On Moscow's Orders

“In 1967-8, Captain Nikolai Shashkov (pictured above), commander of a submarine carrying nuclear warheads, had a mission in what was then the most troubled region of the planet, the eastern Mediterranean, scene of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It was no secret that the USSR gave not only moral, but also military support to its Arab allies.

“I have no doubt whatsoever that Captain Shashkov would have carried out any order from Command if this local conflict had grown to global proportions. That was the reality of the time, the reality of Cold War and the opposition of military blocs. And I hope that we have finally departed from such a balance on the thin line between war and peace.”

– Fleet Admiral Vladimir Chernavin, President of the Union of Submariners

Shashkov’s mission was none other than the destruction of Israel. He was to fire eight P-6 (SS-12) rockets with nuclear warheads at the shore, thus causing a minimum of eight ‘hiroshimas.’ And all this on the eve of or during Passover 1968. The Captain, now a Reserve Vice-Admiral, told his story to Nikolai Cherkashin. Illustrations from Rodina magazine.

Nikolai Cherkashin: ...a minimum of 8 ‘hiroshimas?’

Nikolai Shashkov: There could have been more. The American atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima was the equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT. I could have been fitted with megaton warheads.

N.C.: You mean you didn’t know the strike power of your own rockets?

N.S.: Not one commander of a submarine carrying nuclear warheads knows exactly. Warheads are fitted by specialists from another department entirely. All I have is initial data to calculate the trajectory. For me that’s considered enough.

N.C.: Was a special order given?

N.S.: There could have been. We expected it. Just before I started my service I received an oral instruction from the Commander-in-Chief of the USSR Navy, Fleet Admiral Gorshkov, to ‘be ready to make a rocket strike on the coast of Israel.’ Of course this was only in the event of the Americans and Israelis launching a beachhead in friendly Syria. In fact it was there near the shores of Syria that was my main positioning area...

I was restricted by the flight distance of my rockets, which did not exceed 600 km, so I was forced to ‘loiter’ ... dangerously close to three US aircraft carrier strike groups headed by nuclear carriers America, Forrestal and Enterprise. Each had in escort 20-30 ships, almost every one of which was equipped with submarine search systems. And I was alone. The Americans also had patrol planes in the air. At times there were as many as 17 submarine hunting aircraft hammering the entire eastern Mediterranean with their radar. There was always a signal on the [radar detector] antenna. They were looking for an entire underwater Soviet screen, while in fact all there was was my one K-172...

This was war, and most definitely not a ‘cold’ one. No one knew what would happen the next day. This was the first time since the [U2 crisis] that the international situation had worsened to the point of potential nuclear exchange, i.e. nuclear war on a world scale. I was supposed to start it first on the first signal from Moscow. And so as not to miss this signal, I had to get on the radio every two hours...

We kept having to dive away from approaching aircraft. Around us it was basically business as usual: dry cargo ships, liners, fishing boats. And we meanwhile spent most of our time at periscope depth, more dangerous for a submarine than further down because you can get hit by someone’s stem. We were also very concerned about... sonars. Our intelligence really put the wind up us: “look out,” [they said,] “they can pick up a boat at 200 miles whatever the conditions.” They never picked up a thing. We heard them, but they didn’t hear us.

N.C.: Are you sure?

N.S.: Well if they had I wouldn’t be talking to you today. That would have been the end of my career as a commander... If they had discovered me I’d have had half a dozen anti-submarine ships down on me, Sea Kings flying overhead and a nuclear torpedo boat on my tail, ready to launch a full salvo if I so much as opened the lids of my rocket containers. That’s why I’m 100% sure that we didn’t blow our cover.

N.C.: Did the Arabs know of your presence?

N.S.: Well, of course they didn’t know which boat and where exactly it was. But they knew that if it came to the crunch the Soviet Union would support them using any means available, including nuclear. As for where the strike against Israel would be made from, they were also aware that it would be from the sea.

N.C.: Please describe your vessel.

N.S.: ... the K-172 (NATO classification Echo-2) was for its time a very modern vessel. Soviet sailors called it the ‘folding bed,’ because of the rocket containers, arranged in pairs along the sides, which rose out of its light body. The launchers were raised to an angle of 15 degrees... Its surface displacement was 5,800 metric tons, underwater displacement 6,200 tons, length 199 meters. It had ten compartments and two reactors, an underwater speed of 24 knots, and a crew of 90. It was built in Severodvinsk in the mid 60s.

We considered it a ‘one-time’ sub, i.e. only fit for firing one salvo. After all, we could only fire when surfaced, and the time between surfacing and launching is 20 minutes. This would have been more than enough to find us and destroy us immediately after the salvo was fired.

N.C.: Did you realize you were hostages of power politics, and that you were effectively kamikazes?

N.S.: I understood perfectly well the whole risk of our venture. But war is war. You take risks every day, and under the water with two nuclear reactors, twenty odd torpedoes and eight rockets you take risks every hour, if not every minute. But we are servicemen, we took an oath to carry out any orders of the Party and government, even if they meant our own lives were threatened...

N.C.: And the whole world.

N.S.: Do you suppose the Americans didn’t behave in exactly the same way? I can name for you the commanders of those American nuclear-powered vessels which had Moscow and the industrial areas of the Urals in their sights. They could also have had the honor, or rather misfortune, to start the Third World War.

And the Americans knew that in the event of developments which were extremely unfavorable for us in the Middle East, the USSR was just as capable of making a nuclear strike as American strategists defending their geo-political interests. That was the dangerous absurdity of the Cold War, that any local crisis ... could grow immediately into thermonuclear war with all its monstrous consequences for mankind.

Personally I have not and do not feel any hostility towards Israel itself.

And another thing. It’s one thing when you’re, say, a marine, and see your opponent’s face, and aim at a living individual; it’s another when you have in front of you a remote control device, instruments, lamps and arrows. You can see neither blood, nor destruction, nor explosions nor fires. Just the usual work with the usual equipment, and nothing more. A whole country could disappear, and you would never see anything because you were under water or in an underground bunker. Techniques of mass destruction are now such that the direct executor of nuclear apocalypse bears no personal responsibility. He is just a link in the chain in the war machine. Wars are begun not by admirals but by civilians. It is they who give the fatal orders.

N.C.: Doesn’t it scare you, when you look back and are conscious of the danger which you, like it or not, put yourself and the whole world in?

N.S.: You see, I’ve had so many dangerous moments in my life... Doctors say that all the stresses stay in the sub-conscious and then make themselves known. The dreams I have sometimes... But on the whole I have a clear conscience. I did my military duty honestly, and I am not ashamed of those years... My son Alexander followed in my footsteps and served as an officer on a rocket-carrying submarine of the latest generation. He would also carry out such orders. It’s a matter of military honor, whether Soviet or American.

N.C.: Did you have any Jews on the sub at the time you were in the Middle East?

N.S.: Yes, there were Jews, and Georgians, and Ukrainians... It was a normal international crew, like on all the other Soviet ships.

N.C.: Did they know that you had been appointed to destroy Israel?

N.S.: No. Only I knew about the order to be ready to strike. But they too must have guessed that we hadn’t come to Haifa for a friendly visit.

N.C.: And how did they behave?

N.S.: There were no breaches of discipline.

N.C.: Why did the choice fall on you in particular?

N.S.: I had battle experience in the Mediterranean. I... received top marks for all the missions I had been assigned. You could call it fresh experience.

But I think my biographical details played a major role too. My father was in the secret service, head of a special department  of the 2nd Strike Army.

N.C.: The same one as General Vlasov [who later headed Russian forces fighting for the Nazis]?

N.S.: Yes. My father tried to break out of encirclement with Vlasov, and when things became critical, he shot himself, while Vlasov surrendered. Whatever people say about the secret services now, I am convinced that among them were absolutely honest people, like my father... I recently found his grave in the woods near Novgorod. Unfortunately a symbolic one.

N.C.: Do you believe that today’s Russian navy would be capable of repeating that mission which you took part in in 1968?

N.S.: Quite recently a nuclear Akula class submarine on battle patrol entered the North Pole area. There, on top of the world, the commander was given the order to launch one of his rockets. The target was a polygon in Arkhangelsk Region. All the battle blocs of the RSM-52 rocket reached their target within the given coordinates. And this was just one rocket. In fact the Akula is capable of launching a nuclear ‘hail’ of 200 separate warheads. For its hurricane-like power this strategic underwater rocket complex was called ‘Typhoon.‘

Draw your own conclusions.

Nikolai Cherkashin is a captain in the Russian navy and a marine writer. This interview originally appeared in the Russian historical magazine Rodina. Its is translated and published here in English for the first time, with the gracious permission of Rodina magazine.