The Secret Cold War Collision the Pentagon Never Wanted Out

On this episode of Our American Stories, during a tense moment in Cold War history, a Soviet submarine surfaced directly beneath the USS Kitty Hawk and crashed into its hull. The Navy called it an “encounter,” but the reality was far more dangerous. The History Guy shares this forgotten incident between two nuclear powers, and the high-stakes silence that followed.

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Episode Transcript

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 Kittihowk collision.

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 Forestall class, capable of carrying eighty five aircraft
with a crew complement of five six hundred and twenty
four officers and men. The Kittihawk had served without 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. Kittyhawk 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,
designated Projects six seventy one or Scorpionfish by the Soviet

(01:50):
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 attack submarine. Although
its exact armament at the time is still classified, the
submarine was likely armed with both torpedoes and missiles, including
ss N fifteen Starfish nuclear armed anti submarine missiles. The

(02:14):
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
the submarine that has had units in a position where
they could have destroyed the submarine in a combat situation

(02:35):
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,
the Kitty Hawk was leaving the Sea of Japan, heading

(02:55):
south to the Yellow Sea. As they deployed, the Kittyhock's
escorts moved away point five miles distant. This, in essence,
left the Kittihock blind to the location 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 wartime situation, the submarine

(03:15):
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 and his crew
knew that the submarine was in the area of the carrier,

(03:37):
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 of the KITTIEHWK. The most

(03:57):
likely reason was simply the rough seas next Time, quoted
in the Washington Post, commented that it is very confusing
world beneath the surface, and 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 submarine jews to track other ships.
There is an additional problem as well as sonar, which

(04:17):
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 Kittihawk
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 like the guided missile cruiser

(04:39):
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 Sinko 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 immediately ordered the submarine to dive,

(05:02):
but by then it was already too late. At approximately
ten pm, some one hundred and fifty miles off the
coast of Korea in rough seas in pitch black night,
the nuclear powered and armed Soviet submarine K three fourteen
collided with the nuclear armed carrier USS Kiddihawk Captain Rogers
was on the bridge at the time, bombering one of
the ship's radars. He said, we felt a sudden shutter,

(05:24):
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 Kitty Hawk
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 on the flight deck felt
the shutter too, explaining that is something you normally don't

(05:45):
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 scraping
noise through their hydrophones. Sailors on the Kittihocks had the

(06:06):
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 strike
on the starboard side. The collision could have been much worse.

(06:27):
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
a pair of SH three s King helicopters to render assistance.

(06:48):
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 Vladivostok, while
the guided missile cruiser Pentropavloska steamed apparently to the submarine's assistance.
The submarine did not answer the Kittyhock's offers of assistance
in order, did it request any, and the Soviet government
refused to comment News reports at the time said that

(07:10):
the Kittihawk 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.
While the initial reports were that the Kittihawk had taken
only superficial damage, within a day of the Navy reported

(07:31):
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 Kitti Hawk had a
hole in the bow and a gash from the submarines
propeller below the waterline. Divers the next day brought up
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

(07:54):
could be repaired at sea. It was not significant enough
to effect normal operations, although crew members aboard Kittyhock 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 damage to the K three fourteen. Several members of
the Kittihawk and other US ships crews noted seeing welding

(08:16):
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 loss of life aboard the submarine. The general feeling
aboard the Kittihowk was that the submarine had taken more

(08:36):
damage than the carrier, prompting jokes about the kittyhock 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
the Philippines, which crew members described as filling the damaged
voids with concrete. During the repairs, it was discovered that

(08:58):
some of the submarines specialized out herding had scraped off
onto Kiddihawk 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
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

(09:22):
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