Soviet Foxtrots: Cuban Missile Crisis
Loaded with nuke-tipped torpedos
The tide turns
President Kennedy and his National Security Council (NSC) paid scant attention to the possibility of submarines participating in the Soviet buildup in Cuba before October 23, 1962. CIA Director McCone kept hammering home the notion of Soviet submarines in or near Cuban waters, but the brass did not believe him. At some point around October 23, McCone’s warnings began to sink in at the highest levels of the US government.
The Pentagon ordered USN units on October 23 to track submarines thought to be operating near Cuba and “induce” them to surface and identify themselves. The inducement would be through the employment of small "practice" depth charges. They were supposed to be harmless. When detonated in the ocean, their explosive fillings created noise that travelled through the water. Reflecting from the hull of a submarine, these sound waves could be picked up by sensitive microphones called sonobuoys that were also dropped into the water. Equipment on board patrol aircraft would use the echoes to calculate the submarine's likely position.
President Kennedy began to express concerns about the submarines and their impact on the unfolding events. He worried that a Soviet submarine might attempt to sink or actually sink the USN destroyer dropping depth charges. For example, on October 24, McNamara briefed that the Navy intended to intercept two Soviet ships, the Gagarin and Komiles, which were only a few miles from the blockade line. He said Naval Intelligence believed a submarine had moved into position between the two ships.
Kennedy turned his attention to the question, “What if” the submarine does not surface? He wanted to know specifically at what point the US would launch an attack on the submarine. Kennedy did not like the idea of attacking the submarine first, but preferred to attack the merchant ship instead.
General Maxwell Taylor stated that the Navy would not attack the submarine unless it were in a position to threaten the US destroyer. McNamara did not fully agree with that. He reiterated that the plan was to try to force the submarine away “by the pressure of potential destruction, and then make the intercept” of the merchant ship. He acknowledged there were many uncertainties.
Whatever the case, JFK called off all intercepts of ships for a while.
Peter Huchthausen was a newly commissioned Ensign from the Naval Academy and was aboard the USS Blandy (DD-943) during the crisis. Blandy was assigned to ASW Hunter-Killer (HUK) Group Bravo, one of eight ASW escorts in the group. Group Bravo also included the USS Keppler (DD-765), USS Sperry (DD-697), and the aircraft carrier USS Essex (CV-9). As they left Newport, Rhode Island, on October 22, the crews anticipated contact with "several Soviet submarines reported to be in the area."
Huchthausen wrote ASW Group Bravo "was patrolling an arc outside a barrier called the Walnut Line … The Walnut line was the name in the operation order given to the arc northeast of Cuba defining the outer limits of the quarantine, spreading in arcs five hundred miles around Cuba. This was the line through which Soviet ships approaching Cuba would first encounter the US blockading forces." I love this graphic courtesy of George Mackey because, at long last, we get some definitive positions for the Foxtrots. The B-36 arrived on October 29, the B-130 on October 30, and the B-59 was just a way back.
As of October 23, according to Huchthausen, the skipper of the Blandy had been informed that only three contacts had been made: a submarine tender, a tanker, and a Zulu. However, Huchthausen acknowledged, "at the shipboard level we had no overall antisubmarine tactical intelligence picture."
Admiral Rybalko at Northern Fleet Headquarters at Severomorsk shared the concern of the Blandy crew. His four submarine captains were headed straight at the Atlantic Fleet and were operating, as Huchthausen noted, "completely in the dark." Rybalko was unable to determine what intelligence Moscow had provided to the Foxtrots. As we know, it provided them with nothing. The Ministry of Defense (MoD) had prohibited sending the Foxtrots any information for security reasons. The skippers had to tune in to VOA!
In his paper, "One Minute to Midnight," Michael Dobbs wrote:
"Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had ordered his missile-carrying ships to turn (back) more than 24 hours before (the blockade announcement), on the morning of October 23, 1962, soon after Kennedy went on nationwide television to announce the discovery of Soviet missiles in Cuba."
Khrushchev exempted those ships already close to Cuba. He did this because they were unlikely to encounter a US intercept. For the record, Dobbs said one of those "ships included the Aleksandrovsk, which was carrying nuclear warheads to Cuba … According to Soviet records, the orders to 16 missile-carrying ships to reverse course went out early in the morning of October 23. This is consistent with a later reconstruction of the movement of Soviet ships by the U.S. Navy and the CIA."
Therefore, October 23 is a significant date. While Khrushchev may have ordered his ships carrying military cargo to turn around, the Soviets and Cubans continued to construct, install, and ready the weapons that had already been delivered, including the ballistic missiles. The NSC left the submarine problem and started focusing more and more on attacking and invading Cuba.
