Soviet submarine K-3 Leninsky Komsomol

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Career

Ordered:
Laid down:	June 1954
Launched:	9 August 1957
Commissioned:	July 1958
Fate:	Museum ship
Homeport:	Zapadnaya Litsa
Stricken:
General characteristics
Displacement:
Length:	109,7 m
Beam:
Draft:
Propulsion:
Speed:	30 knots
Depth:	480 m
Complement:
Armament:	eight torpedo tubes

К-3 was a project 627 "Кит" ("kit," meaning "whale"; NATO reporting name "November") submarine of the Soviet Navy's Northern Fleet, the first nuclear submarine of the Soviet Union. The vessel was prototyped in wood, with each of five segments scattered between five different locations about Leningrad, including the Astoria Hotel.^[1] She was built in Molotovsk, launched on August 9, 1957, commissioned in July 1958, and homeported at Zapadnaya Litsa on the Kola Peninsula. K-3 was designed by Vladimir Peregoudov.^[1] Her initial captain was Leonid Ossipenko, and the executive officer was Lev Zviltsov, who had the important task of assembling the first crew.^[1]

On June 17, 1962, by this time under the command of Zviltsov^[1], К-3 reached the North Pole underwater, a feat performed nearly four years earlier by USS Nautilus. For this feat, she was awarded the name Leninsky Komsomol (Ленинский Комсомол) on October 9, 1962, and her crew, rather than training in military operations, began taking part in many congresses and conferences. This idle life continued until the summer of 1967 when a boat that had been scheduled for patrol in the Mediterranean Sea was unavailable. К-3 was tasked with that patrol. She was assigned a new commander, Captain Second Rank Stepanova, and her executive officer arrived aboard only two hours before she put to sea. Whatever the initial material condition of the boat, the crew was not ready for sea. By the time they reached the Mediterranean, the air regeneration system had failed and the temperature on board was 35°-40°C (95°-104°F).

Once in the Mediterranean, К-3 was given the mission of following an American ballistic missile submarine, which she was unable to do. The boat was ordered to return to base.

On September 8, 1967, while transiting the Norwegian Sea, a fire broke out in the submarine's hydraulic system, and crew members in the compartment when the fire broke out had to evacuate the compartment. The flames spread to other parts of the submarine. The automatic extinguishers were based on carbon dioxide gas, which killed the crew members who were in the first and second compartments foremost in the submarine. When the dividing door in the bulkhead from the third compartment was opened to see what had happened to the people in the second compartment, the gas spread, and more people lost consciousness. The foremost compartments were then completely sealed off, and the submarine surfaced. Four days later, К-3 returned to base. A total of 39 crew members died in the fire.

The subsequent investigation determined that the most probable cause of the fire was ignition of an explosive concentration of hydraulic oil, and that the reactions of the crew were prompt and correct. Numerous rewards were recommended for the crew, including seven nominations for Hero of Soviet Union -- four of them posthumous. A later commission from Moscow, however, found a cigarette lighter in the torpedo compartment and found the position of a sailor's body suspicious. They ruled that the sailor's smoking had caused the fire and prohibited any award.

In 1991 a memorial was erected in Zapadnaya Litsa to the men lost aboard К-3.