Soviet submarine K-129 (Golf II)
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К-129 was a project 629А (NATO reporting name Golf-II) diesel submarine of the Soviet Pacific Fleet.
On 8 March 1968, К-129 was lost at sea under mysterious circumstances. Three main theories have been advanced to explain her disappearance: flooding from the induction system while charging batteries on the snorkel, a hydrogen explosion in the batteries while charging, or collision with USS Swordfish (SSN-579).
That latter theory is the official opinion of the Soviet Navy, and is officially denied by the United States Navy. Swordfish did put into Okinawa shortly after the disappearance of К-129, and receive emergency, highly secret repairs for damage reported to be caused by ice in the Sea of Japan.
In 1969 the wreck of К-129 was discovered by USNS Mizar (T-AK-272) in 5500 meters of water about 750 miles from Oahu. The wreck was then surveyed in detail by USS Halibut (SSGN-587) and Trieste II. The CIA decided to salvage the wreck and analyze the nuclear weapons onboard. Hughes Glomar Explorer was built solely for that purpose, and Operation Jennifer began.
Glomar Explorer was able to lift the wreck of К-129, but as it was raised the missiles fell out, and the hull broke into three parts, the bow and stern falling back to the ocean floor. Thus, the missiles, the torpedo room, and the engine room were lost. What, exactly, was recovered is highly classified, but the Soviets assumed that the United States recovered torpedoes with nuclear warheads, operations manuals, and code notebooks and machines.
The United States announced that in the section they raised were the bodies of six men. They were buried at sea with full military honors about 90 miles southwest of Hawaii. The videotape of that ceremony was given to the Soviet Union.
Retired United States Navy Captain Peter Huchthausen, former naval attaché in Moscow, had a brief conversation in 1987 with Soviet admirals concerning К-129. Huchthausen states that Admiral Peter Navojtsev told him, "Captain, you are very young and inexperienced, but you will learn that there were some matters that both nations have agreed to not discuss, and one of these is the reasons we lost K-129." In 1995, when Huchthausen began work on a book about the Soviet underwater fleet, he interviewed Admiral Victor Dygalo, who stated that the true history of К-129 has not been revealed because of the informal agreement between the two countries' senior naval commands. The purpose of that secrecy, he alleged, is to stop any further research into the losses of USS Scorpion (SSN-589) and К-129. Huchthausen states that Dygalo told him to "overlook this matter, and hope that the time will come when the truth will be told to the families of the victims."