Warday

positive identification of the support submarines about two hours after contact. These were E-1 class boats, attack submarines. Their purpose would be defense of the Typhoon, and they could be assumed to be carrying nuclear-tipped surface-skimming torpedoes. We had to assume that we were already in range of these vessels. Our Nimrod assistance began relaying satellite data to us at about this time, and we were able to project the exact position of each boat on our maps and supply our computers with all necessary coordinates. I then ordered our helicopter complement to the attack and stood back with the ships. It is known that Soviet aircraft- detection equipment has a much shorter range than the equipment that detects ship noise.

We released all five Harpoon-carrying helicopters, and waited the next two hours while they flew within range of the submarines. The moment they released their missiles, we activated our classified weapons aboard ship. Of this total firing, a classified number of missiles reached their targets, but all of the Soviet submarines were impacted. The E-1 class boats all sank. The Typhoon-class boat surfaced dead in the water.

Some hours later we boarded this boat. I recall vividly my ride across the sling between my ship and the sluggishly rolling submarine. She was an enormous vessel. By the time I went aboard, all the Soviet crew were off except the first officer, who had agreed to act as our guide. He spoke fluent English. His name was Benkovsky, and he informed us that his unit had been continuously at sea for nearly four years! They were only returning to base because their nuclear fuel was running low. As our missiles home on running reactors, the major damage to this boat, the Teplov, was to the engine room and rear crew compartments. The reactor was out of action but the enclosure was intact, so radiation levels aboard ship were normal. There was a powerful stench of burning electrical insulation in the boat, but the crew had contained the fire. We found American tinned foods, much from the prewar era, including Chef Boy-Ar-Dee Spaghetti Dinner and A&P Brand pork and beans with bacon, with prices in prewar dollars. The ships had been replenishing themselves by raiding grocery stores and larders in Arctic Canada and Alaska. Our reports from coastal towns had been correct.

We found this ship to be cramped and dangerously constructed, with much evidence of new welding and repairs of all kinds. Many of the electronic instruments were not operational, and never had been. It is not likely that this boat could have done much to defend itself, despite all the publicity its class received before the war. In addition, it was in poor condition and no longer capable of ultra-deep diving. Although it is a very silent-running vessel, the quiet was achieved at the expense of speed and power. By our standards, this boat was hardly seaworthy.

There was much evidence of low morale aboard, and crew members later indicated that there had been six executions for attempted mutiny or desertion.

One system on the ship that was built up to the highest standard was the missile fire-control system. After this boat had been towed to Hawaii and examined, it was determined that its complement of SLBMs was armed and on firing sequence when the boat was disabled. Another minute or so and the missiles would have been away. Evidently our presence had been detected, or, more likely, our incoming Harpoon missiles. The Soviet weapons were targeted against Seattle, Portland, and various communities along the California coast. They included three EMP weapons, which would have once again destroyed all the electronic devices in the United States and created every bit as much disruption as occurred before, not to mention ruining what communications systems your country has so painfully managed to reconstruct since the war.

The ground-targeted missiles would have delivered a total of one hundred megatons to their targets, and killed outright nine million of the area population of twenty-two million. Residual radiation would have caused severe contamination throughout California.

After an encounter like that, we sub-poppers of the Royal Navy feel that we are doing a job vital to the security of the world.

POLL The Grand Old Feud—Do We Still Believe in It?

First ’twas the Hatfields, and first ’twas the McCoys. Or maybe ’twas the other way around.

—Traditional Tale

Looking back, it does not seem strange or even improbable that the United States and the USSR were rivals. Even without the ideological differences, geopolitics would seem to have made it inevitable.

But what does seem strange is the way the rivalry became so formalistic toward the end, almost a kind of ritual, which continued along its traditional lines despite the enormous changes in the two countries and the world around them.

It is not possible to assess blame; both sides were at fault, and both sides were trapped. Nobody knows what normal relations between the United States and the USSR would have meant because they never had normal relations, not at any time in their history. They either hated one another beyond reason or pretended to unrealistic friendship, such as during the Second World War or the “Detente” period of the seventies.

With hindsight, we can see that they should have been neither mortal enemies nor fast friends. Some things about them suggested partnership, and others suggested competition, but nothing suggested the murderous war that occurred.

Do we think that the old rivalry will be rekindled in the future?

The polls say no. Perhaps the war has finally put the seal on the anguish of the old superpowers. Perhaps.

Do you believe that the Soviet Union will emerge once again as a world power?

-	1993	1992
AGREE	27%	30%
DISAGREE	68	66
NO OPINION	5	4

Should the Soviet Union emerge again as a world power, do you believe that it will start another war?

AGREE

21%