Sinking to the Bottom - By Alexander Pokrovsky

A submarine’s wreck

SINKING TO THE BOTTOM

By Alexander Pokrovsky
September 2006
Source

The sickness of the Russian navy

The K-19 was one of the first generation of nuclear submarines commissioned in 1961. At that time not only submarine crews, but also academic scientists knew little about radiation. When Dr. Anatoly Alexandrov, a member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, visited the K-19, when it was moored in the Motovsky Bay after the disaster, he reluctantly agreed to put on a special protective suit and take a dosimeter. Yet, there were spots with a radiation of 50 roentgen/hour, and the entire submarine and many objects, including the commander’s keys, were contaminated by radioactive isotopes.

The officer in charge of monitoring and measuring instruments could be seen sleeping in the compartment containing the control and protection rods – for in the cabins, which each had eight bunks, it was too stuffy, whereas in the compartment the air was quite fresh due to the radioactive ionization. Later this officer went blind, but that was later. We were taught that one should either fear or completely disregard radiation.

Through victims to understanding

At the time (and later, too), commanding officers were not very well versed in work with nuclear reactors. Here is a vivid example: “What kind of neutrons are in our reactor?” “The slow ones.” “Switch to the fast ones immediately.” This command was issued to speed up the vessel, and it was not a joke. In 1961 and later we worked with many contraptions, but did not know them well enough. We have arrived at knowledge and understanding through victims and disasters, including the one on the K-19.

The disaster happened in the reactor compartment on the 16th day at sea. It was reported to the commander that the pressure in the reactor had dropped to zero. It was due to a leak in the first circuit in the reactor compartment.

The pipe that was connected to the manometer measuring pressure in the first circuit burst and the first circuit began to slip away through the microcrack. Pressure in the reactor dropped from almost 200 to 150 atmospheres. It was not zero, it simply did not reach the manometer. Everybody began rushing around, discussing what to do, but time was running out.

In this situation nobody happened to think that the pumps were still working and that the temperature in the circuit (more than 250 degrees C) had remained the same. Apart from that, there was another gadget which showed the flow rate of water on the first circuit and one could have seen that pressure was still there.

Thinking that there was neither pressure nor water in the first circuit, they used welding to fix the pipe. That caused an explosion and burst the circuit. The water immediately turned into vapour, its pressure increased, and since the reactor compartment was venting into the atmosphere through the ventilation system at that moment, the blast wave along the pipe smashed part of the commander house.

All men who were in the reactor compartment were scalded by vapour. They received a considerable dose of radiation to boot.

Doctor Alexandrov saved the commanding officers from prosecution for criminal neglect.

Meanwhile our Navy continued to improve its nuclear reactors, and not only them, through numerous sacrifices. A submarine is an extremely complex mechanism and it was learned how it really works only at the cost of human lives.

As for the K-19, it was repaired and again put out to sea.

Later it collided with a NATO submarine (this time there was no loss of life), then there was a big fire on board which took 28 lives.

The submarine surfaced and was taken to the naval base. Only then was it found out that there were more than ten men trapped in the tenth compartment. They had waited to be rescued in complete darkness (only an intercome light flickered) for several days.

The most reliable bolt

I saw poplars in Severodvinsk. It was a strange sight in the North, for mainly dwarf birch-trees grow there. I stood in the street admiring the big trees, the bright sun, gazing at the people, buses and traffic lights and smiling. It was in 1985 when we returned from our latest long stint at sea in a submarine.

I have twelve such deployments far from our native shore to my credit. But I have seen men who have 25. They were absolutely off their rocker. I remember one such man, a boatswain. At 38 he looked like a granddad, winking and quivering nervously almost all the time.

In those years we went on two such prolonged deployments a year (180 days), then two control deployments (20 days), and three more (10 days each). Two hundred and thirty days in all. Some men even went on three deployments a year (more than 300 days in a submarine). And this went on for almost ten years. Just think!…

Short deployments are especially painful. The daily regime is broken completely. And if they follow a long deployment, the men lose consciousness after breathing fresh air. They fall asleep almost everywhere. And it’s well-nigh impossible for them to wake up. I remember how I once entered the central compartment and saw all men sleeping: the chief mate was sleeping in the commander’s arm-chair, the boatswain was bent over the rudder, the engineer had dropped his head on the intercom, the operator of the information post and all watches were also in a deep sleep.

We had a doctor on board our ship. His name was Zhenya, but we called him Doc Zhe. He was a good and hard-working fellow who had much work to do, for the men, half asleep, often collided with various protuberances and rods, which there were many of on board, and turned to Doc Zhe with “self-inflicted” injuries. And he sutured and bandaged their wounds without complaint. As for me, I’d like to take those who constructed the protuberance and make them bash their heads against them.

I liked to talk with Doc Zhe. He was thinking of writing a thesis on “The Correlation of Work and Rest”, or some other trash, as I thought at first.

But when I said this to him, he looked at me hard and explained everything. Every human being lives according to the 24-hour daily cycle. Wherever he or she is – on land, in the air, underground or under water – the biological clock inside the human organism constantly ticks.

The American submariners spend 60 days at sea, then they are on leave for 75 days, part of which they stay with their families in a sanatorium under doctors’ supervision at the state’s expense, and then they retrain for 20 days at a special submarine centre. After this they put out to sea again for 60 days.

As for our submariners, they are out at for 240–260 days a year, sometimes for 120 days at a stretch, and their leave may start only the next year.

Man turns out to be the most reliable bolt on board a submarine. But after being at sea in a submarine for a long time the sailors’ faces do not look normal.

There is a rule in the British Merchant Navy, according to which any seaman is considered legally incompetent after 60-day at sea. His signature on financial documents should be witnessed by another person.

Our seamen are out at sea for more than 200 days a year, and this does not violate our law.

Once a huge submarine-catamaran, the Akula (Shark), was built. It had a recreation room, a sauna, a swimming pool, and what not. It put out to sea for 120 days. During that time the doctors took blood samples for analysis from all the crew members. It was established that on the 120th day the blood of the seamen changed in composition. Then the deployment of the Shark was set at 90 days.

In the US Navy, the duration of rest after a long stint at sea in a submarine exceeds the time of the deployment. In our Navy, “complete rehabilitation” comes after 20 days of rest, which can be spent on the naval base of the submarine. How do you like that?

Doc Zhe took the temperature of our seamen right after sleep and at the start of the night watch. It turned out that it remained 35 for a whole hour, which meant that they continued to sleep for at least an hour while on watch. How could they be alert in this state?

Young able seamen are demobbed after three years of service. But what about officers? After several years their body temperature does not exceed 36. It shows that the organism has switched on the self-preservation system. It realized that it was being killed, as it were, and switched over to a special regime under which it could survive.

They don’t know what they do

So a person does not answer for his actions. This state can be classified as the “schizophrenic phenomena” or, as Doc Zhe called it, “induced schizophrenia”. It passes, but later…

There have been many cases of “strange” behaviour during lengthy deployment on a submarine. Once, at the end of a deployment, the seamen working on the torpedo-launchers asked the commander for permission to crank the mechanism for loading torpedoes. He gave it. Some time later the seamen in the acoustics compartment heard a strange sound. They began to search for its source. Finally, it was discovered that it came from the first compartment where seamen were sitting and trying to saw off a piece of metal from the mechanism. It seemed too big to them. This shows that a man after being on a submarine for a long time may think that whatever he does is correct.

And how many times, when a fire broke out, the men fed compressed air into the compartment instead of using a special fire extinguisher. And mind you, the man in charge was an experienced seaman, well versed in what should be done in extraordinary situations. Sometimes, a person cannot distinguish between dream and reality.

Once, in the middle of a long deployment, a navigator turned up in the central compartment at night. He was fully dressed and when the chief mate asked him where he was heading he answered: “Home, I want permission to go on deck”. And we were at a depth of 100 metres in the Atlantic. The chief mate said: “Permission not granted”. And the navigator went back and changed. And how many times the men confused day and night!

Human nature cannot be violated with impunity. As a punishment – mishaps, disasters, catastrophes, death. The life of the submarine crew depends on the state of the physical and mental health of each person on duty in each compartment. Meanwhile, after sixty days on board a submarine a person cannot be fully responsible for his actions.

I saw a seaman switch on and off the depth gauge while waiting for his turn in the smoking room. I asked him what he was doing. “Nothing,” he answered. And he left the gauge switched off. It would result in the submarine surfacing or diving. And the cause of it would not be found soon.

I have met boys whose reactions were slow after being at sea in a submarine for a long time. They could not answer questions directly, and made many redundant movements.

There was an accident on the K-219 nuclear submarine in October 1986. There were many casualties and the ship sank. Its crew had just returned from prolonged deployment and was about to go on a three-month leave. However, they rested for only 15 days, then they were summoned back, put out to sea, and their submarine sank.

The Kursk had just come back after being out at sea for 78 days and immediately left for exercises again. Before the blast, the crew had stayed out at sea without sleep virtually for three days, because the exercise schedule was very tight.

How does a man feel when he is put out to sea again instead of going on leave? Of course, his fingers are all thumbs. Unfortunately, very few books have been written about the fatigue of men, whereas there are voluminous works about the fatigue of metals.

Anything could have happened on board the Kursk. Regrettably, it happens very often that a submarine returns from deployment and is put out to sea again almost immediately. The command do not seem to realize that it is impermissible, that it is a crime. Even ship disasters do not teach them a lesson.

Thank God, it ended for me and I found myself in Severodvinsk where I admired the sun, maple-trees, traffic lights and buses.

And then I left, first Severodvinsk, and then the Navy.

Doc Zhe, where are you now