order to pass the Rio Grande Ridge in deeper water. And from there it was a straight four-day run down to the Falkland Islands.
They arrived off the eastern coast of the islands in the small hours of the morning of September 24, one day early. Commander Dunning stayed east and deep as he passed the British territory, for whose few people Margaret Thatcher had been prepared to fight a war to the death in 1982.
“There’s a lot of people I don’t really care much about upsetting,” said Commander Dunning. “But I’d sure hate the Brits to get really pissed off at me, if I was creeping around their island in a submarine without telling ’em. Those guys are fucking dangerous. I’m staying well clear.”
Bill Baldridge, who was sharing a pot of coffee with him at the time, chuckled. “They know precisely where you are, sir. They’ve been working with us on this almost since the start. They identified Adnam for us.”
“Just don’t want any misunderstandings,” said Boomer, laughing.
And now for the first time, he ordered a decrease in speed. They headed south, running at only fifteen knots standard across the sixty-mile expanse of the western end of the Burdwood Bank. For the sonar team, the noise of the shallow water was heightened to a point where everyone understood the impossibility of finding
It took them four hours to make the crossing. Commander Dunning came to periscope depth twice, once to take a look at the weather, which was awful, foggy and windy at the same time, with big South Atlantic swells heaving in from the turbulent southwest, where the Atlantic and the Pacific first meet, right off the stark, tormented rock-face of Cape Horn. The second time was to access the comms satellite.
The crew now deployed the towed-array, the great electronic tail the submarine towed behind — weightless in the water — while on patrol, enabling her sonars to “see” everything in all directions, except the thin triangular cone of water right astern.
This “blind” spot was dealt with in a strictly routine way. Every few hours, but with careful irregularity, the submarine made a turn to port, or to starboard, to check the stern-arc’s clear. If anything should be stalking her, the sonars picked it up very quickly. They called it “clearing the baffles.”
With the passive-sonar array strung out behind her,
In the mid-afternoon of September 24, he once more accessed the satellite to report his own position and receive any new orders or information. There was one signal. It told them
But the real tension at this stage of the operation was in
Commander Dunning and his team reached the eastern end of the bank shortly after 0030 on September 25. They were reasonably sure they had not passed the Kilo, and they knew that if they were too late, it would almost certainly be picked up and caught by one of their three colleagues. Dunning turned his boat back to the west.
Bill Baldridge had an implicit belief in the validity of the tip-off from Cairo, and did not expect the Kilo to be there before the date and time stated, 1200, September 25, on latitude 54.40S, longtitude60.00W. Right where they now ran, slowly through the dark water.
The bells of the watch came and went. All through that night and morning, the great electronic ear of the passive sonar swept, unseen, through the icy depths, aimed always into the silence of the deep, away from the racket of the bank itself. The daily “weapons check” report came and went again.
Every six hours they reported the self-noise check on the array. And
When, they all wondered, would the rogue Kilo come sliding eerily out of the deep Southern Ocean? Whenever that was, the Americans had their cover. The submarine running west would be forced to aim his sonars at the noisiest part of the ocean, which obscures, eclipses, and ultimately camouflages the noise of another submarine.
Boomer Dunning and Bill Baldridge, now together as underwater comrades-in-arms, knew that every advantage was with them in this grim and deadly game of hide-and-seek.
Noon came and went on Wednesday, September 25. It came and went too, on September 26. Still nothing. The afternoon wore on, and no sound of a softly turning single-shafted five-blader was detected by the sonar room. All through the evening they remained on full alert. The watch changed at midnight. At 0400, Captain Dunning came once more to periscope depth to access the satellite. No messages. All four of the U.S. submarines, in their separate waters, waited alone for the missing Kilo. But it was
Men came on duty for the second watch of the night as Boomer Dunning ordered his submarine deep again, into ice-cold seas in which nothing stirred.
At 0600 there was a glimmer of activity in the sonar room. Chief Petty Officer Skip Gowans was muttering that he might have heard a very slight rise in the background noise, “just an increase in the level, could been a rain shower, just swishing on the surface. But I thought it was something…give me a few minutes.”
Lieutenant Commander Jerry Curran was standing right next to him, and at 0604, the chief spoke again. “I have a rise in the level,” he said. “It’s hard to explain unless it’s the weather.”
At 0614 an electric charge shot through the submarine…“
“Sonar — Captain…I’ll be right there.”
Lieutenant Commander Curran crossed the room to the “water-fall” screen on which it was now clear that there were definite engine lines. The computer had already compared them with the Kilo engine sample built into the system. “They fit, sir, no doubt.”
Boomer Dunning stepped into the room. “Nothing else on this watch?” he said.
“Nossir, nothing except that zoo up on the bank.”
“What’s the range?”
“Not close, sir. Could even be first convergence. The bearing hasn’t moved. I assume she’s coming dead toward.”
Commander Dunning stepped back outside and talked to Baldridge. “What would your admiral do right here, Bill?”
“He said to keep moving back off-track to the north, trying to get the bank in behind us, for more noise cover, just in case the Kilo goes completely quiet on us.”
“Right now he’s snorkeling, on course west, making a lot of noise, for that boat. But we’ll head north as you suggest.”
Forty minutes passed with agonizing slowness. Bill heard the next call from the sonar room.
“Solution looks good, sir. He’s still way out to the east, still coming our way. Still snorkeling, not cavitating. So he’s less than nine knots.”
“One and two tubes ready, sir…we’re about three thousand yards to one side of the Kilo’s predicted track.”
“Okay,” said Boomer Dunning quietly, as if even the sound of his voice would betray their presence. “I’m going to hold it right here, dead slow…then let him go by, and fire from his stern arcs, so he has zero chance of picking up the firing transient.”
