A guy called Vasili Arkhipov who saved the world
I wonder how many people know of him. During the Cuban Missile crisis, tensions were pretty high between the US and the Soviet Union.
Vasili Arkhipov of the USSR was made second in command on the B-59, one of four attack submarines that was ordered to travel to Cuba on October 1st, 1962. The sub contained 22 torpedoes, one of which was nuclear, holding the same strength as the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. The captains of each of the four subs were given permission to fire their nuclear torpedoes at their own discretion, so long as they had the backing of the political officer on board. Unknown to the crew of the B-59, the United States began their naval blockade of Cuba on October 24th and informed the Soviets that they would be dropping practice depth charges (think warning shots) to force subs to surface and be identified.
Moscow could not communicate this information to the B-59 due to it being too deep underwater to receive radio transmissions. On October 27th, 1962, US destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS Randolph located the sub, trapped it, and began dropping depth charges to force it to surface. The sub’s crew, which had been traveling for nearly 4 weeks with very little communication with Moscow, was very tired and not aware of circumstances. The sub’s captain, Valentin Savitsky, believed that nuclear war had already broken out between the Soviet Union and the US and wanted to fire the nuclear torpedo.
Fortunately, particularly given the heightened tensions at the time, in this case, one other person had veto power over firing besides the captain and the political officer, the second in command Vasili Arkhipov. Vasili, despite being second in command on the B-59, was the leader of the fleet of the four Soviet subs sent. Had Vasili not been present, nuclear war would have likely happened as both the captain and the political officer wanted to launch the nuclear torpedo. Vasili vehemently disagreed, arguing that since no orders had come from Moscow in a long time, such a drastic action was ill-advised and the sub should surface to contact Moscow. A heated argument broke out- legend, probably false- says punches were thrown. Eventually, though, Vasili won the day (his reputation as a hero in the K-19 mutiny reportedly helped in the debate) and the sub surfaced. Upon meeting their American enemies, they were instructed to head back to Russia. They obliged, (additionally, they began to have mechanical issues on board the sub) and headed east. Nuclear war was averted.
