Soviet submarine K-129 (Golf II)
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К-129 was a project 629А (NATO reporting name Golf-II) diesel submarine of the Soviet Pacific Fleet.
On 8 March 1968, К-129 was lost at sea under mysterious circumstances. Four main theories have been advanced to explain her disappearance: flooding from the induction system while charging batteries on the snorkel, a hydrogen explosion in the batteries while charging, an explosion while launching her missiles, or collision with USS Swordfish (SSN-579).
That latter theory is the official opinion of the Soviet Navy, and is officially denied by the United States Navy. According to the United States Navy version of the story, Swordfish did put into Yokosuka, Japan shortly after the disappearance of К-129, and received emergency repairs to a bent periscope reported to be caused by ice in the Sea of Japan. K-129's reinforced keel, however, which was installed when the hull was lengthened in order to receive the trio of missile launch tubes, was far too sturdy to be ripped open by the much weaker sail of the Swordfish. The Soviet supposition that Swordfish had broken open the hull of K-129 can not be substantiated by any mechanical study or reconstruction.
In 1969 the wreck of К-129 was discovered by the USS Halibut (SSGN-587) 24 North /163 West, a little more than 300 miles Northwest of Oahu, at approximately 16,000 feet. The wreck was surveyed in detail by the Halibut, and later by Trieste II. The CIA decided to salvage the wreck and analyze the nuclear weapons onboard. Hughes Glomar Explorer was built solely for that purpose, and Operation Jennifer began.
According to the official account which is highly disputed, Glomar Explorer was able to lift the wreck of К-129, but as it was raised the missiles fell out, and the hull broke into three parts, the bow and stern falling back to the ocean floor. Thus, the missiles, the torpedo room, and the engine room were lost. What, exactly, was recovered is highly classified, but the Soviets assumed that the United States recovered torpedoes with nuclear warheads, operations manuals, and code notebooks and machines.
The United States announced that in the section they raised were the bodies of six men. They were buried at sea with full military honors about 90 miles southwest of Hawaii. The videotape of that ceremony was given to the Soviet Union. The relatives of the crew members were not shown the video until many years later. Accounts tell of 70 bodies being located within the forward section of the hull, far away from any escape hatches.
In 2005, the book "Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.," by former American submariner Kenneth Sewell in collaboration with journalist Clint Richmond, provides evidence that K-129 did indeed sink 300 miles northwest of Oahu on 7 March 1968 while attempting a launch of her three ballistic missiles in a rogue attack on Pearl Harbor. The book provides evidence that Project Jennifer recovered virtually all of K-129 from the ocean floor. While the book is considered to be a circumstantial, sensational story by some, it has great weight of documentation that has yet to be refuted.
Sewell says that the hull breaking during raising and the missile falling out is a CIA cover story (Red Star Rogue, p. 243), and in fact "Despite an elaborate cover-up and the eventual claim that Project Jennifer had been a failure, most of K-129 and the remains of the crew were, in fact, raised from the bottom of the Pacific and brought into the Glomar Explorer." (Red Star Rogue, p. 226)
Retired United States Navy Captain Peter Huchthausen, former naval attaché in Moscow, had a brief conversation in 1987 with Soviet admirals concerning К-129. Huchthausen states that Admiral Peter Navojtsev told him, "Captain, you are very young and inexperienced, but you will learn that there were some matters that both nations have agreed to not discuss, and one of these is the reasons we lost K-129." In 1995, when Huchthausen began work on a book about the Soviet underwater fleet, he interviewed Admiral Victor Dygalo, who stated that the true history of К-129 has not been revealed because of the informal agreement between the two countries' senior naval commands. The purpose of that secrecy, he alleged, is to stop any further research into the losses of USS Scorpion (SSN-589) and К-129. Huchthausen states that Dygalo told him to "overlook this matter, and hope that the time will come when the truth will be told to the families of the victims."
A book called "Blind Man's Bluff" by Sherry Sontag & Christopher & Annette Drew, related the whole story of the US Submariner's "Cold War" and also contains information relating to K129.
