Two real-life events shaped Tom Clancy’s award-winning book: an attempted mutiny on a Soviet frigate, and the mysterious disappearance of one of its most advanced submarines.
Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October holds up as a well-researched and engaging work of fiction about Cold War tensions and political intrigue. Depicting the fictional Red October, a Typhoon-class submarine with a magnetohydrodynamic propulsion system that renders it nearly silent and invisible to sonar, the book plays on plausible Cold War paranoias relating to the prospect of nuclear armageddon.
The crux of the novel is that Captain Marko Ramius, portrayed by Sean Connery in the excellent film adaptation, wants to defect to the United States, but Washington is worried that Ramius instead intends to start a nuclear exchange. It falls to intrepid naval analyst Jack Ryan to sort out the various motives—and ultimately rescue Ramius from the vengeful Soviet agents pursuing him.
Two real-life incidents inspired Clancy to write the film: first, the mutiny on the Storozhevoy, a Soviet frigate, and second, the mysterious sinking of the K-129 submarine.
The Mutiny on the Storozhevoy
The Storozhevoy was a Soviet Krivak-class anti-submarine frigate subjected to a high-profile mutiny in November 1975. Led by Valery Sablin, a 31-year-old political officer aboard the ship, the mutiny stemmed from Sablin’s deep-seeded communist convictions. The commissar regarded the Brezhnev-era corruption of the Soviet regime as a betrayal of Lenin’s ideals.
Accordingly, Sablin and a handful of junior officers and sailors locked up the ship’s captain and took control of the ship. The goal was not to defect, but rather to sail to Leningrad, seize a broadcast station, and call on the Soviet people to rise up against the corrupt regime. Sablin believed the system could be reformed from within and saw himself as a revolutionary patriot, not a traitor.
Unfortunately for Sablin, the plot fell apart quickly. A sailor escaped Sablin’s detention and notified the Soviet authorities. The Soviet reaction was swift and devastating; 13 aircraft and several ships were dispatched to intercept the frigate. Off the coast of Latvia, the frigate was disabled when a Soviet jet executed a strafing run. Sablin was arrested, interrogated, and executed the following year.
The Sinking of the K-129
The sinking of Soviet submarine K-129 in 1968 also inspired Clancy to write The Hunt for Red October. Occurring under mysterious circumstances, the K-129 departed from Petrapabolbsk-Kamchatsky for a routine patrol in the North Pacific, but stopped responding to communications. After failing to raise the K-129, the Soviet Navy initiated a large-scale search operation without success. Meanwhile, the US Navy’s undersea surveillance system (SOSUS) detected an underwater acoustic event northwest of Hawaii on March 8 that it speculated may have been a submarine explosion.
After an extensive search with satellite surveillance, and the deep-sea spy sub the USS Halibut, the Americans were able to find the wreckage of the K-129 on the ocean floor at a depth of 16,000 feet, about 150 miles northwest of Hawaii. The cause of the explosion has never been fully determined. The official Soviet theory is that either a torpedo exploded, a battery malfunctioned, or the structure of the submarine itself imploded.
Five years later, the CIA attempted to secretly raise the K-129 from the depths through “Project Azorian”—which, though it was only partially successful, remains one of the most audacious missions of the Cold War.
About the Author: Harrison Kass
Harrison Kass is a defense and national security writer with over 1,000 total pieces on issues involving global affairs. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken.
Image: Wikimedia Commons.
