The Perfect Soldier: Special Operations, Commandos, and the Future of Us Warfare by James F. Dunnigan
More Books by James Dunnigan
|
The Mysterious Swedish Whiskey On The Rocks
by James Dunnigan
April 1, 2011
It was recently revealed that a Swedish ocean survey company, mapping Swedish coastal waters in 2009, had discovered the wreck of a Russian Whiskey class submarine. This was reported to the Swedish Navy, which promptly declared the find the result of a retired sub sinking while being towed by a Russian ship to the wreckers (to be disassembled for scrap) and thus information not worth making public. But word eventually got out from the survey company.
This raised speculation that the sub might have been one of those detected, and attacked (with depth charges) in the 1980s, when Russian subs frequently entered Swedish waters for training (to see if they could get in and out of protected coastal waters on espionage, or wartime missions.) The Swede's were not amused at those intrusions, and protested to Russia. The Russians stonewalled the Swedes, which resulted in several intruders being attacked. The Cold War ended in 1991, and so did nearly all Russian submarine operations. But it was believed that the Russians had lost several subs, mostly older Whiskey class boats, in Swedish waters. Now that the discovery has been made public, some Swedish politicians are calling for a thorough investigation of the wreck, to see if anything useful, or dangerous (some Whiskey class subs were known to carry a few torpedoes with nuclear warheads) is down there. The Swedish government was not interested for a while, probably to avoid straining relations with their still mighty neighbor. But then the navy announced that it will examine the wreck, eventually. But there are several other such wrecks along the coast, some dating back to World War I. If the political uproar continues, the mysterious Whiskey wreck may be investigated sooner, rather than later.
|
|
