The accident on the Soviet nuclear submarine by 19. All seven old submariners are trying to justify Harrison Ford and save his film from failure.

The survivors immediately took a non-disclosure agreement for a period of 30 years. The dead were buried at night, burying zinc coffins to a depth of 2 meters. And for the sake of secrecy, those who were in the hospital being treated for radiation sickness were given the diagnosis “asthenovegetative syndrome” (depression). As the commander of the K-19, captain of the 1st rank, Nikolai Zateev: "We were just psychos!" “My father started making records in the 80s,” says AiF. Irina, daughter of Nikolai Zateev but didn't let me read them. He handed over the folder with the manuscript to my mother and me in 1998, a few days before his death.”

Today, several dozen crew members survived the accident. One of them, Yuri Filin, at that time a lieutenant engineer, told AiF: “The design of the K-19 reactor did not provide for an emergency water spillage system in case of an emergency (it is necessary to cool the reactor). This system had to be made from improvised means, using welding machine. Already after the tragedy on our nuclear submarine, they began to install a cooling system on all Soviet nuclear ships.

The appearance of the K-19, converted according to project 658C. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

“The sailors entered the reactor compartment to eliminate the accident full of energy, and left half-dead. They began to vomit, ichor oozed from under the roots of their hair. Faces puffed up. We could hardly stand on our feet, ”a crew member told AiF. Viktor Sterlets, at the time of the accident foreman of the 2nd article.

Towards my

Nikolai Zateev understood that all those who passed through the reactor compartment were doomed. The task of the commander was to save the remaining 100-odd submariners - the radiation on the boat increased every second, and there were 1,500 miles to the base in Severo-morsk.

Captain 1st rank Nikolai Zateev. Photo: From the personal archive

This meant that with a course of 10 knots, the ship would reach home in 6-7 days ... with a dead crew on board. At the same time, Zateev could not contact the shore and request help - the antenna of the main transmitter was out of order. Two officers lost their nerve, they began to demand that the commander lead the boat to the nearest land, which turned out to be the Norwegian island of Jan Mayen (in reality, escaping on this rocky island in the Arctic Ocean was unrealistic). Fearing that the sailors might be incited to riot, Zateev ordered to throw overboard the submachine guns and pistols available on the boat. He left five makarovs for himself and his assistants.

Being in the ocean without communication, thousands of kilometers from the native coast, on board the ship, where everything is poisoned by radiation, up to food and fresh water supplies, the situation could be considered hopeless. And then, like a flashlight, a map flashed in Zateev's memory, which he saw in the office of the commander-in-chief of the fleet. On it, south of the place where the K-19 was drifting, there should have been positions of Soviet diesel submarines. “One chance in a million, but there is no other,” Zateev decides. "K-19" begins to move south, and the radio operator on a spare low-power receiver with a range of about 50 miles to transmit a distress signal. This went on for 10 hours.

Ten hours of hope and furious expectation, as in the famous song "Save Our Souls" by Vysotsky:

Hurry to us!
Hear us on land
Our SOS is getting quieter, quieter,
And horror cuts the soul
Half…”

As it turned out, several Soviet submarines nearby heard the K-19, but only two commanders responded - Jean Sverbilo in and Grigory Vasser. By sending their diesel boats to the rescue of the K-19, they committed a selfless act, because violating the rules of the exercise could cost them a military career.

Veterans, members of the K-19 crew, with cadets from Yaroslavl, students of school No. 50, named after one of the dead sailors of the submarine - Valery Kharitonov. Photo: / Maria Pozdnyakova

From Sverbilov's ship, Zateev transmits a coded message to the command post of the Navy with an explanation of the situation and a request to allow the evacuation of the crew. In response, deathly silence, which lasted 5 (!) Hours. Only once it was interrupted by the advice to feed the irradiated sailors ... with fresh fruit, which, of course, was not on the submarine.

Taking responsibility, Zateev evacuated the crew. Severely affected by radiation were transported to another submarine on a stretcher. The clothes of the submariners from the K-19 were so bright that they had to completely undress, throwing everything overboard. Zateev, who also had to leave his clothes, greatly regretted that he had not saved the icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, presented by his mother. He was the last to leave the boat. "K-19" was taken in tow.

Six of the 8 sailors who died immediately after the accident were buried in Moscow at the Kuzminsky cemetery. One of them, sailor Valery Kharitonov, is from Yaroslavl. In this city, school No. 50 is named after him, in which there is a naval cadet class. Photo: / Maria Pozdnyakova

At the base in Severomorsk, people from a special department were engaged simultaneously with the doctors Zateev and his subordinates. Interrogated right in the hospital. Academician Alexandrov, head of the construction project, saved the commander from the tribunal nuclear submarines. He reported Khrushchev that the crew accomplished a feat - saving a nuclear submarine.

In addition, do not forget that the K-19 carried R-13 ballistic missiles equipped with 1.4-megaton warheads, each of which could destroy part of big city. It is terrible to imagine what could have happened if the boat accident had not been brought under control. Yes, and the day of the incident was symbolic - July 4, US Independence Day. In reality cold war Americans could imagine anything. What if they decide to answer?

Captain 1st rank Vladimir Pogorelov, who survived the accident, despite his advanced age, came from Kyiv to Moscow to honor the memory of his comrades. Photo: / Maria Pozdnyakova

But no one was going to give the title of Hero even to those who soon died from exposure. Just as they were not going to admit that a design flaw led to the accident. “With all the obvious shortcomings, the K-19 could not help but go to sea in the summer of 1961,” the historian and crew chief of the K-19 tells AiF. Alexander Nikishin.- This was our answer to the United States and their first missile submarine George Washington. The presence of this American boat in the World Ocean kept the leadership of the USSR awake. The deadlines for the delivery of "K-19" were adjusted, regardless of the realities.

Maritime Brotherhood of Veterans "K-19" Photo: / Maria Pozdnyakova

tenacious

Nikolai Zateev gave his first interview about the tragedy in the 90s. Before the Hollywood film about "K-19", where the role of the commander was Harrison Ford, he did not live. “I watched the film with tears,” says Irina. - Although a lot of it is invented. The Americans didn’t fly to our submarine by helicopter, they didn’t even suspect that the K-19 was there.”

After the accident, they wanted to write off the boat, but the updated crew did not allow it to be done - at the risk of health, the sailors washed the submarine from radioactive dust by a centimeter. And the K-19 again went to sea, although it could not have done without an emergency: in 1969, she collided with an American submarine, and in 1972, a fire on board claimed the lives of 28 submariners. However, when the K-19 is spoken of as unlucky, the submariners object: "She got out of situations in which other submarines sank." In total, K-19 traveled 332 thousand miles - more than the distance from the Earth to the Moon.

The boat was disposed of in 2003. Enthusiasts managed to save the cabin in the hope that the K-19 museum would be created, because such stories are not scattered around.

The daughter of the K-19 commander, Irina Zateeva, next to her father's grave. Photo: In the first two weeks after the accident, 8 submariners died from the effects of a strong dose of radiation: lieutenant commander Yuri Povstyev, lieutenant Boris Korchilov, chief foreman Boris Ryzhikov, foreman of the 1st article Yuri Ordochkin, foreman of the 2nd article Evgeny Koshenkov, sailor Semyon Penkov, sailor Nikolai Savkin, sailor Valery Kharitonov. And on August 1, 1970, Captain 3rd Rank Anatoly Kozyrev passed away. The rest of the crew, who also received radiation doses many times higher than the permissible ones, underwent treatment for radiation sickness for many months.

The nuclear submarine K-19 is probably one of the most famous nuclear submarines in the world, especially after the Hollywood movie "K-19. The Widowmaker" was based on the tragedy.
I first heard about it much earlier. And although I never happened to be inside her strong hull, and I saw her only from the pier, she is not a stranger to me.
All tragic fate the first nuclear missile carrier, which became a kind of symbol of the hardships of the service of the crews of nuclear submarines, made the K-19 a fact of the biography of a whole generation of submariners. And I'm no exception here.
In June 1960, when mooring tests were going on on the K-19 submarine, I was just getting ready to enter the school. Once, at a bus stop, I met Captain 1st Rank VU Danilchenko, the father of my classmate.
Vasily Ulyanovich, back in the spring, campaigned for me to enter the school, and therefore, when we greeted him, he began to ask if I had submitted the documents. I said that I had already taken the documents. "That's right," said Vasily Ulyanovich. And, smiling, he continued: "I have an invitation card to a solemn event for the presentation of shoulder straps, daggers and diplomas to graduates of 1960, look what awaits you if you master your studies."
I gladly accepted the offer.
The next morning, ten minutes before the start of the ceremony, I stood in a crowd of relatives and acquaintances of graduates, carefully watching the preparation process. Tables covered with red cloth were waiting for the cherished diplomas, daggers and lieutenant's shoulder straps to be laid out on them. Finally, all these regalia were brought up and laid out along the tables, apparently in the order they were presented to the graduates. There were a lot of tables, which means that they will be awarded not one at a time, but several graduates at once .. Everything was very solemn, especially when the banner group carried out the banner of the school, and the admirals and captains of the first rank who arrived for graduation took their places at the tables for issuing diplomas and daggers . Finally, the graduates arrived in a clear formation and stood in front of their desks. In that formation were graduates who later became my colleagues. Including the future head of the school from 1988 to 1994, Mironenko G.M., and future fellow teachers Ilyin G.G., Kushchev Yu.D., Zharkoy E.F.
Now I know that then, among these beautiful, cheerful young people, there was a man who had just over a year to live. But neither he, Lieutenant Boris Korchilov, nor the admiral who handed him shoulder straps, nor classmates and relatives knew yet that on July 4, 1961, he was the commander of the BCH-5 group of the K-19 nuclear submarine, he would lead a group of volunteers sent to the reactor compartment to eliminate the accident of a nuclear reactor.
Their ten-minute work in conditions of transcendental radiation was the first step that allowed them to localize the accident, but excluded the possibility of survival.
I first heard his last name and learned about the accident, a year later, from my classmate Sergei Tsvetkov. Sergey, a two-meter handsome and clever man, will perform the honorary duty of a standard-bearer in his fourth year. He will be the first of us to receive the rank of midshipman, assigned to him by the state of the standard-bearer. Tsvetkov was my neighbor, he lived on Frunze Street, not far from my house. We often traveled together to our area, on the second number of the trolleybus, which then ran from Admiralteisky Prospekt to Moscow Victory Park.
At the end of July 1961, we, sent on vacation, after finishing a year of probation, rode this route. He said that in the smoking room of the faculty he heard information from a graduate of last year about a terrible accident on K-19. The sinking of the boat was prevented, but two of our graduates, Yuri Povstyev and Boris Korchilov, as well as seven sailors on military service, received a lethal dose of radiation.
It was clear that this news made a depressing impression on Sergei Tsvetkov. But he hardly foresaw that a similar fate awaited him.
In June 1973, Seryozha Tsvetkov died on the K-56 nuclear submarine, which collided on the surface with the research vessel Akademik Berg.
Once again, indirectly touching on the consequences of the accident in 1961 on K-19, I had the next day.
My mother and I went to Zelenogorsk on Sunday to visit relatives and visit the grave of my mother's brother, Uncle Ilya. We went to the cemetery with my uncle's widow and their son Genka, who was two years older than me. He recently completed military service as a soldier, and on the way to the cemetery, we exchanged impressions about the service. Returning from the cemetery, we met a funeral procession in which Genka noticed guys he knew. He approached them to greet them and, when he returned to us, he said that they were burying Borya Ryzhikov, whom he knew well from school. The guy served in the Northern Fleet and died on a submarine from a blow electric shock. I immediately thought of the accident I heard on Saturday. But confirmation of this came much later, when I first read the official information about the accident. Indeed, chief foreman Boris Ryzhikov died from the monstrous overexposure he suffered on July 4, 1961 on the K-19 submarine.
So what happened then, why did the sailors begin to call the K-19 nuclear submarine "Hiroshima"?
The first domestic nuclear missile submarine 658 of the K-19 project took part in the large-scale military exercises "Arctic Circle" and was in the Greenland Sea near Jan Mayen Island. The boat, equipped with three surface-launched missiles, was supposed to launch missiles, simulating a potential enemy.
But the emergency protection of the port side reactor unexpectedly fell due to a pressure drop in the primary circuit. Moreover, the device showed that there was a break in the primary circuit. In fact, there was a rupture of the tube suitable for the device and the device showed zero, although at the time the protection was reset, the pressure in the cooling circuit was maintained, although it decreased by about a third. Due to the pressure drop, the main and auxiliary reactor cooling pumps jammed and, therefore, the heat removal stopped. The temperature of the decay heat reactor began to rise strongly. An increase in temperature could lead to the melting of the core. It was feared that the melting of uranium rods would lead to a nuclear explosion. It is now known that due to some features of this type of reactor, nuclear explosion will not, but then the K-19 officers did not know this. (There is evidence from Admiral Rudakov V.A., who led the first inspection of the emergency submarine, that Academician Alexandrov, instructing the emergency party, said: "For God's sake, do nothing with the primary circuit, if the pumps are working, maybe they are sitting on the battery, the way is working if they are standing - let them stand. I'm afraid that the reactor can start instantly.") At 4.30., an increase in gamma activity was recorded. They surfaced, began to ventilate the compartments, the activity began to decrease. Several times, unsuccessfully, they tried to start the pumps of the primary circuit. In an extremely acute situation of a continuous increase in the temperature of the core, in general, the correct decision was made to mount an emergency cooling system for a nuclear reactor. In a calm environment, perhaps a better scheme for connecting an off-standard system could be found. They were connected not in the CPS baffle, from where it could be done relatively painlessly, but in the reactor baffle. The work was headed by the commander of the reactor compartment, Senior Lieutenant Krasichkov. Since it was believed that the reading of the device was true, the high-pressure high-temperature and radioactive steam entering the compartment was a complete surprise. Aerosol activity immediately increased sharply.
At first, they tried to conduct water for the reactor strait using a reinforced hose, but as soon as water was let in, it was immediately torn off, no matter how it was pulled. Several times they tried to fix the hose, but unsuccessfully, and decided to cook. Welding was carried out not only by an amateur, but by a person who held the electrode in his hands only a couple of times in his life. It was a young sailor who came to the boat not long before that fateful trip, Semyon Penkov.
Boris Korchilov, on combat alert, was in the first compartment, as the commander of the compartment. He approached the commander and asked to replace Krasichkov, as he had been working since 4 in the morning. If Boris had not asked, no one would have said a word, no one would have looked askance. Boris committed this act out of a sense of naval mutual assistance, and thereby, in fact, saved Krasichkov's life. The commander authorized the change. Korchilov came to the compartment. The temperature instruments have long gone off scale, the reactor is hot beyond measure. It was necessary to at least remove people from the reactor compartment before starting the pumps. But they hurried, turned on the pumps, and the working channels in the reactor collapsed at the moment the water was supplied. So bursting glass jar from temperature fluctuations. Radioactive gases that are formed during the decay of nuclear fuel - xenon, iodine, escaped outside into the reactor compartment. All submariners who were in the compartment during the start-up of the pumps received lethal doses of radiation in an instant.
At that moment, Korchilov reported to the console that a blue flame was observed from under the reactor cover, which meant powerful gamma radiation. Radiation increased hundreds of times in the compartment. Aerosol activity in the reactor enclosure was so great that all those involved in the work received doses of radiation incompatible with life. Already at the exit from the compartment, vomiting opened, faces, in front of our eyes, began to swell.
From the damaged fuel rods, the remnants of nuclear fuel of transcendental activity went through the pipes. Pipelines have become a dangerous source of radiation. "They shone," the commander of the submarine, Captain 1st Rank Zateev, later recalled. Everyone present in the reactor compartment received a lethal dose of radiation: Captain 3rd Rank Yuri Povstyev, Lieutenant Boris Korchilov, Chief Petty Officer Boris Ryzhikov, Petty Officer 1st Class Yuri Ordochkin, Petty Officer 2nd Class Evgeny Kashenkov, sailors Semyon Penkov, Nikolai Savkin, Valery Kharitonov, Gennady Starkov . Three other people were in critical condition. Among them is the commander of the warhead-5 Anatoly Kozyrev. The personnel, not engaged in rescue work and watch, was taken to the upper deck. But if emergency measures were not taken, then they were doomed, since the activity on the upper deck was about 20 roentgens per hour. That is, everyone should have received a lethal dose in less than a day.
The situation was aggravated by the fact that not long before the accident, when surfacing in the ice, the antenna was crushed and there was no communication with the shore. And in a psychological sense, the situation was not so simple that the commander, subsequently, accused his political officer and understudy of the commander of alarmism. The opinion was expressed - to jump onto the coastal shallows of the nearest island and wait for help. But here is someone else's territory, and after all, the boat is emergency, nuclear and, at that time, top-secret.
There is evidence that Zateev ordered the commander of the BCH-2, Lieutenant Commander Mukhin, to drown the small arms on board, leaving the pistols for himself, First Officer Enin, Captain 2nd Rank Andreev, Captain 2nd Rank Arkhipov. In the end, the submarine commander makes the only right decision. Go for rapprochement with other Soviet submarines standing in the curtain.
The signal about the accident was sent using a low-power radio station. And, fortunately, it was accepted by the S-270 diesel submarine, under the command of a captain of the 3rd rank. Sverbilova. At his own risk, Jean Sverbilov leaves the curtain and goes to the aid of a submarine in distress. Then he will be blamed for leaving his point in the veil without permission. As the boats approached, the radiation level continuously increased. Directly at the side of the emergency boat, dosimetric instruments showed from 4 to 7 roentgens per hour. At 2 pm on July 4, the S-270 moored to the side of the K-19.
N. Zateev asked Zh. Sverbilov to take on board 11 seriously ill patients and provide radio communication with the command post. In his memoirs, Zh. Sverbilov writes: “Three seriously ill patients were transferred on board the S-270, along the extended horizontal rudders, on a stretcher - Lieutenant Boris Kornilov, chief foreman Boris Ryzhikov and foreman of the 1st article Yuri Ordochkin. The other eight people managed to cross on their own. As soon as these 11 people were accommodated in the 1st compartment of the S-270, the radiation level in it rose to 9 roentgens per hour.To reduce it, Zateev suggested undressing all patients and throwing their clothes overboard.The radiation level dropped to 0.5 X-ray per hour. But the guys themselves emitted much more, especially when they were sick."
Having taken on board seriously ill patients, the S-270 commander transmitted to the command post: "I am standing at the side of the K-19. I have taken on board 11 seriously ill people. I am providing K-19 with radio communications. I am waiting for instructions."
The answers from both Severomorsk and Moscow were discouraging: "What are you doing on board the K-19? Why did you leave the curtain without permission? You will answer for arbitrariness."
Only when, at the request of Sverbilov, Zateev transmitted a coded message about the state of the K-19 nuclear submarine, did the command post of the Northern Fleet send instructions to the commanders of S-159 and S-266, who were closer than others to the site of these events: "Go to the emergency nuclear submarine and help Sverbilov remove people." As a help, the shore gave wise advice, for example, to feed the irradiated with fresh vegetables and fruits, to drink juices. But by that time there were not even fresh potatoes left on board the C-270.
With the last telegram, Sverbilov requested the command post of the exercises to transfer the rest of the personnel on board the S-270. There was no answer.
At 3 am on July 5, C-159 and C-266 arrived in the accident area. From the shore, albeit belatedly, a command was issued to the entire personnel of the emergency boat to go aboard the S-270. Two more days passed. A violent storm has begun. A radio was received from the shore that a meeting with two destroyers would take place in the North Cape area, where the patients should be transferred. But on the high seas, because of the storm, it was impossible.
Zh. Sverbilov, taking responsibility, decided to reload the patients in the nearest fiord, in the territorial waters of Norway. So they did. On calm water, the S-270 moored to the destroyer and 49 people from the K-19 crew were transported from it to the ship, including everyone who could not get up from the stretcher. Part of the K-19 crew, who was on the S-159, was transferred to another destroyer on ship's boats. Both surface ships headed for the base at full speed, hurrying to deliver people to the hospital.
In conclusion of the story about the rescue of K-19, I would like to quote a fragment from the article by Jean Sverbilov, a real officer, a decisive commander who showed himself from the best side.
“Against the background of general decency and courage, there was a fact of cowardice. Briefly about the essence of the matter. When we moored aboard the K-19, a completely healthy person was the first to run over to our boat, and only after that they transferred three seriously ill patients. transmission to the FKP, Zateev asked to return the form to him as a document of secret and strict reporting. Well, when the radiogram was transmitted, I turned to this first sailor who left the boat to give the form to Zateev. And I heard in response that he was not a sailor, and the officer is a representative of one of the departments of the fleet headquarters and will not go back to the emergency boat.Then I ordered him to go to the first compartment, where there were already eleven seriously ill.He answered me that he would not go there either and would report to the fleet command about my arbitrariness I regarded his disobedience as a mutiny on a warship, which I informed him and all those present on the bridge, after which I ordered the first mate to take the pistol to the bridge and shoot the rebel at the stern flag. The first mate began to descend to the central post for a pistol. The staff officer realized that they were not joking with him, and, spewing threats, went to the first compartment. In the future, he was the first to defect to "Experienced". I will not give the name and surname of this person just because, as my political officer S. Safonov said, he did not chicken out, but simply "leaked a moral leak." And I also do not name his last name because he was awarded an order for this campaign. And we do not give orders in vain. That's how we were taught."
Seriously ill patients delivered from K-19 were loaded onto a helicopter to be sent to Leningrad, all 11 people were carried on a stretcher. But even here, evil fate pursued the victims. The helicopter, which took off from the sailor's stadium in Polyarny, touched with its tail rotor a poster hanging with the inscription "The sea loves the strong" and flopped onto its wheels. Everything worked out, but the helicopter needed repairs. The patients were reloaded onto a boat that took them to Severomorsk, and from there by plane to Leningrad and Moscow.
Unfortunately, the doctors failed to save Boris Korchilov, Yuri Ordochkin, Evgeny Kashenkov, Nikolai Savkin, Valery Kharitonov, Semyon Penkov. They died at the Institute of Biophysics in Moscow. A few days later, Yuri Povstiev and Boris Ryzhikov died. Thanks to a bone marrow transplant, Ivan Kulakova and Anatoly Kozyreva were saved.
After the accident in 1961, the boat was towed to Severodvinsk, where the reactor compartment was replaced, deactivated and repaired. After the replacement of the navigation and missile systems, it will become the ship of the 658M project.
The modernized Hiroshima, despite its gloomy name, quite successfully performs combat training tasks, and its crew is considered one of the best crews APL.
In December 1965, we, cadets of the 5th year, having completed theoretical training at the school, underwent a pre-graduation internship. Igor Morozov and I got on the first Soviet nuclear submarine K-3, known as "Leninsky Komsomol". And my classmate Vitya Volobuev trained at K-19. He had the imprudence to write a letter that he got on Hiroshima, which was going to go into autonomy. The letter was read and he, after his return, had big troubles.
After graduating from college, my friend and classmate Volodya Dorozhinsky was appointed to the first crew of Hiroshima, the commander of the electrical group. His immediate superior, the commander of the second division, was Boris Markitantov, who graduated from college with a gold medal two years earlier than us. In 1968, Boris Markitantov was appointed assistant to the flagship mechanical engineer for electrical parts, and he handed over the affairs of the commander of the K-19 electrical division to Volodya Dorozhinsky, who, thus, was the first of our graduation to receive the position of captain of the 3rd rank.
In November 1969, working out the tasks of combat training in neutral waters In the Barents Sea, 25 miles from Teriberka, K-19 collided at a depth of 80 meters with the American submarine Gato. Our boat surfaced with no visible damage, but an inspection of the underwater part of the hull in the dock showed that repairs were needed. The bow of the K-19 below the waterline was crumpled up to the very torpedo tubes, and the dent was a cylindrical imprint of the hull of the Gato. The blow hit the American boat almost at a right angle, in the area of ​​​​the reactor compartment. As follows from the American press, our boat was observed through the periscope, and was almost attacked by a torpedo with an atomic charge, but the commander of "Gato" canceled the decision of his commander of the mine-torpedo warhead to use weapons.
And at the end of February 1972, a new misfortune happened to the K-19.
At that time, I served in Zapadnaya Litsa, on the experimental nuclear submarine 705 of the K-64 project. It was the first submarine of the third generation, with a large number of innovations. But after passing the course task No. 1, K-64 opened up serious problems with leaking steam generators. Due to the unpreparedness of onshore technical facilities that provide nuclear submarines when they are parked at the pier, they had to keep a round-the-clock watch on the power plant consoles. And we didn't go home very often. But one day, my friend Sasha Ignatov, who served in Litsa at the charging station, found me at home and said that the K-19 was undergoing a major accident in the Atlantic, and the commander of the second division was killed. We knew that on the first crew of the K-19, the commander of the electrical division was Volodya Dorozhinsky, and on the second crew, our other classmate, Tolya Vishnyakov. We did not know which of them went into autonomy, but in any case, it turned out that one of them died. As it turned out later, this time the Hiroshima had 345 crew under the command of Kulibaba, and the dead commander of the second division was Captain 3rd Rank Tsygankov, a graduate of the Sevastopol Naval Engineering School.
But our classmates from the first faculty, captain-lieutenants Polyakov, Milovanov, Davydov, turned out to be on this campaign. Fortunately, they all survived, but suffered so much that there will be enough memories for a lifetime.
Here is how the events of this tragic campaign unfolded.
On February 24, 1972, the K-19 nuclear submarine was returning to the base after the end of combat patrols in the center of the Atlantic. There were 10 days left before the end of the 45-day military campaign. At 10.27 am, a strong fire broke out in the ninth compartment. The cause of the accident was damage to the hydraulic pipeline operating under a pressure of 80 kg/sq.cm. In the 9th compartment, the hydraulic pipeline ran in the center of 120 electrical cable routes. Apparently, during welding, during the repair of the submarine, a drop of metal fell on the hydraulic pipeline, weakening the pipe wall. The pipeline began to leak slightly, but it was not possible to turn it off, since it ensured the operation of horizontal rudders. A yoke was put on the damaged pipeline, hoping that they would be able to reach it without major repairs. The watchman was supposed to periodically monitor his condition.
The beginning of the development of the accident fell on the time when the sailor on duty left the cut-off hold. Either the yoke stopped holding, or a new fistula appeared in the weakened place of the pipeline, but hydraulic oil vapors, as if from a spray bottle, enveloped the entire system of cable routes and got on the air purification filter in the compartment in which working temperature catalyst for a chemical reaction depends on the content of impurities in the air. The temperature in the filter began to rise, oil vapors flared up. The force of fire fueled by oil pressure began to burn out the PTFE gasket on the pipeline high pressure. Puffed up smoke. It was still possible to extinguish the fire by shooting a foam jet from the IDPs, but the watchman was not on site. When he sensed something was wrong, he reported to the watch officer in the central post about the smell of smoke. Since such reports are explained, as a rule, by banal reasons, the watch officer advised to wake up the foreman of the compartment, Vasilyeva, and find out where it was smoking from and what.
Another sailor saw a bright flash in the hold, and mistakenly thinking that the main switchboard-3 was on fire, he reported this to the central post. Played an emergency alert.
Due to the delay in declaring an emergency alarm and an erroneous report about the ignition of the main switchboard-3 shield, the fire could not be quickly extinguished. The foreman of the compartment, Vasiliev, rushed into the hold, switched on the IP-46 breathing apparatus, unwound the hose reel, opened the fire extinguishing system valve. However, it was already too late. The fire grew, fueled by compressed air rushing through a burned-out high-pressure air line gasket. The compartment quickly filled with combustion products.
As required by the emergency alarm, the bulkheads between the compartments were already sealed to exclude the possibility of the spread of fire from the source of the fire. The commander of the ship V. Kulibaba and mechanical engineer R. Minyaev arrive at the central post. A command is received to surface the boat to the surface, the sea is 6-9 points, the wind is 40 m / s. From the central post, the VVD was blocked in the stern of the ship. Kulibaba ordered all personnel not engaged in combat posts to leave the aft compartments. This saved the lives of many, most of the submariners from the burning ninth compartment managed to evacuate to the eighth compartment. But, when people were let through, clouds of smoke burst into the compartment along with the personnel. As soon as the bulkhead door was closed, as in the ninth, due to strong fire, the VVD pipeline ruptured and air began to flow intensively from the aft group of VVD cylinders. In the ninth compartment, the pressure increased sharply. The fire has entered the phase of the volumetric. All the sailors who remained in the compartment perished. Chief Petty Officer Alexander Vasiliev will be found in the hold, burned, with a fire extinguishing hose in his hands. He fulfilled his duty to the end. Due to the increase in pressure in the emergency compartment, through bulkhead glands and ventilation, smoke poured into the tenth and eighth compartments. Reactor emergency protection worked
The commander of the second division, Lev Tsygankov, sent all those who arrived from the ninth compartment to the seventh (turbine), and left with him only the foreman of the eighth compartment, midshipman Nikolaenko and electricians, providing the necessary switching on the electrical panels. He gave his breathing apparatus to Sergeant Major Gorokhov, who departed on the seventh to his combat post, and with the increase in gas contamination of the compartment, he went to the enclosure of the reactor control panel. The partition should be a sealed room, but under conditions of high overpressure in the emergency compartment, combustion products penetrated there as well. Leva Tsygankov, not having a breathing apparatus, covered himself with a wet rag, but the concentration of carbon monoxide in the air left him no chance. The operator of the remote control, Senior Lieutenant Sergei Yarchuk, will be found dead, at the remote control, who did not have time to turn on the insulating gas mask.
At this time, carbon monoxide began to penetrate into the seventh compartment. Senior lieutenant Khrychikov was the senior in the compartment. Kazimir Marach, who was adjusting the speed of the turbine in order to wipe the mask glasses, switched off for a few seconds from the breathing apparatus. One or two breaths were enough for him to lose consciousness and die. Having joined the apparatus, foreman Gorokhov and sailor Zakovinko remained at their combat posts. An emergency party sent from the central post for reconnaissance found them unconscious. Gorokhov and Zakovinko managed to be saved. Khrychikov and Marych will be carried out of the compartment already dead.
Lieutenant Khrychikov, a manager, and chief foreman Kazimir Marych were later buried - in the center of the Atlantic. And a storm raged on the surface. Soon Orion reconnaissance planes began to fly over the ship. And the first ship - the dry cargo ship "Angare-s" - approached only two days later. Then a large anti-submarine ship "Vice-Admiral Drozd" approached, with a helicopter on board. The storm by that time had dispersed so that the masts of the ship were sometimes hidden behind the crests of the waves. Helicopter pilots evacuated about forty people from K-19. The rest were transferred to the rescue tug SB-38. Because of the storm, the tugboat could not moor to the boat, so the evacuation was carried out " wet way". The sailors tied the carabiner of the belt to a cable stretched between the boat and the lifeguard, and jumped into the water. They chose the line from the tug and lifted people on board. The accident on board the K-19 cost the lives of thirty sailors
And in the tenth compartment, 12 people were still cut off, led by Lieutenant Commander Boris Polyakov, who assumed the duties of commander of the compartment. Isolated from the outside world by a group of burned-out compartments filled with poisonous combustion products, they continued to fight for their lives with their bare hands.
Immediately after the rupture of the VVD pipeline in the ninth compartment, black poisonous smoke went out of the ventilation line. Compressed clinkets for sealing the ventilation line. The first of certain deaths, carbon monoxide poisoning, receded. But by evening there was nothing to breathe, since there was no regeneration unit with V-64 cartridges in the compartment. Polyakov came up with the idea to bleed the accumulated air from the nozzles of the trim tank, and if he could contact the GKP, then ask him to blow air into the trim line and organize at least a weak air duct. The standard intraship communication system did not work. But, fortunately, the backup low-voltage telephone, powered by a hand-held magneto, turned out to be serviceable. It was possible to establish a connection with the first compartment, and the air went.
But there remained, albeit less urgent, but the same vital problem fresh water. And by the end of the day, everyone was thirsty, despite the cold inside the compartment. The air inside the compartment quickly cooled to a temperature of about 5 degrees. And all the divers wear only a light blue working dress. Attempts to collect the condensate formed on the ceiling with rags turned out to be unrealizable. After much deliberation, it was decided that a supply of water should remain in the service tank, below the flange of the drain pipeline. They broke the water gauge glass and began to suck water through the tube. With food, too, there were problems, but not fatal. The provisions contained a small supply of pasta, some canned bread, salt, and a small amount of tomato paste and canned vegetables. Everything was divided into microdoses and used only in an organized manner. A couple of days later, the last emergency lights went out. People found themselves in pitch darkness and cold, breathing saturated air carbon dioxide and oil vapors, and even in the early days, in a severe storm.
A few years after this accident, I met Boris Polyakov on Nevsky Prospekt. Hello. I congratulated him on the order he was awarded after these events, and asked how he managed to maintain order in a stressful situation. He replied: "I took responsibility for solving pressing issues. No one doubted that I was in command here, although I was not formally the commander of the compartment. I organized something like a daily routine. They even remembered the charters and learned marching songs."
By March 18, the concentration of carbon monoxide in the ninth compartment - the last barrier to the release of sailors - was 3 mg / l, and it was decided to begin an operation to evacuate the tenth compartment. By this time, the boat was already being towed to the fleet base. The rescue squad began the operation to release the prisoners of the 10th compartment.
A rescue group was sent forward in individual breathing apparatus, with a gas mask for each of the 12 prisoners. For a long time they could not open the entrance hatch between the ninth and tenth compartments. Only after compartment 10 was blown through the pipeline through which air was supplied to them, excess pressure was created in the compartment, and the hatch opened. On the recommendation of doctors, the captives are blindfolded, having weaned from the light for many days. Making his way through the burning compartments, Boris Polyakov was once again convinced of how right he was, preventing a desperate attempt to escape from the tenth compartment on the fifth day. Due to the blockages of burnt equipment, the ninth compartment had to crawl. A few minutes later, all the "inmates" were in the superstructure, and a little later they were delivered by helicopters to the medical unit on a surface ship.
But the Hiroshima was nevertheless taken in tow to the Kola Bay and laid up in Okolnaya Bay. The emergency team led by Boris Markitantov, at that time the flagship specialist, had the opportunity to unload the corpses from the pressure hull. To begin work on unloading the dead, it was necessary to install temporary lighting. Sergey Vasiliev, the foreman of the electrician team from the first K-19 crew, volunteered for this job. In the meantime, the reconnaissance group moved, almost by touch, in the dim light of emergency lights. The bulkhead door between compartments 7 and 8 was apparently opened by the rescuers who were leading Polyakov's group out. In the enclosure of the power plant, at the door to compartment 8, Boris Markitantov discovered the body of Leva Tsygankov. In the ninth compartment, the picture was the most terrible: sheets of metal burned through, molten pipes, mangled equipment among which lay charred human bodies. And, as confirmation of the selective action of the fiery tornadoes that raged here, the unburned logbook lying on wooden rack on duty. The hardest work lay ahead to evacuate the decomposing bodies of the dead through piles of burnt and mangled equipment. The bodies were loaded into black plastic bags and carried by hand under the hatch of the boat. From there, the bags were to be fed to the pier by a coastal crane. Boris Markitantov says: "The sacks did not fit into the hatch, as the corpses of the dead were stiff. Then it was ordered to cut the tendons and group the remains so that the sacks passed through the hatch. One could go crazy from this work."
Later, Markitantov and I served together at the school for many years, sitting in the same office, discussing different topics, but Boris never wanted to remember this sad mission of his. And only after my numerous requests, after many years, I managed to hear his story.
Ten years ago, on the day of the sixtieth birthday of Boris Markitantov, a remarkable sailor from the Hiroshima, I wrote such poems with which I want to end my story.

Academician Russian Academy natural sciences Honored Worker of Science and Technology, Professor Markitantov Boris Stepanovich

There are not a few military surnames
Streletsky, Starshinov, Sergeants
In the Russian Navy, in plain sight
Professor Boris Markitantov

He was always a "military bone"
Forty years have flown by, I know.
Until our years are over
I write poems about him

Once upon a time, in the 50s
He was an exemplary python, (python is the self-name of the Nakhimovites)
Learn for the conscience, not for fear
considered good manners

Not just a cadet, but also a scholarship holder
Boris was also in our Dzerzhinka.
Not only in the sciences, and in friendship talent,
All, as from an exemplary picture

Maritime service is a highway for him,
Here comes the release date
And received a gold medal,
He goes to the Northern Fleet.

Both as an engineer and as an officer
He intends to be there.
And setting a good example
He goes to K-19

Boat service is no fun at all
Who saw all this without makeup,
He knows what a sad glory
behind the one called "Hiroshima"

But the time for death has imposed a taboo,
Luck spoke up.
And if not so, could share the fate
Korchilova and Tsigankov

Loving the traditions of service and fleet,
Without the pathos of unnecessary words,
I know that Borya would behave
Just like Bob Polyakov.

Fate was more favorable to Boris,
bucked with a smile and a laugh.
My friend, having handed over the commander of the case,
Borya went to headquarters with a pom-flagmech.

And there, as everywhere, he knew everything and could,
He knew everything and always had time.
And here's the obvious result.
I got to the KEE in Dzerzhinka.

Templans and NOCs, role-playing game,
Party red tape...
And there it's time to do a candidate,
And here is your protection.

More and more science, more and more flight,
Everything is stricter, a medal figure.
And an important stage comes the turn:
Completed doctorate.

Research institutes and the fleet, super-serious research,
Works, printouts, calculations,
Scientific modern, and scientific empire,
And thick volumes bindings.

And in the end, completely legal,
Recognition of works and talents,
Excellent scientist, known to the country
Professor Boris Markitantov.

I will not say all his titles yet,
do not climb in size in verse,
But, knowing Boris, I judge correctly,
Worthy, of course, he them.

And the years run, and in your sixty
I want to wish you
Health, success, happy penat,
And go further and higher.

Note: Here on prose.ru there is a story that I recommend reading to those who are interested in my text. It's called Sailors with K-19

Glossary of terms and abbreviations:
Reactor emergency protection - a device that ensures the fall of rods that absorb neutrons and thereby stop the fission reaction of nuclear fuel.
Autonomy - long-term service by a submarine away from the base
nuclear submarine
BCh-5 - warhead five, electromechanical service of the ship
VVD - high pressure air
VPL - stationary foam fire extinguishing system
Fence - a separate room
GKP - main command post
GEM - the main power plant
Veil - the location of submarines jointly performing a combat mission
KP SF - command post of the Northern Fleet
Submarine - submarine
Reactor compartment - a room on a submarine where a nuclear reactor is located
CPS - control and protection system
fuel rod - a fuel element containing nuclear fuel.
FKP - naval command post
Mooring tests - a factory test of equipment performance, when working at the pier.