During the Cold War, the H-class nuclear submarine was the first Soviet ballistic missile submarine capable of long-distance navigation. The K-19 was the first boat of this class, and it was famous all over the world for its frequent accidents, including a nuclear reactor accident. Destroy the world.
On October 17, 1958, K-19 officially began construction at the Severodvinsk Shipyard. In April 1959, the construction of the K-19 submarine was completed and waiting to be launched. Usually during the launching ceremony, a woman "smashed a champagne bottle" at the nuclear submarine, which was changed to a Soviet male general due to secrecy. However, the submarine’s noise-absorbing rubber made the champagne bottle bounce off intact. This is also seen by people. It was a "bad omen" for all subsequent submarine accidents.
On April 30, 1961, the nuclear submarine K-19 officially entered service.
July 4, 1961, under the command of Zatyev, K-19 sneaked into the North Atlantic Ocean near South Greenland to prepare for launch training. After the submarine surfaced, the main and auxiliary circulation pumps were stuck, the temperature of the reactor rose rapidly, and the radio system failed to ask for help.
The temperature of the nuclear reactor quickly exceeded 900 degrees Celsius, which was almost the melting point of the reaction rods. The high temperature also aggravated the reaction in the reactor. A nuclear explosion seemed unavoidable. What's more, the submarine was carrying 3 Nuclear missiles and a large amount of missile fuel. In the event of an explosion, the United States will inevitably use this as an excuse to launch a nuclear counterattack, and a world war is about to start.
The captain immediately formed a 7-person team, without wearing any protective equipment, entered the reactor cabin for emergency repairs, cut off the air adjustment valve, re-welded the cooling water supply pipe, and installed it With the backup cooling system, the nuclear reactor was gradually controlled, and a disaster was avoided.
Subsequently, the crew of the K-19 boat was transferred to the S-270 boat in the nearby waters and towed back to the port by the boat. Some of the seven crew members who entered the reactor compartment died on the spot, and the rest died within a week. The nuclear leak that wandered through the entire submarine caused many crew members to be nuclearly contaminated. Almost everyone in the first crew, including the captain, was contaminated, and within a few years of the incident. At least 20 crew members died from diseases caused by nuclear contamination.
In 1965, the K-19 boat was repaired and returned to the Northern Fleet, but at this time he was given the nickname "Hiroshima", also known as the "Widowmaker".
At 7:13 on November 15, 1969, the K-19 collided with the American attack submarine "Little Shark" that was parked to monitor the waters at a depth of about 60 meters in the Barents Sea Strait. The bow of the K-19 was damaged, the bow-shaped sonar array was completely destroyed, the outer hatch of the torpedo tube was also detached, and the pressure hull of the Little Shark was knocked out of a large hole and lost balance. It sinks, but fortunately it finally surfaced and returned to Hong Kong.
The US torpedo commander at the time was ready to launch a torpedo to sink it, but the captain stopped him in order to prevent the Soviet Union from triggering a nuclear war in retaliation.
On February 24, 1972, in the waters 120 meters deep, 1300 kilometers away from Newfoundland, Canada, the engine room of the K-19 boat on strategic duty suddenly caught fire. Unfortunately, 28 crew members died in action. After the fire, the boat immediately floated up and accepted the rescue by the nearby NATO surface warship. It quickly evacuated all crew members except for the 12 crew members in the torpedo cabin behind the steamer cabin.
It was not until April 4th that K-19 was towed back to the port of Severomosk. The 12 crew members trapped in the torpedo cabin were rescued after 40 days. This incident is also the accident with the highest number of deaths among non-sunken nuclear submarine accidents in the world.
In 1991, K-19 was decommissioned after 30 years of service, but on June 4, just before decommissioning, another reactor accident occurred on K-19. Fortunately, it was quickly handled without personnel. casualties. The accident also made the Soviet government decide to completely dismantle it.
In 2006, he originally served on the K-19The chef's Romanov became a rich man, bought the nuclear submarine, and moored it in Moscow as a club or museum for retired submarines and sailors during the Soviet era.
On February 1, 2006, the former Soviet leader Gorbachev proposed to nominate the crew of K-19 who had a nuclear accident on July 4, 1961 for the Nobel Peace Prize. Because what they prevented was an event that was ten times more harmful than the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident. The incident remained confidential until 1990, and the sacrificed warriors were only secretly buried in lead coffins, and their families did not even know the location.
