogue makes the claim that Project Jennifer recovered virtually all of K-129 from the ocean floor, and in fact "Despite an elaborate cover-up and the eventual claim that Project Jennifer had been a failure, most of K-129 and the remains of the crew were, in fact, raised from the bottom of the Pacific and brought into the Glomar Explorer".

In August 1993, Ambassador Malcolm Toon presented to a Russia delegation, K-129's ship's bell. According to Red Star Rogue, this bell had been permanently attached to the middle of the conning tower of K-129, thus indicating that in addition to the bow of the submarine, the critical and valuable midsection of the submarine was at least partially recovered by Project Jennifer.

Craven suggests that Project Jennifer's real goal was not the nuclear weapons or the coding systems at all; rather, the project sought to determine exactly what K-129 was doing at 40N/180 "where she did not belong". Such information could be (and supposedly was) utilized within Henry Kissinger's foreign policy of "Deterrence Through Uncertainty", in order to "raise an unanswerable question in Brezhnev's mind about his command and control of his armed forces".

Mutual agreement - some connection between K-129 and the loss of USS Scorpion

Retired United States Navy Captain Peter Huchthausen, former naval attaché in Moscow, had a brief conversation in 1987 with Soviet admirals concerning K-129. Huchthausen states that Admiral Peter Navojtsev told him, "Captain, you are very young and inexperienced, but you will learn that there were some matters that both nations have agreed to not discuss, and one of these is the reasons we lost K-129." . In 1995, when Huchthausen began work on a book about the Soviet underwater fleet, he interviewed Admiral Victor Dygalo, who stated that the true history of K-129 has not been revealed because of the informal agreement between the two countries' senior naval commands. The purpose of that secrecy, he alleged, is to stop any further research into the losses of USS Scorpion (SSN-589) and K-129. Huchthausen states that Dygalo told him to "overlook this matter, and hope that the time will come when the truth will be told to the families of the victims."

Gates' visit to Moscow

In October 1992, Robert Gates, as the Director of Central Intelligence visited Moscow to meet with President Boris Yeltsin of Russia. "As a gesture of intent, a symbol of a new era, I carried with me the Soviet naval flag that had shrouded the coffins of the half dozen Soviet sailors whose remains the Glomar Explorer had recovered when it raised part of a Soviet ballistic missile submarine from deep in the Pacific Ocean in the mid-1970s, I also was taking to Yeltsin a videotape of their burial at sea, complete with prayers for the dead and the Soviet national anthem—a dignified and respectful service even at the height of the Cold War."

Gates’s decision to bring the videotape of the funeral held for the men on the Golf was ultimately motivated by the fact that the United States wanted to inspire Russia to offer up information on missing American service men in Vietnam. Before that, “We had never confirmed anything to the Russians except in various vague senses,” he said in an interview. “Shortly after the USSR collapsed, the Bush administration had told the Russians through an intermediary that we couldn’t tell them any more about what had happened on Golf/Glomar. But then when we started asking the Russians about what had happened to U.S. pilots shot down over Vietnam, and if any U.S. POWs had been transferred to Russia and held there, they came back and said, “What about our guys in the submarine?” At the time, the administration told the Russians only that there were no survivors and that there were only scattered remains.” A subsequent FOIA search to find if any POWs were released as a result of this visit produced only negative results.

“American officers have refuted the Russian charge made early on that American nuclear attack submarine U.S.S. Swordfish was the U.S. submarine involved—a charge based solely on the latter’s reported arrival in the Ship Repair Facility, Yokosuka, Japan, on March 12, 1968, with a badly damaged sail. Retired U.S. Navy Admiral William D. Smith informed Dygalo by letter following an August 31, 1994, meeting of a Joint U.S./Russia Commission examining questions of Cold War and previous war missing, that the allegation of Swordfish’s involvement was not correct and that Swordfish was nowhere near the Golf on March 8, 1968. The joint commission, headed by General Volkogonov and Ambassador Toon, informed the Russians that no U.S. submarines on March 8, 1968, had been within 300 nautical miles (560 km) of the site where the K-129 was found.”

Continuing secrecy and official objections to full disclosure

Perhaps most telling in there being much more to Project Jennifer than is known today are the inconsistencies in the positions the U.S. government has taken on the project, and the documentary evidence of it. On the one hand the K-129 recovery has been stated to have been a failure, supposedly only recovering a small amount of insignificant parts of the submarine. However, on the other hand the CIA argued in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that the project had to be kept secret because any "official acknowledgment of involvement by U.S. Government agencies would disclose the nature and purpose of the program." To this day the files, photographs, videotapes, and other documentary evidence remain closed to the public, indicating that within these documents describing an outdated submarine sunk almost 40 years ago still exists information that the U.S. government deems operationally valuable, and/or necessitating protection of persons still living today.

Bibliography

• Craven, John (2001). "The Hunt for Red September: A Tale of Two Submarines". The Silent War: The Cold War Battle Beneath the Sea. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 198–222. ISBN 0-684-87213-7.
• Sontag, Sherry (1998). Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage]]. New York: Harper. ISBN ISBN 0-06-103004-X.
• Sewell, Kenneth (2005). Red Star Rogue: The untold story of a Soviet submarine's nuclear strike attempt on the U.S. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-6112-7.
• Polmar, Norman (2004). Cold War Submarines: The Design and Construction of U.S. and Soviet Submarines. Dulles: Potomac Books. ISBN 978-1-57488-594-1.
• Podvig, Pavel (2001). Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-16202-4.