March 12, 2024 • 9 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1984, during a period of Cold War tension, a Soviet submarine collided with a United States aircraft carrier. Here’s The History Guy with the story of the USS Kitty Hawk collision.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
This is our American Stories, and our next one comes
from a man who's simply known as the History Guy.
His videos are watched by hundreds of thousands of people
of all ages on YouTube. The History Guy is also
heard here on Our American Stories. In nineteen eighty four,
during a period of Cold War tension, a Soviet submarine
(00:31):
collided with the United States aircraft carrier. Here's the History
Guy with the story of the USS Hittihok collusion.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
It was March twenty first, nineteen eighty four, and the
supercarrier USS KITTIHOWK was in the Sea of Japan. Commissioned
in April nineteen sixty one, KITTIHOWK was the first of
a class of three so called supercarriers, upgraded versions of
the previous forest All class, capable of carrying eighty five
aircraft with a crew complement of six hundred and twenty
four office and men. The Kittihawk had served throughout the
(01:02):
Vietnam War, continued serving in the Western Pacific. She had
been sent to the Sea of Japan in March to
participate in Team Spirit exercises. Team Spirit was a joint
exercise of the United States and the Republic of Korea,
held annually from nineteen seventy six to nineteen ninety three.
The exercise was designed to evaluate and improve the interoperability
of the ROK and US forces. The operation so close
(01:26):
to the Soviet Far East attracted the attention of the
Soviet military. Kittyhowk reported that over the course of the exercise,
the carrier and its escorts came in contact with forty
three Soviet aircraft, six Soviet surface elements, and one Soviet submarine.
The submarine was the Victor class submarine K three fourteen,
(01:46):
designated Projects six seventy one or Scorpionfish by the Soviet
Navy and given the NATO designation victor Ian. The Victor
class was a series of nuclear powered attack submarines designed
to counter enemy vessels, especially American nuclear atack submarines. Although
it's exact armament at the time is still classified, the
submarine was likely armed with both torpedoes and missiles, including
(02:08):
ss IN fifteen Starfish nuclear armed anti submarine missiles. The
Kitty Hawk was aware there's being shadowed by the submarine
since it had left the South Green port of Poussar
on March nineteenth. Such behavior was not uncommon. As an
officer board Kitty Hawk explained to The New York Times,
they played cat and mouse with us all the time.
As part of their tracking, the US had simulated destroying
(02:30):
the submarine that has had units in a position where
they could have destroyed the submarine in a combat situation
fifteen times. A former aviator who piloted a P three
b Orion anti submarine and surveillance aircraft explained, chasing Ivan
was great fun, serious business, but nevertheless great fun. The
only problem was that when you caught Ivan, you had
to let him go. On the night of March twenty first,
(02:53):
the Kitty Hawk was leaving the Sea of Japan, heading
south to the Yellow Sea. As they deployed, the Kittyhawk's
escorts moved away some two point five miles distant. This,
in essence, left the Kittihock blind to the location of
the K three fourteen. The carrier did not have its
own sonar equipment, but instead relied on its escort vessels
and aircraft to track the submarine. If it were a
(03:14):
wartime situation, the submarine would never have gotten within the
Battle Group Pentagon. Spoken Michael Birch explained in a UPI report.
In peacetime, it's not required that the Navy keep twenty
four hour watchings of its submarines. Birch continued, these were
peacetime conditions, it's not unusual to lose contact. Still, the
pilot of the P three b Orion explained that he
(03:34):
and his crew knew that the submarine was in the
area of the carrier, and in fact speculated that the
submarine was attempting a maneuver where it tries to hide
underneath the carrier to mass the submarine sound techniques, which
the pilot said generally doesn't work, but the K three
fourteen wasn't trying to hide. Instead that the submarine under
the command of Captain Vladimir if Sinko, had lost track
(03:55):
of the KITTIEWK. The most likely reason was simply the
rough seas. Next Time, quoted in the Washington Post, commented
that it is very confusing world beneath the surface. Observed
that the Sea of Japan, which is relatively shallow and
is teeming with commercial and military ships, is one of
the noisiest in the world, confusing the sonar that submarin
Jews to track other ships. There is an additional problem
(04:16):
as well, as sonar, which tracks sound, leaves a notorious
blind spot in the baffles behind a submarine, where the
noise of its own screws makes it impossible to detect
other ships across them approximately sixty degree arc. Some sailors
suggest that either the Kittyhawk had made an abrupt course
change or was engaging in a deceptive lighting exercise, so
the ship would change its running lighting configuration to appear
(04:38):
like the guided missile cruiser the USS Long Beach. While
such operations would have been intended to confuse surface ships,
it may also have confused the K three fourteen. In
any case, Having lost his target, Captain if Cinko decided
to bring the K three fourteen to periscope depth. When
he looked through the periscope, he was stunned to see
that he and the Kittihawk were on a collision course
(05:00):
immediately ordered the submarine to dive, but by then it
was already too late. At approximately ten pm, some hundred
and fifty miles off the coast of Korea, in rough
seas and pitch black night, the nuclear powered in armed
Soviet submarine K three point fourteen collided with the nuclear
armed carrier USS Kiddihawk. Captain Rogers was on the bridge
(05:20):
at the time, bombering one of the ship's radars. He said,
we felt a sudden shutter, a very violent shutter. The
radar was designed to detect surface contacts and would not
have seen the still submerged submarine. There was no indication
that anyone on the Kiddyhok saw the submarine in the
moments before the collision, and there likely wouldn't have been
time to make a response if they had. A sailor
(05:41):
on the flight deck felt the shutter too, explaining that
is something you normally don't feel on a carrier. A
sailor in the messroom said his trade jumped up four inches. Others, however,
seemed to barely notice, riding the shutter off as rough seas.
One sailor described acting shipmates in a TV lounge if
they felt something, and they insisted that he was crazy.
On the P three Orion, they could hear a great
(06:02):
scraping noise through their hydrophones. Sailors on the Kittihocks had
the scraping noise lasted five to eight minutes as the
submarine dragged along the keel. If Sinco was quoted on
the website Russia Beyond, recalling that the first thought was
that the conning tower had been destroyed and the submarine's
body was cut to pieces. They confirmed that the periscope
and antennas were still working when they felt a second
(06:22):
strike on the starboard side. The collision could have been
much worse. It was a glancing blow off the right
side of Kittyhawk's bow. The second strike that of Sinko felt,
was when the submarine's propeller struck the hull of the Kittihock,
breaking off a piece that was left in the Kittyhawk's bow.
The submarine was forced to surface. The Kittihock immediately launched
(06:44):
a pair of SH three Sea King helicopters to render assistance.
The submarine appeared to have a dent or crease between
its stern and sail. Its reported moving at a slow
five knots towards the Soviet naval base at Ladivostok, while
the guided missile cruiser Entropavlosk steamed apparently to the submarine's assistance.
The submarine did not answer the Kittyhock's offers of assistance
(07:05):
or did it request any, and the Soviet government refused
to comment. News reports at the time said that the
Kittyhock detected no nuclear leak from the submarine and that
President Reagan was apprised of the situation. The Kittihock remained
for approximately two hours in order to be available in
case it needed to render assistance, but then continued on
its course. Other US Navy ships remained in the area.
(07:26):
While the initial reports were that the Kittihak had taken
only superficial damage, within a day of the Navy report
that the carrier was taking on water. The collision had
ruptured a fuel tanks during aircraft fuel which was then
becoming contaminated with sea water. The crew had to pump
the fuel from the tank. The Kittihock had a hole
in the bow and a gash from the submarine propeller
below the water line. Divers the next day brought up
(07:47):
a piece of the propeller that had been lodged in
the hole, and the crew had it mounted in a hangar.
The Navy described the damage as miner, saying that it
could be repaired at sea. It was not significant enough
to effect normal operations, although members aboard Kittihock speculated that
there was a significant risk for the crew of the
submarine after being rolled over in a collision. The Russian
Navy has never provided information on the extent of the
(08:09):
damage to the K three fourteen. Several members of the
Kittihawk and other US ships crews noted seeing welding sparks
as members of the K three fourteen crew engaged in
apparent repairs. The K three fourteen was not able to
return to base under its own power, and was eventually
met by a sea going tug. The report in Russia
Beyond quotes captain of Sinko saying that there was no
(08:31):
loss of life aboard the submarine. The general feeling aboard
the Kittihock was that the submarine had taken more damage
than the carrier, prompting jokes about the Kittihock being the
first anti submarine carrier weapon. The crew painted a red
submarine on the ship's island near the bridge to mark
their victory, but the Navy later made them remove it.
The Kittihawk underwent repairs at Subic Bay Naval Base in
(08:51):
the Philippines, which crew members described as filling the damaged
voids with concrete. During the repairs, it was discovered that
some of the submarines specialized outer coding had scraped off
onto Kiittihawk could be analyzed along the USA Minor Intelligence Coup.
The USS Kitty Hawk continued to serve clear into the
next century and wasn't decommissioned until two thousand and nine
(09:12):
after an impressive nearly forty nine year service in the
United States Navy. She was the last oil fired US
carrier to serve. Sometimes the story about what did not
happen is as interesting as a story that what did.
The fact that an event was well far less catastrophic
than it might have been, is history that deserves to
be remembered.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Indeed, and you're listening to the History Guy. If you
want more stories of forgotten history, please subscribe to his
YouTube channel, The History Guy. History deserves to be remembered.
A great story, The History Guy's story the day a
Soviet nuclear attack submarine rammed an American aircraft carrier. Here
on our American Stories
This is our American Stories, and our next one comes
from a man who's simply known as the History Guy.
His videos are watched by hundreds of thousands of people
of all ages on YouTube. The History Guy is also
heard here on Our American Stories. In nineteen eighty four,
during a period of Cold War tension, a Soviet submarine
(00:31):
collided with the United States aircraft carrier. Here's the History
Guy with the story of the USS Hittihok collusion.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
It was March twenty first, nineteen eighty four, and the
supercarrier USS KITTIHOWK was in the Sea of Japan. Commissioned
in April nineteen sixty one, KITTIHOWK was the first of
a class of three so called supercarriers, upgraded versions of
the previous forest All class, capable of carrying eighty five
aircraft with a crew complement of six hundred and twenty
four office and men. The Kittihawk had served throughout the
(01:02):
Vietnam War, continued serving in the Western Pacific. She had
been sent to the Sea of Japan in March to
participate in Team Spirit exercises. Team Spirit was a joint
exercise of the United States and the Republic of Korea,
held annually from nineteen seventy six to nineteen ninety three.
The exercise was designed to evaluate and improve the interoperability
of the ROK and US forces. The operation so close
(01:26):
to the Soviet Far East attracted the attention of the
Soviet military. Kittyhowk reported that over the course of the exercise,
the carrier and its escorts came in contact with forty
three Soviet aircraft, six Soviet surface elements, and one Soviet submarine.
The submarine was the Victor class submarine K three fourteen,
(01:46):
designated Projects six seventy one or Scorpionfish by the Soviet
Navy and given the NATO designation victor Ian. The Victor
class was a series of nuclear powered attack submarines designed
to counter enemy vessels, especially American nuclear atack submarines. Although
it's exact armament at the time is still classified, the
submarine was likely armed with both torpedoes and missiles, including
(02:08):
ss IN fifteen Starfish nuclear armed anti submarine missiles. The
Kitty Hawk was aware there's being shadowed by the submarine
since it had left the South Green port of Poussar
on March nineteenth. Such behavior was not uncommon. As an
officer board Kitty Hawk explained to The New York Times,
they played cat and mouse with us all the time.
As part of their tracking, the US had simulated destroying
(02:30):
the submarine that has had units in a position where
they could have destroyed the submarine in a combat situation
fifteen times. A former aviator who piloted a P three
b Orion anti submarine and surveillance aircraft explained, chasing Ivan
was great fun, serious business, but nevertheless great fun. The
only problem was that when you caught Ivan, you had
to let him go. On the night of March twenty first,
(02:53):
the Kitty Hawk was leaving the Sea of Japan, heading
south to the Yellow Sea. As they deployed, the Kittyhawk's
escorts moved away some two point five miles distant. This,
in essence, left the Kittihock blind to the location of
the K three fourteen. The carrier did not have its
own sonar equipment, but instead relied on its escort vessels
and aircraft to track the submarine. If it were a
(03:14):
wartime situation, the submarine would never have gotten within the
Battle Group Pentagon. Spoken Michael Birch explained in a UPI report.
In peacetime, it's not required that the Navy keep twenty
four hour watchings of its submarines. Birch continued, these were
peacetime conditions, it's not unusual to lose contact. Still, the
pilot of the P three b Orion explained that he
(03:34):
and his crew knew that the submarine was in the
area of the carrier, and in fact speculated that the
submarine was attempting a maneuver where it tries to hide
underneath the carrier to mass the submarine sound techniques, which
the pilot said generally doesn't work, but the K three
fourteen wasn't trying to hide. Instead that the submarine under
the command of Captain Vladimir if Sinko, had lost track
(03:55):
of the KITTIEWK. The most likely reason was simply the
rough seas. Next Time, quoted in the Washington Post, commented
that it is very confusing world beneath the surface. Observed
that the Sea of Japan, which is relatively shallow and
is teeming with commercial and military ships, is one of
the noisiest in the world, confusing the sonar that submarin
Jews to track other ships. There is an additional problem
(04:16):
as well, as sonar, which tracks sound, leaves a notorious
blind spot in the baffles behind a submarine, where the
noise of its own screws makes it impossible to detect
other ships across them approximately sixty degree arc. Some sailors
suggest that either the Kittyhawk had made an abrupt course
change or was engaging in a deceptive lighting exercise, so
the ship would change its running lighting configuration to appear
(04:38):
like the guided missile cruiser the USS Long Beach. While
such operations would have been intended to confuse surface ships,
it may also have confused the K three fourteen. In
any case, Having lost his target, Captain if Cinko decided
to bring the K three fourteen to periscope depth. When
he looked through the periscope, he was stunned to see
that he and the Kittihawk were on a collision course
(05:00):
immediately ordered the submarine to dive, but by then it
was already too late. At approximately ten pm, some hundred
and fifty miles off the coast of Korea, in rough
seas and pitch black night, the nuclear powered in armed
Soviet submarine K three point fourteen collided with the nuclear
armed carrier USS Kiddihawk. Captain Rogers was on the bridge
(05:20):
at the time, bombering one of the ship's radars. He said,
we felt a sudden shutter, a very violent shutter. The
radar was designed to detect surface contacts and would not
have seen the still submerged submarine. There was no indication
that anyone on the Kiddyhok saw the submarine in the
moments before the collision, and there likely wouldn't have been
time to make a response if they had. A sailor
(05:41):
on the flight deck felt the shutter too, explaining that
is something you normally don't feel on a carrier. A
sailor in the messroom said his trade jumped up four inches. Others, however,
seemed to barely notice, riding the shutter off as rough seas.
One sailor described acting shipmates in a TV lounge if
they felt something, and they insisted that he was crazy.
On the P three Orion, they could hear a great
(06:02):
scraping noise through their hydrophones. Sailors on the Kittihocks had
the scraping noise lasted five to eight minutes as the
submarine dragged along the keel. If Sinco was quoted on
the website Russia Beyond, recalling that the first thought was
that the conning tower had been destroyed and the submarine's
body was cut to pieces. They confirmed that the periscope
and antennas were still working when they felt a second
(06:22):
strike on the starboard side. The collision could have been
much worse. It was a glancing blow off the right
side of Kittyhawk's bow. The second strike that of Sinko felt,
was when the submarine's propeller struck the hull of the Kittihock,
breaking off a piece that was left in the Kittyhawk's bow.
The submarine was forced to surface. The Kittihock immediately launched
(06:44):
a pair of SH three Sea King helicopters to render assistance.
The submarine appeared to have a dent or crease between
its stern and sail. Its reported moving at a slow
five knots towards the Soviet naval base at Ladivostok, while
the guided missile cruiser Entropavlosk steamed apparently to the submarine's assistance.
The submarine did not answer the Kittyhock's offers of assistance
(07:05):
or did it request any, and the Soviet government refused
to comment. News reports at the time said that the
Kittyhock detected no nuclear leak from the submarine and that
President Reagan was apprised of the situation. The Kittihock remained
for approximately two hours in order to be available in
case it needed to render assistance, but then continued on
its course. Other US Navy ships remained in the area.
(07:26):
While the initial reports were that the Kittihak had taken
only superficial damage, within a day of the Navy report
that the carrier was taking on water. The collision had
ruptured a fuel tanks during aircraft fuel which was then
becoming contaminated with sea water. The crew had to pump
the fuel from the tank. The Kittihock had a hole
in the bow and a gash from the submarine propeller
below the water line. Divers the next day brought up
(07:47):
a piece of the propeller that had been lodged in
the hole, and the crew had it mounted in a hangar.
The Navy described the damage as miner, saying that it
could be repaired at sea. It was not significant enough
to effect normal operations, although members aboard Kittihock speculated that
there was a significant risk for the crew of the
submarine after being rolled over in a collision. The Russian
Navy has never provided information on the extent of the
(08:09):
damage to the K three fourteen. Several members of the
Kittihawk and other US ships crews noted seeing welding sparks
as members of the K three fourteen crew engaged in
apparent repairs. The K three fourteen was not able to
return to base under its own power, and was eventually
met by a sea going tug. The report in Russia
Beyond quotes captain of Sinko saying that there was no
(08:31):
loss of life aboard the submarine. The general feeling aboard
the Kittihock was that the submarine had taken more damage
than the carrier, prompting jokes about the Kittihock being the
first anti submarine carrier weapon. The crew painted a red
submarine on the ship's island near the bridge to mark
their victory, but the Navy later made them remove it.
The Kittihawk underwent repairs at Subic Bay Naval Base in
(08:51):
the Philippines, which crew members described as filling the damaged
voids with concrete. During the repairs, it was discovered that
some of the submarines specialized outer coding had scraped off
onto Kiittihawk could be analyzed along the USA Minor Intelligence Coup.
The USS Kitty Hawk continued to serve clear into the
next century and wasn't decommissioned until two thousand and nine
(09:12):
after an impressive nearly forty nine year service in the
United States Navy. She was the last oil fired US
carrier to serve. Sometimes the story about what did not
happen is as interesting as a story that what did.
The fact that an event was well far less catastrophic
than it might have been, is history that deserves to
be remembered.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Indeed, and you're listening to the History Guy. If you
want more stories of forgotten history, please subscribe to his
YouTube channel, The History Guy. History deserves to be remembered.
A great story, The History Guy's story the day a
Soviet nuclear attack submarine rammed an American aircraft carrier. Here
on our American Stories
Host
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