The Soviet Union left us a legacy of many secrets and mysteries. One of them is the story of a strategic bomber that crashed in the Far East in 1976, from the crash site of which American combat swimmers ("Navy seals") stole two nuclear bombs. Or was it not stolen?
In 1969, the Americans tried to intimidate the USSR for supporting North Vietnam. On the personal order of US President Richard Nixon, during Operation Giant Spear, 18 B-52 strategic bombers with nuclear weapons on board were taken into the air and sent to the borders of the Soviet Union. It was assumed that the determination of the head of the White House will influence the Kremlin leadership, which will be forced to end support for Hanoi.
The tragedy off Sakhalin
However, the USSR then showed firmness, and its strategic Tu-95 bombers with atomic bombs also began to fly out on alert, preparing, if necessary, to strike back at the United States. The "giant spear" did not help, the operation was canceled.
The Vietnam War ended with a Communist victory. Tensions in the world persist.
In the spring of 1976, the Tu-95 with two atomic bombs on board set off for another combat mission, heading for the eastern borders of the USSR. The Japanese from the island of Hokkaido were the first to notice how this plane suddenly disappeared from the radar screens. Their scouts informed the US Navy command in Tokyo that they had identified the strategic bomber and recorded its fall about 20 miles east of Sakhalin, in the Gulf of Patience. The information went higher, and the Japanese and Americans began to observe what would follow this event.
At the same time, reconnaissance work was carried out through other channels, the purpose of which was to find out the further actions of the Soviet side to find the aircraft. When it became clear to the Americans that the USSR had stopped prospecting, the intelligence department of the US Department of Defense decided to try to find the crashed Tu-95 on its own and remove everything that might be of interest to the military.
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"Seals" in action
Considering that the crashed plane was in the territorial waters of a foreign state, a special-purpose submarine "Greyback" and a SEAL unit ("seals", or "seals") were involved in the operation. These fighters were no stranger to performing such tasks, suffice it to recall that in 1967, combat swimmers from this submarine stole two secret sea mines from a Soviet naval training ground, which were later proudly demonstrated in New York. Then many of the "cats" were awarded high awards. I wanted to excel even now.
Leaving the Yokosuka naval base in Japan, the Greyback quickly reached the desired area and released the combat swimmers: Captain Michael Grant, Lieutenant Drew Wood and Master Sergeant David Pearson.
The wreckage of the plane was scattered over an area of half a mile. At any moment, Soviet border guards or military sailors could appear here. But the main danger was different - the "seals" discovered atomic bombs. Moreover, due to the damage received during the fall, they fonile. The commander of the group, Captain Grant, having measured the radiation with a Geiger counter, realized that they could not be in the danger zone for more than an hour. Then he gestured to his subordinates to stay, and he himself began to examine the rest of the wreckage of the plane. Having found the second bomb, he returned half an hour later.
When they boarded the Greyback, it was revealed that all three had taken a decent dose of radiation and had to undergo serious medical treatment afterwards. However, the information received proved to be very important to management. For the first time in history, the Americans had the opportunity to obtain samples of the USSR's nuclear weapons and penetrate their secrets. The special submarine had missile containers in which dangerous cargo could be transported. The main thing was to lift him and bring him on board.
Dangerous find
In connection with the danger of radiation exposure of personnel, the new expedition "Greyback" was prepared more carefully. For the seizure and delivery of Soviet special ammunition to the submarine, the Americans allocated 10 (according to other sources, 40) of the strongest combat swimmers. Based on the experience of the previous group, they all wore lead protective gear over their rubber diving suits. They also had special towing vehicles and hydraulic lifting devices.
The "underwater lads" found and took away both bombs, and at the same time grabbed the aircraft identification unit "friend or foe" found among the wreckage.
At the risk of their lives (radiation, and the ammunition itself could explode), the "seals" transported their prey to the submarine, and the Greyback delivered them to the base without incident.
For the successful conduct of the operation, which the romantic Americans called the "Blue Sun", 67 of the 73 crew members (sailors and frogmen) of the special submarine were subsequently awarded the commander of the US Pacific Fleet.
This operation entered the annals of the history of American intelligence, and was described in detail in their book "Naval Espionage" by the American Peter Huchthausen and the Frenchman Alexander Sheldon-Duplet.
Of course, there are skeptics who doubt the realism of all of the above.
In the 21st century, they returned to the topic of the bomber killed off Sakhalin. Local private entrepreneur Vyacheslav Fedorchenko, convinced that the nuclear bombs are still at the bottom near the island, began an active correspondence with the aim of forcing the military to remove a dangerous cargo from the waters of the Terpeniya Bay. In his opinion, the Americans stole only the "friend or foe" unit, not daring to touch the firing ammunition. As proof of his version, in 2013, he showed the press satellite images, in which a white trace is visible in the Bay of Terpeniya (according to Fedorchenko, from radiation).
Sakhalin's deputies reacted to his numerous petitions, being concerned about environmental problems, but there was no particular reaction from the military. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation adheres to the version of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR that there was no such disaster at all.
True, there was information that in the fall of 2017 the hydrographic vessel "Pegas" was supposed to go to the Terpeniya Bay, but nothing was reported about the results of its trip (if any).
True or Fiction?
There are several interesting points in this whole story. First, if the Americans did steal bombs from under the nose of the Soviet military, why have they still not demonstrated such an impressive "catch", as was done with naval mines? Maybe Fedorchenko was right, and they only removed the identification unit?
Secondly, what about the plane itself? Was there a disaster if the military did not recognize it so stubbornly? Here, too, not everything is so simple, because there is information that in the 1970s our "strategists" did not fly out on combat duty with special ammunition. Then the USSR made the main emphasis in the nuclear confrontation on ballistic missiles.
The Tu-95 was not produced in a very large series, and it is, in principle, possible to trace the fate of these machines. If we take the statistics of crashes of these aircraft in 1976, then there is information about four such cases. Of these, only the dead Tu-95 of the 1023rd Heavy Aviation Bomber Regiment, based near Semipalatinsk, could theoretically end up over the Sea of Okhotsk. But he crashed not in the spring, but in the fall, and there are no other details of his disaster.
And thirdly, the ecological background of the topic under consideration became acute after the accident at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant in 2011, when its consequences greatly worried the neighboring countries of Japan. Maybe this is just a coincidence, or maybe it is informational stuff that distracts attention from the Fukushima problem?
In any case, the solution to this whole story is at the bottom of the Sea of Okhotsk …
Leonid CHERNOV