It's been a while since we went over the cuban missile crisis but I think this is a critical point that is often overlooked.
During the height of the missile crisis, the Soviet Union had deployed a detachment of 4 submarines equipped with nuclear tipped torpedoes and other weapons to guard the supply ships and in case of a US attack. But on October 27, 1962 one of the submarines, Soviet Submarine B-59 was detected on radar by a US group of destroyers and a carrier which sent the destroyers to identify what it was. They began to drop practice depth charges towards the submarine which would do little damage in hope that it would force the submarine to surface for identification. They tried to send communications to both the submarine and Moscow but neither of which ever received the message.
While they were dropping practice depth charges, the Soviets inside B-59 thought they were real. After all, it's hard to tell the difference when your practically in a metal capsule with no line of sight. As the depth charges exploded near them, rocking the sub, they started to believe that war had started with the US. They had not received any transmissions for 6 days from Moscow because they were submerged and began to load their nuclear torpedo to fire at the destroyer that was dropping it's depth charges. Following protocol, when launching a nuclear torpedo, they did not need approval from Moscow, only the captain and the political officer have to authorize the launch. For the B-59, both of which did so. If this had been any other sub in the detachment, the torpedo would've been released and nuclear war would've started. But luckily for us, this particular sub had the commander of the detachment on board. For a launch to commence, he had to authorize it. While the captain and the political officer were fully convinced that a full scale war had started, Vasili Arkhipov, the detachment commander considered the consequences if they were wrong. He refused to authorize the launch and eventually convinced the captain to let the sub resurface, which it did amidst the pursuing destroyers. Then after a short while, returned to the Soviet Union.
That's how close we got to nuclear war. Not even the US knew just how close we were to nuclear war as this incident was only released in full in 2002. But one man reasoned and saved the world. Even after these events, the sailors came home in disgrace, they were supposed to be operating secretly and had failed. Arkhipov was never given recognition for his actions until much later on in his life.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/oct/27/vasili-arkhipov-soviet-submarine-captain-who-averted-nuclear-war-awarded-future-of-life-prize
This post is really interesting! The secrecy between both sides, the US and the Soviets, regarding their plans during the cuban missile crisis goes to illustrate the height of tensions during this time. I also wonder why the United States let the sub return to the Soviet Union just like that, although perhaps the full details are not described in this post. I think it is unlucky that Soviet communications were not able to go through, so without a doubt the commander made the correct decision.
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