Russian Navy

Under three flags. The Saga of the submarine Cruiser K-43/Chakra

The book is dedicated to Soviet, Russian and Indian submariners and all those who helped the legendary submarine cruiser K-43/Chakra to sing its swan song.

Second Edition, with corrections and additions

The Author is grateful to his friend Vice Admiral (Retd) RN Ganesh (Indian Navy) for carrying out the incredibly difficult work of translating the book into English.

This Book is published with the cooperation of Designer General, ÎÀÎ "SPMBM MALAKHIT" Yuri Ivanovich Farafontov

The author thanks Vice Admiral (Retired) Arun Kumar Singh, Indian Navy, Admirals A.S. Berzin, VC Visotsky, V.P. Valuev, R.A. Golosov, II Nalyotov and KS Sidenko of the Russian Navy, and also all the readers of the ? rst edition who responded so warmly to the book, and impelled me to augment my reminiscences and re-publish them.

Some of the photographs were given to me by my friends B. Blednov, V. Kuzin, V. Masyagin, Yu. Semenyuk, I Sherbinin, for which I thank them sincerely.

Preface

Nearly five hundred years ago the Russian merchant adventurer Afanassy Nikitin, the first European even before Vasco da Gama to have visited India, described all that he had seen in his memoirs titled A Voyage across Three Seas. To reach India Afanassy sailed down the great Russian river Volga, across the Caspian Sea, Persia and the Arabian Sea, and after a few years, returned by the Black Sea. We went to India by a completely different route and crossed many more seas. The first (Russian) edition was titled A Voyage across Three Seas – the Swan Song of the Nuclear Submarine Cruiser K-43, as the submarine's role in the training of Indian submariners and her subsequent passage to India was the final shining chapter in the history not only of the submarine, but of that entire class (Project 670, or in NATO parlance, the Charlie class). And for any Russian reader, the title of the book is identified completely with India.

The Soviet Union's lease to India of a nuclear submarine, an event without parallel in any other country, has long become public knowledge through the mass media. I therefore expose no secrets, especially since this relates to matters that occurred many years ago in another country. The history of K-43, the lead boat of the class, is all the more remarkable as she spent many years in all the oceans, and ultimately served longer than other submarines of the class, under the flags of the USSR, India, and Russia. I am proud to have had the opportunity to not just to serve on this legendary submarine, but also to have commanded her in this period of her service, perhaps one of the most glittering in the peacetime annals of submarines.

After finishing the glorious story of this ship, I rather fancied myself as a writer, and unable to hold back, like the Chukcha(1). in the popular anecdote, wrote a bit about India and the Indian Navy to augment the preceding chapter. I considered at that time and am still convinced that though we have given naval training to the Indians for many years, there are many things that we can learn from them.

I would particularly like to emphasise the important role of the Indian Commanding Officers during the lease as it was on their shoulders that the responsibility for the submarine squarely lay. The three of them: RN Ganesh, SC Anand and RK Sharma along with their crews, operated the nuclear submarine independently and safely for the three years of the lease, and demonstrated the capability of the Indian Navy even then, twenty years ago, to handle the most complex technology.

It is possible that some of my observations about India's history and the Indian Navy will sound naive to Indians and other English-speaking readers, but the book is addressed mainly to the Russian-speaking readership, for the majority of whom this is a little-known theme.

The concluding chapter about the training of submarine commanders in the United Kingdom is perhaps a little out of the overall context and is meant for specialists, but I thought it essential to include this aspect. I understand that we will never again have such training schools, but nonetheless I secretly nurse the hope that we shall be able to benefit from some of the experience of others as long as we have submarines. This experience, too, was written in blood; only it was the blood of British submariners, which does not differ in colour from ours.

The vocabulary I have employed in my narrative may have sometimes been unconventional and I hope the reader will forgive me for any transgressions; while I do need the help of a dictionary to harness the mighty Russian language; my command of sailor's language is perfect! As we all know, one speaks as one thinks, and I have attempted to discuss a serious subject in everyday language, eschewing propaganda, military language and officialese. When I read a book or see a film about submariners where they proclaim the courageous and hazardous nature of their profession with much breast-beating I find it laughable and pathetic at the same time. All this is fine for impressing the girls and to make them gasp with admiration and wonder, but one cannot flog this cliche endlessly - after all, we volunteered for this manly profession. And if it comes to courage and risk, surely the most demanding occupations today are those of the driver or pedestrian, who are fighting a real war with the traffic on the city roads. There is the old story about a British sailor from a seafaring family who is asked if he isn't afraid to go to sea as his father, grandfather and great-grandfather had all lost their lives there. To which the sailor retorts: And what about you - aren't you afraid to go to bed every night, knowing that your fore-fathers all ended their lives there?

Barely a year after the publication of the first edition of the book in Russian I was forced to take up my pen again under the pressure of circumstances and the persuasion of my friends, though prior to this I had written nothing longer than reasons in writing at the behest of my superiors for some perceived infringement! What amazed me personally was that the book was popular not only with Navy men, but with people far removed from the military profession. Deferring to the numerous demands and requests from readers, I added accounts of our daily lives in India and corrected the mistakes and inaccuracies in the first edition.

January 2008 marked the twentieth anniversary of the hoisting of the Indian flag on the submarine and the commencement of the lease. She was given the marvellous name Chakra – celebrated in legends and epic poems as the fearsome weapon of the Hindu god Krishna. Later we learnt that this name would be passed on as a legacy to the next Indian submarine. History marches on and perhaps soon we shall witness a Chakra – the bright symbol of friendship and trust between Russia and India – once again roaming the vast expanses of the Indian Ocean.

When I embarked on my journey into the past, I found that some episodes of service at sea were not as easy to put down on paper as they might have first appeared, especially when one writes not for oneself, but for a wide readership. As they say in the Navy – you need to think here – it isn't a simple task like commanding a ship! I had never thought of following the example of the many retired officers who take to writing; I had never kept a diary, and to this day I have not fully understood what exactly I have created and what to call it: memoirs (I don't like the thought of that – it is a bit early!), a novel about the southern seas (which I like, but I don't have the audacity!) or a log book, comprehensible to a narrow readership circle? Let the reader decide for himself. As for me, I have nothing to fear – nobody's going to follow my footsteps.

1 A hardy and brave people, the Chukcha, who live in the far North of the Eurasian land mass are not, however, renowned for their intellectual attainments. The reference is to a story about the Chukcha who decided to write a book and announced his intention of doing so. He was questioned about his ability by skeptics, who pointed out that he had never read any great authors like Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky or Sholokhov. His reply was 'I said I want to be a writer, not a reader'.

Comments

Dear Reader! (Admiral I.I. Nalyotov)
Dear Reader! (Vice Admiral Arun Kumar Singh)
Translator's Note

The Saga of the Submarine Cruiser K-43/Chakra

The Beginning
A Dubious Favour
In the Bay of Ulysses
Peter the Great Bay
Preparation for the Lease
In India - the Fabled and Enigmatic Land
          The Fair City of Visakhapatnam
          Clever Polly
          Legendary Characteristics of Indian Cuisine
          Baptism by Fire
          Our Changing Zodiac
          Sri Lanka
          Poopkin Comes out on the Porch
          Singapore
Of Bad Habits
Back in Kamchatka after Fifteen Years

India and her Navy

A Bit of History
The Organisation of the Navy
Service aboard Ships
Officers Service Conditions
Pluses and Minuses of Service in the Indian Navy
Religion and Ethnicity in the Navy

The Perisher

Epilog

Contacts

Captain Alexander Terenov (Retired), Tel: +79165329409, E-mail: terenov_a@mail.ru

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