A Soviet Nuclear Torpedo, An American Destroyer, And The Cuban Missile Crisis

That title seems like it would be the beginning of a joke PO3 Steven Sherrill; but, it has the ring of Cold war truth.
In a scene aboard the Soviet Submarine which reminds me of Dr. Strangelove "At five o’clock in the afternoon, [USS] Cony acquired a solid sonar contact. It was B-59, a Soviet Foxtrot-class diesel submarine. B-59’s stress-ridden Capt. Vitali Savitsky feared he was under attack and ordered his crew to arm its nuclear torpedo, witnesses aboard B-59 reported.
Those witnesses say Savitsky madly screamed, “Maybe the war has already started up there. We’re going to blast them now! We’ll die, but we will sink them all. We will not disgrace our Navy.”
Savitsky would have been correct. The nuclear device he was about to launch at Cony was a 15 kiloton nuclear weapon, the same size and destructive power of the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II.
After being detected, Savitsky and his exhausted crew bravely endured four more hours of our pounding the submarine with ultra-high amplitude sound waves from our sonar dome. The sub’s crewmen were dropping like flies. Their air-conditioning equipment was inoperable. Temperatures soared to 140 degrees Fahrenheit.
Finally, B-59 surfaced at nine o’clock that night. When she broached the surface, we bathed her in blue-white light. She turned on her diesels to recharge the batteries. Main deck hatches popped open. The sub’s crewmen streamed out and stripped off their sweat-soaked uniforms.
On Cony, we observed the Russians’ expressions of joy and relief, as we followed alongside about 200 feet off the sub’s starboard beam."
This is a very interesting story which was kept classified for 40 years.
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Interesting story PO3 Steven Sherrill LTC Stephen F.. I remember very well the nuclear attack drills we had in elementary school as if it would have made a difference! Thanks for sharing.

What a great read! Thank you for sharing!