There is almost an element of humor in this story. The sub captain claiming that island popped up out of nowhere. Kind of like a poor driver saying that car came out of nowhere when I ran that red light. Another fine report. Thank you.
From the original Battlestar Galactica. A Cylon pilot crashed. When asked for an explanation it said "I was flying in a straight line. The planet came up us."
The submarine grounded because it followed a Swedish navy military navigation route that had an overgrown marker. This caused the navigation error that grounded the submarine in a minefield. The submarine had been laying on the bottom draining its batteries as it spied on Swedish torpedo trials that had been delayed. This is why the submarine had empty batteries and it went into the archipelago to recharge because it would not show up on radar among the islands. A whiskey sub cant reverse on diesel engines only batteries that is why they ran the diesels all night.
@@kevinvilmont6061 It's great to hear from a Swede what actually happened off the coast of Sweden. We get glossed over condensed versions of the stories of events outside of our own localities, if we get any news at all. It makes perfect sense that diesel engine powered screw shafts on a submarine would not be run through a gear box. The DC drive motor(s) can easily be reversed, by simply reversing the polarity of the DC supply. And if they had drained their battery banks, they'd have those prime mover diesels roaring away to get a fast charge on those batteries. Odd they didn't have some way to run their DC motors off the generators through the rectifiers, but equipment space is at quite a premium on any submarine.
Great you cover this history and maybe some have commented, but anyhow here I go: 1) The Swedish prime minister was in Norway when journalists confronted him asking for a comment about the incident. Mr Torbjörn Fälldin, the prime minister, who hadn't yet been briefed just answered "The boooat?????" 2) Just outside the town Kungälv, north of Gothenburg, in the river is a rock looking much like a submarine tower. Once, painted on this rock was U137. 3) Shortly after the incident, a set of various alcohol was sold in taxfree shops onboard ferries, all referring to the cold war. One of these drinks was the U137 - WHISKY ON THE ROCKS. (There was also a brandy named 12 Years Behind The Bar)
Fascinating, having sailed around this area when in Merchant Navy it was clear that the Soviet Union was playing games with Sweden. Whiskey on the Rocks is a great title. Thanks again for your entertaining and educational channel
I grew up not far from Karlskrona and also lived here when this happened (and still do) so I clearly remember these exciting days. But we had a lot of incidents with submarines in our waters and harbors at this time, however whiskey on the rocks was the only one that came up above the surface, all the others managed to escape. But it is correctly reported in the video regardless of what other home made theories say. 🇸🇪🥃
My Ph.D. advisor was the Lt. in change of the nearest coastal battery when this went down. Make no mistake, Sweden was 60 seconds from sending the Russians to the bottom had they crossed the line on the map.
When I saw the title I thought you were doing an episode on the S.S. Politician running aground in 1941 in the Scottish Hebrides. The old movie Whisky Galore is based on it. The cargo included a load of whisky. Several islanders "saved" the whisky...not much of it was ever seen again.
Before I was on it in the 1980s, my Navy cruiser USS Leahy ran aground in a Japanese channel in the 1970s. It's nickname after that was Leahy on the Rocks.
So rare to see ones hometown pop up on a popular RUclips channel. I grew up in Karlskrona. This is one of those stories that gets retold and retold in the town. It's probably the most exciting thing that happened there in the past 100 years. Everyone has their variant of it, and everyone wants to make it look like a way more decisive incidence for determining the outcome of the cold war than it really was. Supposedly the crew was heavily intoxicated, why they got stuck.A faulty compass was also blamed but this compass was later tested and found to be functional. Some say that was one of the official excuses but that the submarine was actually highjacked/crew bribed so that its tech and crew could be studied/debriefed. The latter theory is probably one that has evolved over many many drunk nights in good company, wanting to make Karlskrona look more important through some involvement with the usa and its intelligence services. It might be true, but coming from Karlskrona and wanting this beautiful little town to be more significant than it is, I have to be aware of confirmation bias. It's very plausible the Russian crew had too much vodka.
I really want to visit the island where it all went down. I know people that worked on F17 Kalinge at the time of the “incident” and the stories they tell sound insane
@@darraghmckenna9127 we're visiting in summer. You can rent small houses pretty cheap, they go around 40 bucks a night with kitchen, bathroom, wifi etc. I highly recommend. The people there are really kind and it doesn't get more swedish than that. Brändaholm which is a part of Karlskrona is often featured, it's full of red wooden houses and when people think of Sweden they usually have that place in mind visually from it being featured in media so often.
Including you. Folks, this is why you don't make videos about small places in Europe. Everyone tho lives there pops up in the comments and tells you you did it wrong. Sometimes they meet each other in the comments. It's pathetic. SWEDEN YES
There is another possibly related Cold War mystery: the Luleå Tracks. In June 1983 some tracked vehicle drove up from the water onto a breach adjacent the an air base at Luleå. It left behind its tracks which what was discovered. It's thought that it was some kind of tracked submersible, possibly Russians doing beach reconnaissance.
1987? '86? USS Roanoke (AOR-5, I think. I was on USS Kansas City AOR-3) Was first into Pearl Harbor following a 3-fleet exercise to load up stores for West-Pac. She ran aground. The harbor was closed with three full fleets outside doing laps while everyone waited for the ship to clear. Meanwhile, the Kansas City was the only supply ship. By the time we made it to the Hotel pier (fueling station), we were transferring water to the rear of the ship to keep the screw in the water. Mostly. Wed then took on all their stores and did the first few months of their WestPac until they were repaired and relieved us. I don't remember if it was Japan or the Philippines where we handed off and returned home. As far as I know, there was no loss of life, nor any injuries beyond those incurred by sharing liberty boats...a foolish idea from the outset.
In another incident Swedish military did detect another submarine, submerged. When "challenged" it surfaced - it was Westgerman. It was a few years later. Btw. a compass is not quite enough for navigating when you cannot see a thing. Sending a surfaced (!) submarine into such waters on a darkened spy mission seems foolish. If that was the case or they just failed to navigate I do not know. Fools do exist.
Fun with something from Sweden. I work at the marine base in Karlskorna ones a year as a small arms instructor. First thing I do every time when I get there is to drive down the docks to check out the submarines. We used to have much better anti submarine capabilties then these days. Back in the 80s we had a known phenomena with TIR trucks. Eastern states license plate trucks always happening to be close to military training exercises.
The sub captain wrote a book about the experience. A very interesting read, as the crew wanted to leave, but could not without help from the Swedes. The Swedes didn't want to let the submarine leave without interrogating/interviewing the crew. So the had effectively reached an impasse. Eventually some level of trust was found and members of the subcrew left the submarine so the Swedes could interview them.
I live just 50 km from Karlskrona and I did my military service att the airbase mentioned. I've seen a text saying that all russian submarine commanders has to sail his boat into "hot" swedish water and back again as an exercise. But getting to that place at night by chance is just ridiculus. Tip: Do something about the Psilander-affair.
I toured a Russian Udaloy class destroyer in 1992 while stationed in Bahrain with Commander US Naval Central Command (COMUSNAVCENT) embarked on USS LaSalle AGF 3.
From what I'vr read on it, as the Doviets upped thr pressure with ships, looking as if they'd 'go in and fetch the sub', Fälldin's (PM) response to what to do if that happened was "håll gränsen!" (hold the border.) Also a previously never activated radar/missile battery was turned on, to foster thought...
Brings back the old days. As a submariner one of the things we learned in visual ID of Soviet Ships was for the Whiskey the back of the sail had steps that when viewed diagonally looked like a W. So one of hints we had in ship IDs. Loved it! Remember those days!
Reminds me of the song by Ray Stevens, “Surfin’ USSR” : “We were out in the Pacific where it's nice and deep When our sonar operator went and fell asleep Then a terrible crash awakened every hand And we woke up stuck here in the California sand”
I was stationed at the US Navy SOSUS station at Keflavik when this occurred. As I recall we mostly thought that the whole thing was pretty funny and for the most part it was mainly posturing by both sides.
I'm a little baffled by that Soviet account about said outcome of exploding the submarine. Nuclear weapons only explode under VERY mathematically specific circumstances. You really can't detonate a warhead in a way that initiates fission otherwise. It's more likely, based on my understanding mind you, that it would cause significant radiological contamination in the waters around Karlskrona.
He was implying that the crew would detonate the weapon in order to destroy the boat rather than allow its capture. But exactly how safe nuclear weapons are is a matter of debate. I have certainly heard many on this channel discount the possibility of an accidental detonation even where the weapon designers are quoted saying that accidental detonation is possible. This was a nuclear torpedo already in the tube. I would not overestimate its safety in 1981.
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel you yourself have reported the broken arrow incidents where something like 8/9 failsafes were found to have failed, leaving only one failsafe to keep a detonation from occurring. It could happen. Especially with soviet tech
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel I think the difference is between "accidently triggering the detonator" and "sympathetic detonation". If all you do is blow something up next to a nuclear warhead, all you're going to get is a bunch of radiation. But if you're doing something that interacts with the detonator, like, say, dropping a bomb, then the only thing keeping the detonator idle is the safeties.
When I first saw this, I thought it was going to be about the Whiskey War (aka the Liquor Wars) between Canada and Denmark, over possession of Hans island - a bloodless war that was finally resolved in 2022, as an example to Russia about how to conduct a land dispute peacefully.
Life imitating art. "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming" was a Norman Jewison comedy about a Russian sub run aground off of Gloucester Island. Alan Arkin, as and a handful of sailors row ashore to find a big power boat large enough to tow them free, sparking panic among the residents, wild rumours and hilarious situations.
As I watched this episode of THG, I tried to recall the incident and what I saw of it on the CBS Nightly News (my parents personal favorite). Thank you, History Guy, for clarifying some misremembered information. Once again, a stellar and brilliant piece of history that deserves…well, y’all know the rest.
This is off topic, but does anyone know the name of the theme song (and the group) that Lance plays at the end of this video (and many of his other videos)? It's such a nice piece of music.
Dear THG, thank you for enlightening us about this "almost comical" Sub don't he rocks incident form the Cold war. it seems funny now, but it was no joke in 1981.
Stunning! Active duty at Norton A.F.B. Oct '81. I have no recollection of this event happening. I must've been young, dumb and 21. Oh, wait I was.... I do enjoy some of the events you unearth The History Guy! KUDOS!
I remember this one, I was not 21 at the time, I was 26 years old and starting my fourth year flying canceled checks in a Cessna 310Q. An airplane I really loved to fly.
There were pictures in the press at the time of local Swedes rowing out to a sub stuck on the rocks with hot coffee and cinamon rolls. I don´t know if it was Whiskey or some other , as there were a couple of others that managed to duck out before they became much of an incident (or so it is said) but the optics were hilarious!
A little side track on one of the many results derived from this story: Following the incident, the Swedish navy started dumping sonar buys all over the shop and chasing every sound they didn't recognize at once, even depth charging schools of fish. Some years later, a group of scientists got access to the recordings made by all the sonar activity, and landed an IG-Nobel prize in 2004 for the discovery that fish do in deed fart, quite a lot actually, and a school of herrings can be very loud doing so.
As I recall at the time, this incident was one of a series that made Swedes begin to question the value of neutrality in the Baltic region. That came to a head last year, when Sweden joined the world (with a few notable exceptions) in condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Completely fascinating Sir. When I first saw the title of today’s THG episode I thought we were all going to hear a fascinating story about a famous (but largely forgotten) prohibition era Rumrunner out somewhere on the Atlantic coast in a fast boat- and how he and his cargo of then illegal hooch ended up on a sandbar or rocks after being chased by Federal Revenue Agents and/or the USCG. Only to hear a fascinating story of how the Soviets got caught red-handed spying on Sweden. Thank you again for such an interesting story. If I had one question Sir, it would be whether anything is known of what happened to the Soviet sub’s crew when they finally made it back home? Especially the captain. Off to the Gulag?
This was nothing new; the Soviets had already been snooping in Swedish waters for decades. My father, who is Swedish, has long memories from his army days. He remembers well, sitting on the banks of his country's home islands and observing those very same subs through binoculars. That's how close they were. Of course, this is just one example of the several centuries of conflict between Sweden and Russia. The Swedes have an old saying: "Never, ever trust the Russians". Long experience with their bellicose imperial neighbor has taught them that.
The pre-quel to this story was in the early 1960s. A Hollywood film, with Alan Aarkin; The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming. "Everyone to get from Street" Narragansett Bay
The sheer ATTITUDE the Soviets would display over obvious intelligence ops was frikkin amazing, We can see where Putin learned his audacity from,....and it's doubly risky behavior as crazy as the world is, today!
When I saw the title of this video, I thought at first HG was going to cover the story of the SS Politician and the real history behind the inspiration of the old film Whisky Galore!
Sweden should have told the Soviet Union that they would sink any unidentified vessels in their waters from that point on, so make sure your boats are sure of their locations around Swedish territory. "We wouldn't want to see a loss due to "accident"
Remember that incident quite clearly. Had just been assigned for the last 3 month of my initial military service to a new battalion that was part of NATO's AMF brigade and we were on full alert throughout the whole incident... Didn't have that much excitement until the '89 Russian MiG-23 crash in Belgium....
I remember this incident clearly although I was only a kid at the time The fear that my parents had of possible escalation was clearly understood by me even at that young age The cold war was a frightening time and the way things are going now I this geopolitical landscape is a stark reminder that it only takes a whiskey on the rocks to escalate in to full blown war 😮😮 Let's hope that our politicians are willing to go the long way round so as to end up whit peace and not war Just saying 🇳🇴
Would have been funny if they have just left it there. “No, we aren’t going to punish you. No we aren’t going to storm the vessel to get your men out. If they want to stay, so be it.” Obviously the men would have run out of supplies and the USSR would have had to make further concessions to get their men and boat back. But also obviously the Swedish weren’t thrilled with having another country’s nukes off their shore. But maybe I also find it funny when offenders are caught doing something they shouldn’t and the party catching them just says “lm just not going to do anything, just keep doing what your are doing, since you must have wanted to be doing that to be doing it in the first place” and lets the offending party begin to drown in their own prior actions.
It was a cowardly submission to an enemy that had been provoking with such intrusions for years. A golden opportunity to hand them a defeat, and a strongly worded letter was the only consequence. SWEDEN YES
I know how the U.S.A. would have handled it.... I read the book, "Hunt for Red October", so I know of what I speak! ha,ha 6061 has the right idea. What would be the downside if they just waited them out?
Have you done the 1980 Titan Missile explosion in which a socket fell off of a guy's wrench (that weighed 8 pounds) and damaged a rocket in a missile silo and almost triggered a nuclear explosion?
I kept waiting for THG to tell the part where the people of the local village helped save the submarine from destruction after its crew helped save young Johnny Whitaker after he had fallen from the church steeple. 😅
The threat of nuclear detonation to destroy was bunk. Even a fictional Bond villian Soviet general wouldn't be able to execute that order. Swedish govt. should have kept putting pressure on them by waiting them out. The crew was mutinous (story came out later, but still predictable). The Swedes were very kind to make their demands so reasonable. Hope they got some secret concessions.
The nuclear package on a recon mission just emphasizes how incompetent the Soviet military was. What is more dangerous? A stupid enemy, or an evil enemy? At least with Hitler, you could predict his pathology.
During this time there were hundreds of incidents in this area with Soviet and US subs. They were tapping phone lines and doing covert stuff and everyone just denied it all 😂. I just watched a documentary on all this stuff
patrols such as what that sub was operating close to or inside Swedish waters would have been completely unnecessary if it was a "boomer" sub, only a specialized attack or reconnecence sub would have needed to venture that close to foreign sovern waters which makes the whole "nuke" question puzzling.
Whisky is also Canadian and whiskey is American (United States.) I was told at a tasting that if the country name started with a vowel it was whiskey and if it started with a consonant it was spelled whisky. India seems to violate that rule because in India it is called whiskey but the mane India is used by others. India calls itself Bharat.
![[#2024MAMA] ROSÉ (로제), Bruno Mars - APT. | Mnet 241122 방송](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dgGqD28J6aQ/mqdefault.jpg)
There is almost an element of humor in this story. The sub captain claiming that island popped up out of nowhere. Kind of like a poor driver saying that car came out of nowhere when I ran that red light. Another fine report. Thank you.
Nah. It was a tree. (just like John von Neumann's car wreck.)
From the original Battlestar Galactica. A Cylon pilot crashed. When asked for an explanation it said "I was flying in a straight line. The planet came up us."
The submarine grounded because it followed a Swedish navy military navigation route that had an overgrown marker. This caused the navigation error that grounded the submarine in a minefield.
The submarine had been laying on the bottom draining its batteries as it spied on Swedish torpedo trials that had been delayed.
This is why the submarine had empty batteries and it went into the archipelago to recharge because it would not show up on radar among the islands.
A whiskey sub cant reverse on diesel engines only batteries that is why they ran the diesels all night.
Good stuff!
@@kevinvilmont6061 It's great to hear from a Swede what actually happened off the coast of Sweden. We get glossed over condensed versions of the stories of events outside of our own localities, if we get any news at all. It makes perfect sense that diesel engine powered screw shafts on a submarine would not be run through a gear box. The DC drive motor(s) can easily be reversed, by simply reversing the polarity of the DC supply. And if they had drained their battery banks, they'd have those prime mover diesels roaring away to get a fast charge on those batteries. Odd they didn't have some way to run their DC motors off the generators through the rectifiers, but equipment space is at quite a premium on any submarine.
Thank you! Something sounded off about the whole thing, you’ve cleared it up.
Great you cover this history and maybe some have commented, but anyhow here I go:
1) The Swedish prime minister was in Norway when journalists confronted him asking for a comment about the incident. Mr Torbjörn Fälldin, the prime minister, who hadn't yet been briefed just answered "The boooat?????"
2) Just outside the town Kungälv, north of Gothenburg, in the river is a rock looking much like a submarine tower. Once, painted on this rock was U137.
3) Shortly after the incident, a set of various alcohol was sold in taxfree shops onboard ferries, all referring to the cold war. One of these drinks was the U137 - WHISKY ON THE ROCKS. (There was also a brandy named 12 Years Behind The Bar)
It wasn't the PM it was the Defence Minister Torsten Gustavsson.
Fascinating, having sailed around this area when in Merchant Navy it was clear that the Soviet Union was playing games with Sweden. Whiskey on the Rocks is a great title. Thanks again for your entertaining and educational channel
This installment is now one of my favorites. I've never heard of this incident.
Never heard of this either
I grew up not far from Karlskrona and also lived here when this happened (and still do) so I clearly remember these exciting days. But we had a lot of incidents with submarines in our waters and harbors at this time, however whiskey on the rocks was the only one that came up above the surface, all the others managed to escape. But it is correctly reported in the video regardless of what other home made theories say. 🇸🇪🥃
My Ph.D. advisor was the Lt. in change of the nearest coastal battery when this went down. Make no mistake, Sweden was 60 seconds from sending the Russians to the bottom had they crossed the line on the map.
No you weren't. You surrender monkeys are so cute when you try to act tough.A strongly worded lettter, lol. SWEDEN YES
When I saw the title I thought you were doing an episode on the S.S. Politician running aground in 1941 in the Scottish Hebrides.
The old movie Whisky Galore is based on it.
The cargo included a load of whisky.
Several islanders "saved" the whisky...not much of it was ever seen again.
Me too,
Great movie!
A ship named the Politician ran aground? (Insert joke here).
So did I. Hello Kilearn?
Me too !
Before I was on it in the 1980s, my Navy cruiser USS Leahy ran aground in a Japanese channel in the 1970s. It's nickname after that was Leahy on the Rocks.
So rare to see ones hometown pop up on a popular RUclips channel.
I grew up in Karlskrona. This is one of those stories that gets retold and retold in the town. It's probably the most exciting thing that happened there in the past 100 years. Everyone has their variant of it, and everyone wants to make it look like a way more decisive incidence for determining the outcome of the cold war than it really was.
Supposedly the crew was heavily intoxicated, why they got stuck.A faulty compass was also blamed but this compass was later tested and found to be functional.
Some say that was one of the official excuses but that the submarine was actually highjacked/crew bribed so that its tech and crew could be studied/debriefed. The latter theory is probably one that has evolved over many many drunk nights in good company, wanting to make Karlskrona look more important through some involvement with the usa and its intelligence services.
It might be true, but coming from Karlskrona and wanting this beautiful little town to be more significant than it is, I have to be aware of confirmation bias. It's very plausible the Russian crew had too much vodka.
I really want to visit the island where it all went down.
I know people that worked on F17 Kalinge at the time of the “incident” and the stories they tell sound insane
@@darraghmckenna9127 we're visiting in summer. You can rent small houses pretty cheap, they go around 40 bucks a night with kitchen, bathroom, wifi etc.
I highly recommend. The people there are really kind and it doesn't get more swedish than that. Brändaholm which is a part of Karlskrona is often featured, it's full of red wooden houses and when people think of Sweden they usually have that place in mind visually from it being featured in media so often.
Including you. Folks, this is why you don't make videos about small places in Europe. Everyone tho lives there pops up in the comments and tells you you did it wrong. Sometimes they meet each other in the comments. It's pathetic. SWEDEN YES
thx for the insider story🤗
Thanks for sharing your story
Thank you for covering this !
How remarkable. I turned sweet 16 on Oct 28 1981. Blithely unaware of these world events being more interested in high school life in the Caribbean.
What a great story..
We love you Lance.
Thank you!
You sir are a treasure and a wonderful presenter of history I missed. Thanks for sharing.
There is another possibly related Cold War mystery: the Luleå Tracks. In June 1983 some tracked vehicle drove up from the water onto a breach adjacent the an air base at Luleå. It left behind its tracks which what was discovered. It's thought that it was some kind of tracked submersible, possibly Russians doing beach reconnaissance.
1987? '86? USS Roanoke (AOR-5, I think. I was on USS Kansas City AOR-3) Was first into Pearl Harbor following a 3-fleet exercise to load up stores for West-Pac. She ran aground. The harbor was closed with three full fleets outside doing laps while everyone waited for the ship to clear. Meanwhile, the Kansas City was the only supply ship. By the time we made it to the Hotel pier (fueling station), we were transferring water to the rear of the ship to keep the screw in the water. Mostly. Wed then took on all their stores and did the first few months of their WestPac until they were repaired and relieved us. I don't remember if it was Japan or the Philippines where we handed off and returned home.
As far as I know, there was no loss of life, nor any injuries beyond those incurred by sharing liberty boats...a foolish idea from the outset.
In another incident Swedish military did detect another submarine, submerged. When "challenged" it surfaced - it was Westgerman. It was a few years later.
Btw. a compass is not quite enough for navigating when you cannot see a thing. Sending a surfaced (!) submarine into such waters on a darkened spy mission seems foolish. If that was the case or they just failed to navigate I do not know. Fools do exist.
Fun with something from Sweden. I work at the marine base in Karlskorna ones a year as a small arms instructor. First thing I do every time when I get there is to drive down the docks to check out the submarines.
We used to have much better anti submarine capabilties then these days. Back in the 80s we had a known phenomena with TIR trucks. Eastern states license plate trucks always happening to be close to military training exercises.
I appreciate you and thank you for making content.
Please know that The History Guy team appreciates our viewers! You are the ones who allow us to continue doing what we love.
Love when THG drops a new video definitely one of my favourite RUclips creators along with Mark Felton! Keep up your awesome content!
As they used to say in "Get Smart," "I find that very hard to believe." "Would you believe...?"
What are you trying to say, this factual event was made up? Cope harder.
The sub captain wrote a book about the experience. A very interesting read, as the crew wanted to leave, but could not without help from the Swedes. The Swedes didn't want to let the submarine leave without interrogating/interviewing the crew. So the had effectively reached an impasse. Eventually some level of trust was found and members of the subcrew left the submarine so the Swedes could interview them.
I live just 50 km from Karlskrona and I did my military service att the airbase mentioned.
I've seen a text saying that all russian submarine commanders has to sail his boat into "hot" swedish water and back again as an exercise. But getting to that place at night by chance is just ridiculus.
Tip: Do something about the Psilander-affair.
Karlshamn?
I toured a Russian Udaloy class destroyer in 1992 while stationed in Bahrain with Commander US Naval Central Command (COMUSNAVCENT) embarked on USS LaSalle AGF 3.
From what I'vr read on it, as the Doviets upped thr pressure with ships, looking as if they'd 'go in and fetch the sub', Fälldin's (PM) response to what to do if that happened was "håll gränsen!" (hold the border.)
Also a previously never activated radar/missile battery was turned on, to foster thought...
Brings back the old days. As a submariner one of the things we learned in visual ID of Soviet Ships was for the Whiskey the back of the sail had steps that when viewed diagonally looked like a W. So one of hints we had in ship IDs. Loved it! Remember those days!
Reminds me of the song by Ray Stevens, “Surfin’ USSR” :
“We were out in the Pacific where it's nice and deep
When our sonar operator went and fell asleep
Then a terrible crash awakened every hand
And we woke up stuck here in the California sand”
Always learning something new. Time to start catching up on some topics...
I was stationed at the US Navy SOSUS station at Keflavik when this occurred. As I recall we mostly thought that the whole thing was pretty funny and for the most part it was mainly posturing by both sides.
I'm a little baffled by that Soviet account about said outcome of exploding the submarine. Nuclear weapons only explode under VERY mathematically specific circumstances. You really can't detonate a warhead in a way that initiates fission otherwise. It's more likely, based on my understanding mind you, that it would cause significant radiological contamination in the waters around Karlskrona.
Unless they intentionally detonated the weapons.
@@tommost1 Exactly.
He was implying that the crew would detonate the weapon in order to destroy the boat rather than allow its capture.
But exactly how safe nuclear weapons are is a matter of debate. I have certainly heard many on this channel discount the possibility of an accidental detonation even where the weapon designers are quoted saying that accidental detonation is possible. This was a nuclear torpedo already in the tube. I would not overestimate its safety in 1981.
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel you yourself have reported the broken arrow incidents where something like 8/9 failsafes were found to have failed, leaving only one failsafe to keep a detonation from occurring.
It could happen. Especially with soviet tech
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel I think the difference is between "accidently triggering the detonator" and "sympathetic detonation". If all you do is blow something up next to a nuclear warhead, all you're going to get is a bunch of radiation. But if you're doing something that interacts with the detonator, like, say, dropping a bomb, then the only thing keeping the detonator idle is the safeties.
Thank you History guy and team.
Seems like some of our current “leaders” took some lessons of how to stretch the truth from this incident.
Learn something new every day.
Thank you for the lesson.
When I first saw this, I thought it was going to be about the Whiskey War (aka the Liquor Wars) between Canada and Denmark, over possession of Hans island - a bloodless war that was finally resolved in 2022, as an example to Russia about how to conduct a land dispute peacefully.
Liars lie, and do it with no remorse....even when caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Absolutely shameful !!!
Life imitating art. "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming" was a Norman Jewison comedy about a Russian sub run aground off of Gloucester Island. Alan Arkin, as and a handful of sailors row ashore to find a big power boat large enough to tow them free, sparking panic among the residents, wild rumours and hilarious situations.
Another great episode of a "little noted nor long remembered" event that deserves to be remembered.
As I watched this episode of THG, I tried to recall the incident and what I saw of it on the CBS Nightly News (my parents personal favorite). Thank you, History Guy, for clarifying some misremembered information. Once again, a stellar and brilliant piece of history that deserves…well, y’all know the rest.
I thought we'd already done this one - then again always good to go over events for those who're new to it :D
Håll gränsen
Fascinating.
This is off topic, but does anyone know the name of the theme song (and the group) that Lance plays at the end of this video (and many of his other videos)? It's such a nice piece of music.
I wonder what happened to the captain of this Soviet submarine?
Thanks again Thomas. great show
Last time a swedish primeminister showed some balls. His order was short and succinct to the Commander in Chief : "Hold the border"
They sure don't do that today! SWEDEN YES
Dear THG, thank you for enlightening us about this "almost comical" Sub don't he rocks incident form the Cold war. it seems funny now, but it was no joke in 1981.
Stunning! Active duty at Norton A.F.B. Oct '81. I have no recollection of this event happening. I must've been young, dumb and 21. Oh, wait I was....
I do enjoy some of the events you unearth The History Guy! KUDOS!
I remember this one, I was not 21 at the time, I was 26 years old and starting my fourth year flying canceled checks in a Cessna 310Q. An airplane I really loved to fly.
Excellent summation. Right on target. A+
There were pictures in the press at the time of local Swedes rowing out to a sub stuck on the rocks with hot coffee and cinamon rolls. I don´t know if it was Whiskey or some other , as there were a couple of others that managed to duck out before they became much of an incident (or so it is said) but the optics were hilarious!
Both countries needed to look tough and save face in an embarrassing situation. Quite the balancing act.
A little side track on one of the many results derived from this story: Following the incident, the Swedish navy started dumping sonar buys all over the shop and chasing every sound they didn't recognize at once, even depth charging schools of fish. Some years later, a group of scientists got access to the recordings made by all the sonar activity, and landed an IG-Nobel prize in 2004 for the discovery that fish do in deed fart, quite a lot actually, and a school of herrings can be very loud doing so.
As I recall at the time, this incident was one of a series that made Swedes begin to question the value of neutrality in the Baltic region. That came to a head last year, when Sweden joined the world (with a few notable exceptions) in condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Completely fascinating Sir. When I first saw the title of today’s THG episode I thought we were all going to hear a fascinating story about a famous (but largely forgotten) prohibition era Rumrunner out somewhere on the Atlantic coast in a fast boat- and how he and his cargo of then illegal hooch ended up on a sandbar or rocks after being chased by Federal Revenue Agents and/or the USCG. Only to hear a fascinating story of how the Soviets got caught red-handed spying on Sweden. Thank you again for such an interesting story.
If I had one question Sir, it would be whether anything is known of what happened to the Soviet sub’s crew when they finally made it back home? Especially the captain. Off to the Gulag?
I don’t know- the Russians are not very public about such things
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel : Thank you for answering Sir. It was a great presentation.
Somehow I missed your channel. Keep up the good work!
Love your work. Thank you THG
This was nothing new; the Soviets had already been snooping in Swedish waters for decades. My father, who is Swedish, has long memories from his army days. He remembers well, sitting on the banks of his country's home islands and observing those very same subs through binoculars. That's how close they were. Of course, this is just one example of the several centuries of conflict between Sweden and Russia. The Swedes have an old saying: "Never, ever trust the Russians". Long experience with their bellicose imperial neighbor has taught them that.
The pre-quel to this story was in the early 1960s. A Hollywood film, with Alan Aarkin; The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming. "Everyone to get from Street" Narragansett Bay
The only "accident" was that they got caught.
The sheer ATTITUDE the Soviets would display over obvious intelligence ops was frikkin amazing, We can see where Putin learned his audacity from,....and it's doubly risky behavior as crazy as the world is, today!
When I saw the title of this video, I thought at first HG was going to cover the story of the SS Politician and the real history behind the inspiration of the old film Whisky Galore!
Thanks for post. Training exercise? I believe incident this showed the need for additional training.
Sweden should have told the Soviet Union that they would sink any unidentified vessels in their waters from that point on, so make sure your boats are sure of their locations around Swedish territory. "We wouldn't want to see a loss due to "accident"
Good night
I guess that Soviet submarine really wanted their whiskey on the rocks! 🥃🚢
Remember that incident quite clearly. Had just been assigned for the last 3 month of my initial military service to a new battalion that was part of NATO's AMF brigade and we were on full alert throughout the whole incident...
Didn't have that much excitement until the '89 Russian MiG-23 crash in Belgium....
Good morning history fans. Welcome to Hump Day class.
🐪!
🥃🥃🥃
They should have sold the sub to the Americans. As is, where is. Buyer beware. Lol
Great presentation, THG.
As always.
Thanks Lance and family.
*Reminds me of a couple of episodes of Star Trek where they used this excuse*
I remember this incident clearly although I was only a kid at the time
The fear that my parents had of possible escalation was clearly understood by me even at that young age
The cold war was a frightening time and the way things are going now I this geopolitical landscape is a stark reminder that it only takes a whiskey on the rocks to escalate in to full blown war 😮😮
Let's hope that our politicians are willing to go the long way round so as to end up whit peace and not war
Just saying 🇳🇴
Very interesting!
The best channel on RUclips!!!
Very good.
Defending neutrality is critical to it's claim. A neutral nation must be adamant in protecting its borders.
Back in the Saddle Again Naturally
I remember this
I remember when all this happened. It was all over the news. Made the Russian Navy look like incompetent landlubbers.
very interesting!
Releasing the sub was both, wise and pragmatic.
Would have been funny if they have just left it there. “No, we aren’t going to punish you. No we aren’t going to storm the vessel to get your men out. If they want to stay, so be it.”
Obviously the men would have run out of supplies and the USSR would have had to make further concessions to get their men and boat back. But also obviously the Swedish weren’t thrilled with having another country’s nukes off their shore.
But maybe I also find it funny when offenders are caught doing something they shouldn’t and the party catching them just says “lm just not going to do anything, just keep doing what your are doing, since you must have wanted to be doing that to be doing it in the first place” and lets the offending party begin to drown in their own prior actions.
It was a cowardly submission to an enemy that had been provoking with such intrusions for years. A golden opportunity to hand them a defeat, and a strongly worded letter was the only consequence. SWEDEN YES
I know how the U.S.A. would have handled it.... I read the book, "Hunt for Red October", so I know of what I speak! ha,ha 6061 has the right idea. What would be the downside if they just waited them out?
Love your videos
Bon succès dans vos nouveaux projets.
Have you done the 1980 Titan Missile explosion in which a socket fell off of a guy's wrench (that weighed 8 pounds) and damaged a rocket in a missile silo and almost triggered a nuclear explosion?
ruclips.net/video/jDcog2ZP684/видео.htmlsi=6xOj6jThViL0Ovf5
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel thank you!
The Cold War had many scary moments.
Sweden played it cool, if they had tried to enter the sub they could have had a Hiroshima type event at Sweden largest Naval base.
There is a serious good book about the episode i just boughtcalled u137 i know it exist in Danish and Swedish
The Soviets only had a guy with a machine gun in the tower after the submarine had been discovered and was watched by Swedish military units.
Brush Tall Favorite Of Tailors.. serves as a toe nail Since Footholds, Halted Then On The Situations..
I kept waiting for THG to tell the part where the people of the local village helped save the submarine from destruction after its crew helped save young Johnny Whitaker after he had fallen from the church steeple. 😅
The threat of nuclear detonation to destroy was bunk. Even a fictional Bond villian Soviet general wouldn't be able to execute that order. Swedish govt. should have kept putting pressure on them by waiting them out. The crew was mutinous (story came out later, but still predictable). The Swedes were very kind to make their demands so reasonable. Hope they got some secret concessions.
According to one news report at the time the subs captain was court marshaled and jailed for this incident.
The Russians Are Coming - 1966
Good Wednesday morning class. Be seated, class is beginning. Turn on brains and tune in your ears for today's lesson
The nuclear package on a recon mission just emphasizes how incompetent the Soviet military was. What is more dangerous? A stupid enemy, or an evil enemy? At least with Hitler, you could predict his pathology.
History Guys got the coolest intro music! Where did he find it?
Hmph! They should've used one of the ships as a hat. Just go between the props. I saw it done. You just disappear!
During this time there were hundreds of incidents in this area with Soviet and US subs. They were tapping phone lines and doing covert stuff and everyone just denied it all 😂. I just watched a documentary on all this stuff
If I was a data broker, I’d run my own company like Incogni. It’s like a money treadmill. Guess the hard part is getting all the data tho
patrols such as what that sub was operating close to or inside Swedish waters would have been completely unnecessary if it was a "boomer" sub, only a specialized attack or reconnecence sub would have needed to venture that close to foreign sovern waters which makes the whole "nuke" question puzzling.
It was an attack submarine carrying nuclear torpedoes, not ballistic missiles.
Whiskey with an "E" is Irish, without is Scot's, Whisky.
I guess that NATO prefers Irish whiskey. first10em.com/quick-reference/nato-phonetic-alphabet/?amp
Whisky is also Canadian and whiskey is American (United States.) I was told at a tasting that if the country name started with a vowel it was whiskey and if it started with a consonant it was spelled whisky. India seems to violate that rule because in India it is called whiskey but the mane India is used by others. India calls itself Bharat.
Whiskey with ice is an abomination. Lucky it wasn’t winter.
16th, 17April 2024
Sounds like they could have set up a hot food line and got the crew out.