Kursk: A Time To Die by Robert Moore

Author:Robert Moore [Moore, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857504135
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2018-06-27T23:00:00+00:00

II: WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON

Ministry of Defence, Moscow

Admiral Popov was not the only one in the military hierarchy willing to make a bold move. Even inside the Defence Ministry, an institution filled with highly conservative military officers, there were some reformers who glimpsed an opportunity. The younger, more progressive cadre of naval officers deeply resented the fact that their leaders appeared to regard saving the lives of the Kursk sailors as a secondary priority, less important than protecting national secrets.

Two of the most reform-minded admirals, Vladislav Ilyin and Oleg Pobozhy, were running a special incident cell handling the Kursk disaster inside Navy headquarters. On Wednesday afternoon, in a move that brazenly contradicted the hardline agenda of the Eighth Directorate, they placed a phone call to the British naval attaché in Moscow, Captain Geoff McCready, and asked what rescue technology the Royal Navy could provide.

Delighted that the Russians were finally reaching out, McCready raced across the Russian capital and was escorted to a meeting with Ilyin and Pobozhy. Several Russian experts in the design and engineering of Oscar II submarines were also gathered around the table.

From the very first exchanges at this meeting, McCready was convinced that the admirals were serious in investigating Western help. They already knew that McCready could deliver probably the most important component, the Royal Navy’s LR5 rescue submersible.

But first, McCready needed every scrap of information they could give him. He couldn’t help unless he knew the whole truth about the state of the submarine and the waters in which it lay.

‘Is it correct there are dangerous three-knot currents around the Kursk?’ he asked.

‘There are only minor problems,’ Pobozhy replied, directly contradicting the false reports that the Russian Navy was giving to the press.

‘What about the reports about the heavy list of the submarine?’

‘She is listing at no more than eight degrees.’ Official reports had spoken of the Kursk listing at sixty degrees.

‘What about visibility?’

‘No problem – visibility is over ten metres.’

‘What about the hatch over the first compartment?’

‘Utterly destroyed, along with the whole bow section,’ Pobozhy emphasized. ‘There’s no way in at the forward end or through the conning tower. Our experts say the only route into the Kursk is through the aft escape hatch above the ninth compartment.’

McCready pushed on. ‘We will need diagrams of the hatch.’ The British LR5 personnel had no experience with Russian submarine hatches. Exercises involving the British rescue team had always been NATO affairs, or had involved friendly navies. The technical issues of gaining access to a Russian sub had never even been considered, let alone rehearsed. Submarine rescue procedures are highly complex, very often unique to each country’s navy. This is not an area that can be simply improvised at a moment’s notice.

Pobozhy abruptly left the room. Moments later, he came back with a rough diagram showing vertical and horizontal plans of the escape hatch above compartment nine. They then discussed the procedures necessary to operate the hatch. The admirals turned to the technicians, who took McCready through the valve line-ups.

This, at last, was Russian co-operation the West needed.

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