1984 Soviet sub collides with USS CV Kitty Hawk off Japan

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Fast&Deep RE:1984 Soviet sub collides with USS CV Kitty Hawk off Japan 10/20/2005 3:37:01 AM

Fair caused a bit of a flap over this side of the pond as well. I can remember Maggie coming in specialy to see what was going on. It took a while but eventualy all the "surgers" were localised and prosecuted (I think), memory is a bit hazy now! Ha - the fun that could be had when the Cold War was at its height. Who needs drugs when you've got armaggedon around the corner. The noise would have upset the neighbours but the firework display would have been fantastic

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nefarious 8/5/2009 9:28:17 PM

Hello!

Sorry to bump an old post (nearly three years old) but I was searching the internet for this incident and came across this post in the first page of the google search results. My dad was also a member of VS-38 onboard the Kitty Hawk during this incident and we were discussing this just a few weeks ago.

My fathers story sounds exactly like Trouble1027 describes it, I would not be surprised to learn they working the same shift and probaly knew each other.

From the severity of the collision I would not be surprised to learn that the crew of the sub suffered some casualties.The sub rolled completley over from reports.

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stallion kitty hawk hits sub 12/4/2009 4:45:02 PM

The battle group was playing war games with korea called; "team Spirit" I was on board the uss chandler ddg 996. soviets were all over the place and the kitty hawk and the Chandler were doing some deceptive lighting cause everyone was tracking subs. we even had a sonar tech say one was under the carrier. so we were out their for days and the sub was under the kitty hawk the entire time (so we were told) and doing some more deceptive lighting the kitty hawk made a real quick turn (for an air craft carrier) and the sub did not turn and was caught by the carried. I heard that the carrier had a hole in the front(a jp 5 tank) and jp 5 was lighter than water so not much leaked out. I was also told that a piece of the prop from the sub was stuck in the hole and they had it mounted in the ward room at some point. The sub had to be towed back to vladivostok??? and we followed them to the 12 miles out line. We saw the city lights of vladivostok but not much more than that.

By the time we arrived at Subic Bay Phillipines they already had t shirts printed out it had the kitty hawk hitting a victor sub in the middle and said no matter how you slice it it comes up victory.

S Petrill

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smokemaster Sorry - I got here as soon as I could :-) 3/4/2012 1:45:31 PM

Yes, I have the answer for your "details" question. The Battle Group was actively involved in joint exercises off the Korean coast with South Korean units and Us Navy Units. All of the activity was being monitored by the Soviet sub and several Soviet surface units, due to the proximity to their areas of interest (basically anything going on in the Sea of Japan gets watched). The carrier received "exercise" orders to covertly transit the straits between Japan and Korea, and be prepared to launch an air strike of Cheju Do by 0700. The admiral had a deception plan drawn up but added that he wanted the carrier to give the REAL Soviets the slip, as well as the exercise opposition forces. The plan was drawn up and implemented. The carrier, and one escort on rescue ops behind her, conducted flight ops to the northeast, while the rest of the group proceeded south doing an exercise unrep. As the carrier finished flight ops, she shut down normal running lights and went to a reduced lighting posture. She and the escort turned south to rejoin the rest of the battle group. As she proceeded south she was using specific tactics to spoof the relatively poor Soviet acoustic analysis capability. Apparently they worked. Unfortunately, for the Soviet sub, she surfaced about 150 yards in front of the carrier to figure out what was going on. The sub was not showing ANY navigation or running lights (aka was at "darken ship"). This sub had been detected numerous times, over the previous 3 days with something on the order of 15 or 16 "practise" kills accomplished against her. There were no ASW aircraft in the air at the time of the incident, and the carrier has/had no integral ASW capability, so she didn't know that the sub was THAT close or in that location. Bad luck for the sub!! The sub was suffered significant damage to the anechoic coating near the stern, her diving planes were disabled, and one of her propellers damaged. (There's another whole story that goes with that :-) To my best knowledge the sub was repaired and put back into service.

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