When Sweden ALMOST Went to War With Russia
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- Опубликовано: 6 сен 2024
- In 1981 the Russian submarine U-137 went aground close to the town of Karlskrona in Sweden, and that was the start of a diplomatic incident that almost led to armed conflict between Sweden and Russia. This incident was later given the name Whiskey on the Rocks.
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In this video I explore the town of Karlskrona and I also dive deeper into the U-137 incident. There were many breaches of Swedish territory by the Soviet Union during the 1980s, but this was one of the most well-known cases - and one that became international news at the time.
The submarine that went aground was the start of it all, but it escalated with Russian war ships and other vessels closing in on Swedish waters, with orders to retrieve the submarine by force. Meanwhile, Swedish scientists detected that the submarine was carrying uranium - and that it was in fact loaded with nuclear weapons.
Eventually both sides stood down from further conflict, and the submarine was released to the Soviet fleet - but it was several days of nerve wracking diplomatic games until that conclusion was reached. And this video gives you a short glimpse into the whole event that became known as Whiskey on the Rocks.
The day when every jet engine was spooled up. When every warship was slipped from anchor. When every artillery emplacement was filled and every armed servicemen was brought to bear. When the government hovered with one hand over the total mobilization button and every cop got issued handgrenades. When Sweden told the Soviet Union "move one inch onto our territory and you will be destroyed" The culmination of the cold war in a sense and solid proof that the primary thing that kept the cold war from getting hot was Swedish steel all along.
Haha I could never have come up with such a vivid description! That's lovely to read 😊
Viggen flew with real anti-ship missiles (rare)
Im born 1981 and grew up in Karlskrona my father at that time was a airbase engineer/groundcrew on Ronneby F17 airbase. He told me when i was old enough that the whole homeguard in the region approx 200 000 soldiers was mobilized in our area and his groundcrew unit was ordered to prepare the hidden runways across the neighbouring provinces. It all happened like that at the flip of a switch. Thankfully it never got hot war but seeing what happened everyone was convinced the war was coming especially when they heard Sovjet rescue force was on their way. Karlskrona has also a huge city underground, a base ready to whitstand hell.
That must have been amazing and horrifying to hear about first hand like that. And I hope that we never have to use that underground city underneath the town....
I remember this, my father was a Swedish diplomat and military at that time. We got so many "polish carpet salesmen and "lost hitchhikers from germany" knocking at the door and around the doors to our neighbours. This usually happened every 3-4 months, but at the time of the Whiskey on the Rocks incident, the number of eatern european tourists and salesmen in the neighbourhood skyrocketed.
The KGB and GRU usually tried to intimidate high ranking diplomats and military by doing this, to 1) map where people lived 2) map their families 3) to intimidate by showing "we know where you live". We kids on the street had a game to harass these persons and ask how it was working for Soviet and GRU as well as throwing rosebuds at them, or emptying the air if their bikes. My neighbour once put a plank with spikes in front of the tire of a car that a "german salesman" had stopped outside our house and we laughed at the guy who instead of talking german started to swear in russian.
Another fun thing was that my dad informed the whole street when the salesmen & tourists started to appear and no one in the neighbourhood liked them. One old lady in her late 80's chased one tourist away with her carpet whip. Another fun thing was that one person on the next street reported to the police that he had been offered payment to report when my dad came and went from the house. He told my father and then he reported it to the police. I never knew what happened after.
But as soon as the Warsawa pact was shattered and the berlin wall fell, then over a night, all such persons vanished, never to return.
Oh my, the fun games of the 1980's
Oh wow! That's amazing - hard to imagine that it was like that within my own lifetime. Thanks for those anecdotes, and for sharing such a unique perspective given your father's line of work. Cheers for those memories! 😀
It did not stop totally when the warzaw pact fell. I was in the homeguard 98-08 and got visited by picture salesmen a few times during those years. Got no visits after that I left and when I lived in an apartment they did not visit any of the other people that lived in the same building.
It´s kinda scary to realise how close we came to world war 3 that time. The order from the swedish prime minister to the armed forces was " - Håll gränsen / hold the border". That means that if the soviet fleet would have passed the maritime border line the coastal batteries, submarines, naval surface vessels and attack aircraft would all have engaged the soviet fleet, probably sinking most of them. That would have made the soviet union go full retard and "retaliate", which would have spun the world straight into world war 3.
Very happy that things turned out well... That was risky, but at least it worked that time thankfully.
The scary thing is that the act that caused the Soviet admiral to abort the recovery in force attempt was a big gamble.
The Costal artillery captain on watch duty that night, a colleague and friend to my father from their marine officer's academy days, was the one who ordered the mobile fire control radar to switch to "War mode" (Flipping from the known, fixed, peace time frequency to operate on wide band frequency jumping that couldn't be jammed or disrupted, a technology which was a complete surprise to the Soviets.)
What made it such a huge gamble is that only a single mobile costal artillery piece had reported ready to fire by the time the radar was switched over, but one of the fire control radars that flipped to war mode was deployed on top of the old location for the battery control center of a long decomissioned 21cm costal defense battery, which may have been interpreted by the Soviets as if that battery had been recently reinstated with who knows what other nasty surprises...
Nice memories. I have been there in 2022. Karlskrona is beautiful place. Bought a tre kronor pin at the museum shop, which I carry around, at my backpack, every day. I am in love with Sweden and still booked a trip to Stockholm, in August of this year. 😊
That's so nice to hear about that pin 😀 And happy thoughts about Sweden in general of course. Cheers, and hope you have a great one!
Shortly after this incident, in the taxfree shops on ferries, packages looking like a video box were sold. The most interesting contained a bottle of whiskey and it was named U137 - Whisky On The Rocks. There was also a brandy that was aged “12 Years Behind The Bars”.
Just outside the town of Kungälv north of Gothenburg, there’s a rock in the river flowing by and that looks like the command tower of a submarine and it has, or had the figures U137 painted on it 😊.
Haha I had no idea about that! Thanks for those added anecdotes and tidbits 😀
My grandpa was on that boat as coastguard, great story!
Oh wow! Must have been amazing to hear about it from him
I've visited Marinmuseum at Karlskrona. It's a good place to visit. Also, Karlskrona is a very nice town.
Agreed! Even though it was a bit cold and rainy when I was there, it was still a really nice place 😊
@@ThreeStarVagabond Yeah, it's a good place to visit. I've been to Karlskrona in 2023, March. Weather also was cold and some wind, but no rain at all.
Mycket fin video, trodde du skulle vara mer populär, sjuk bra videokvaliete!
Tack, det uppskattas! 😊
How on earth can someone talk about this incident and leave out when Fälldin got the call on what to do if the Russians crossed the border and he just replied "Håll gränsen!" (Hold the border!) where the coastal artillery change to its signature "jump frequency" (Hopp frekvens) that was only to be used at wartime, what the russians did not know was that our coastal artillery was not combat ready at that time but the bluff worked.
The very simple answer is: I forgot! That's of course something that definitely should have been included
@@ThreeStarVagabond You are forgiven. The fact that our Commander in Chief called twice to check that the orders still stood clear and got the response that we where to attack a Sovjet rescue convoy with everything we had. The Commander in Chief just replied "that was what i wanted to hear". It was truly at the edge of a war situation.
I'm almost getting cold shivers by thinking about it all. I look forward to the TV series later this year!
Karlskrona looks like a lovely place! (And what a cool museum.) I had no idea about this bit of history. I eventually became friends with people from countries under Soviet control and knew -- just by proximity -- there were tensions in some Nordic countries. But this was all new to me. (And fascinating!)
I've heard that the Baltics in particular had a lot of anti-Soviet sentiment during the time they were occupied. If you're interested in that era, I think Michael Palin made a couple of travel documentaries in the 90s, where he visited various Soviet countries - that one is amazing!
I'm going to visit the Marinemuseum this summer. It certainly looks highly interesting.
It is. I highly recommend it.
We will be visiting Karlskrona later this year - Thanks for this video. We will definitely go to the Marine Museum.
Nice! I hope you'll like it - I was pretty blown away by the submarine hall :D
Very interesting video! Takk, Miro ! 😊
And thank you for checking it out 😊
This was very intresting video and made me wanted to visit Karlskrona🇸🇪❤️
It's a really nice little town - I liked it there 😀
Wow. Great editing, use of music and fantastic storytelling. Tusentack! Now come to Gotland and get a bunch more content. There are stories everywhere. We literally have skeletons under our house.
Thank you 😀 I really should do that - I just need to find a good story to tell about some spot 😊
Interesting that they're still using the same excuses today with Ukraina etc.
Haha not to generalize, but it does seem like the Russians never change
Hope we get to see the tv show here in Australia- very interesting vlog, Miro. Hope you enjoyed the Joshua Tree and are having an amazing trip in the US.
Let's hope so! And let's hope it's any good too 😀 Cheers, thank you!
During the cold war we in Sweden were neutral but we had secret agrement to the americans
I assume most countries have some informal arrangements like that. So that makes sense.
Wow tense times indeed, I don’t agree about the salvage fees since they did breach Swedish waters but you have to abide by the court decision 😒. Lucky Putin was not in charged then who knows how it may have turned out. I do remember hearing about this incident but did not retain many facts so it was an amazing video into the past. Stay safe till next time.
Thanks for checking it out! I didn't really know much about it either until I started reading up on it all for my trip. Guess I was a bit too young back in 81 😊
"When Sweden ALMOST Went to War With Russia"! Oh man. We went to total war with Russia on multiple occasions during history.
Haha guess I have to make a video about Narva next.
I remeber this, Swedish goverment set the military on a war emergency.. it did get solved by diplomatic efforts!
In anyway we dont know about the submarines mission.. or if it was intedended to go to swedish waters?
Its this, they could have buy, swedish maritime sea charts, to not take the wrong way and run up on a cliff!
In anyway Karlskrona supose to be "another" swedish hidden gem, I dont know, I have never ever been there!
Haha well they were entering military waterways so civilian maps wouldn't cover that area. But yeah no one has officially said what that sub was up to! And I liked Karlskrona but it's quite a small town - like a lot in Sweden 😊
@@ThreeStarVagabond Its still this, small towns is often better for visitors/tourists.. the caveat is that they are "hidden gems""! Its probably like this, after one have visit all the "tourist traps", transported as sheeps frome one trap to another! It could be great for some and especialy one time visitors!
@@stiglarsson8405 I think it depends on the visitor as well. Some people really like this exploration of smaller places and having some nice quiet time - while others look for big bombastic things all the time. To each their own :)
Looking at the map showing the only way to get to the place where the submarine hit the rock (Torumskär), the sub had to do two or three very precise turns to avoid underwater rocks and grounds. And in the last part of the travel, it had to go surface, there was simply not enough depth to go submerged. The reason the sub hit the rock, was that one landmark, called ensmärke (a white painted pile of rocks) had fallen down in some previous storms. This, the rear mark (bakre ensmärket) was later rebuilt. During the early morning hours, about 4.30, two eyewitnesses living nearby, heard very loud diesel engines, and climbed up over a hilltop. There they saw not only one submarine, but two submarines running engines at full power. The second submarine tried to tow the grounded sub of the cliff. As daylight started to increase, the 2nd submarine left the area.
U-137 would definitely had led to war, if they hadn’t surrendered quickly.
Well, I'm just happy that everything was solved peacefully...
Sovietunion was nothing else than the Russian bear in a red costume. The russian mindset is that Russia will forever expand. The russian diplomats tells the truth if it suits them otherwise they lie. Soviets spoke of a nuclearweapon free Baltic sea just before this incident I remember...
So true - unfortunately :/
The Soviet Union, not Russia, as it say in the title.
Yep, mentioned in the video as well. But it wouldn't really make for as catchy of a title!
The U.S.S.R. was the successor to the Russian Empire of the tsars
oh shit, I wasnt born yet but its good to learn about my hertiage. But now youre part of NATO so if anything happen Im willing to deploy to Sweden to protect once my former home
Not Russia, ti was still the USSR.
Oh absolutely - because Russia wasn't calling the shots there 😆
@@ThreeStarVagabond Still, better to keep it correct.
Yeah, except we didn´t ALMOST go to war with russia... clickbait!
Hade varit bättre om du snackat svenska med engelsk text ist
Troligen! Men tyvärr gör jag en del saker som inte riktar sig mot svenskar också. Funkar inte riktigt med två olika språk
😂 We wasn't near any war!! We are much closer to a war today after we join Nato. STUPID WORLD.
I guess people in all times ask themselves why they couldn't live in a more peaceful time :/
The fear of having NATO nukes on Swedish soil is more terrifying than having Soviet/Russian nukes on Swedish soil, for some people.
Learn some history. This was close to getting hot!
@@RadioactiveSaddam😂 Dito !!. Nu kan/kommer vi att ha kärnvapen placerade i Sverige då vi tillskillnad från Norge, INTE har skrivit in i lagen att Sverige skall vara kärnvapen fri zon !!. Det enda vi blir nu är USA:s godtrogna idiot samt en måltavla för Ryssland & deras allierade. Två onda ting blir sällan något tryggt att hålla I handen . Kramis 🙃