From the comments/message….
Comments: Admiral I.I. Nalyotov
Dear Reader! It is a great honour and privilege for me to write these few lines about a legendary nuclear submarine commander and a true sailor. I have consciously avoided hyperbole in this brief foreword and used every word in its true sense. Alexander Ivanovich Terenov and I commanded nuclear submarines of the same class – I a little earlier, and he a little later. We served together in the 11th Division of the Northern Fleet and carried out patrols in the middle of the Arctic, in the Pacific, and the Mediterranean, and now we are both together in the Department for Foreign Cooperation.
The K-43 is a legendary submarine, and the author writes about her exploits with great affection, as befits one who has been her Commander. This submarine had the longest, most difficult and the most hazardous career of all the vessels of her class, and stood testimony to the high degree of reliability of Soviet technology. I remember an occasion when I had dived my submarine to its working depth and was congratulating the younger sailors in the crew when I received a report of flooding in one of the compartments. We dealt competently with that emergency and surfaced the submarine successfully. Alexander Ivanovich had several similar experiences with the Indian crews – the reliability of Soviet technology notwithstanding, machines are machines.
The experience with foreign crews is of great benefit to our submariners, too. I was always struck by their dedicated approach to their training, their hunger for knowledge and their almost naive inquisitiveness. It often happened that their questions, which seemed simple at first glance, often hid deep professional ideas – at any rate, deeper than we had thought! Fate had stern trials in store for Alexander Ivanovich, as well as an amazingly wide circle of acquaintances in the navies of Russia and India. Not every submariner gets the opportunity to serve under the flags of different countries, sail in all the oceans and in practically all seas and then to write about it all. And note how simply he writes, in an amazingly readable style.
A talented person is talented in everything! Nuclear submarine Commanding Officers are handpicked specialists, and Alexander Ivanovich is one such unique professional. In life, too, he is open, without any hidden meaning to what he says. It is a pleasure to read him; it is equally a pleasure to be in his company. And now, he has unexpectedly displayed this talent as a naval author. Read his book, and you will agree with me.
I wish you, dear Alexander Ivanovich, many more creative successes and the best of naval luck!
Admiral I.I. Nalyotov Chief of Staff, Northern Fleet (1992-1996)
Comments: Vice Admiral Arun Kumar Singh
Dear Reader! I first met the then “young and handsome” 32 year old Captain 3rd Rank (Lieutenant Commander) Alexander Ivanovich Terenov, over 25 years ago, in 1983, in Vladivostok, where we had arrived for nuclear submarine training (1983-1986) to operate the Russian Charlie class SSGN, K-43 (later to become INS Chakra under a three year lease 1988-1991). Alexander, liked to be called Sasha, and that’s how I have referred to him ever since. By the time our 30 month training finished, Sasha, had been promoted twice over, and was Captain 1st Rank (equal to Captain of the Indian Navy).
For some of the Indian crew, this was not our first visit to the former USSR, so we were quite aware that the average Soviet Navy submariner was a simple, friendly, hardworking, hard drinking professional, with a remarkable sense of humor. What makes this book particularly readable, apart from the 80 photographs in its 300 pages, is that its written by a former Soviet Navy submarine Captain, who saw the breakdown of the USSR, and the transition of the once mighty Soviet Navy, into a much smaller, Russian Navy, which is still a very potent force. Also, many Soviet Navy personnel came to India, but few wrote about their experiences with the Indian Navy in English. In the case of Sasha, his direct association with us was over 51/2 years (21/2 years in Vladivostok and three years in Visakapatnam).
I saw Sasha in action at sea in a closed nuclear submarine environment for weeks at a stretch, and must place on record, that he was truly very professional – I would hate to be target, if Sasha was carrying out a missile or torpedo attack against me!!
In February 2001, as Eastern Fleet Commander, I was participating with my Fleet, in India’s first ever International Fleet Review (IFR) at Mumbai, where ships from many foreign navies also participated. Their were two destroyers from the Russian Pacific Fleet, who had come from from Vladivostok, under the command of Vice Admiral Alexander Vasilievich Konev (Deputy Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet), who was a submariner. This Russian Admiral was very keen to meet me, so, after getting official permission, I organized a “beer and lunch” at the Submarine Base Complex, where the very emotional Russian Admiral presented me, the Depth gauge of INS Chakra. In true submarine fashion, we also exchanged our submarine badges, I took this Chakra souvenir to Visakapatnam, and installed it (with a suitable brass plaque, recording its history) inside the Indian Navy Submarine Kursura Submarine Museum, located on the beach.
Some years later, in 1999, I visited Moscow, and briefly met Sasha, courtesy the Russian Navy Chief. In 2008, Sasha, now retired, visited India, as part of a delegation, and somehow managed to get me on the phone though I too had retired – He met me and presented me a Russian language copy of his book, which is now translated into English, by Vice Admiral RN Ganesh (Retired). I vividly recall the various incidents mentioned by Sasha, since I was present, but being a thorough gentleman, he has omitted some truly awe inspiring anecdotes of “sauna, vodka and raw spirit”.
This book, is indeed a ‘must read’ for all professional submariners and military personnel. The accompanying excerpts, give a glimpse, of a bygone era, of a fantastic period of interaction between the Indian and Soviet Navies. I wish you all happy reading!
Vice Admiral Arun Kumar Singh (Retired)
Flag Officer Commander-in-Chief Eastern Naval Command (2005-2006)
Translator’s Note
When my good friend Alexander Terenov met me last year and asked whether I would translate the book that he had written about his Indian experience, I readily agreed. He had been the Commanding Officer of the Charlie class nuclear submarine which was transferred on lease by the Soviet Union to India in 1988, and I had the privilege of taking over the submarine from him and commissioning her in the Indian Navy.
This book is the story of that submarine – the K-43 in the Soviet Navy, the Chakra in the IN, which spent a small part of her chequered career flying the Indian flag, and brought the Indian Navy into the exciting era of nuclear propulsion. The story has been told from a very personal point of view, and because of this it becomes an engaging human narrative which never loosens its grip on the reader’s attention.
Alexander Ivanovich had been assigned an enormously difficult task. He had been made responsible for the sea training of the Indian crews during our training period in Vladivostok, and he excelled in this role. The three of us –Sam Daniel (the senior Indian Officer), Subhash Anand and I, the designated Indian COs, were between ten and twelve years older than he, had already commanded submarines, wore four rings on our sleeves and had experience in operational, staff, and training appointments. He, on the other hand, was a Captain 3rd Rank (the equivalent of a Lieutenant Commander in our Navy) and had narrower but much more intense experience in the Navy; the years he had logged at sea matched ours. But he dealt with this difference with rare aplomb, never feeling the need to emphasise the fact that he was in command, and while being friendly and pleasant, always carried with him the dignity and quiet authority of command.
To my mind the most difficult aspect of the task given to Captain Terenov was the training of the three COs. Most of us have at some time in our command tenures had to hand over our ships to harbour or river pilots, and have felt the unease and anxiety of yielding direct control. Alexander Ivanovich had to undergo this stress for a whole year in harbour and at sea during the period of training in the Soviet Union, and he handled this situation with a generosity and confidence that can only come from thorough knowledge and total professional competence. He had the enviable ability to desist from intervention till the exact moment it became unavoidable, and then do it in such a manner that hardly anyone but he and the Indian CO of the moment realised that he done so. I am sure I speak for my erstwhile colleagues when I say that we learnt an enormous amount from this fine Russian submarine captain.
The difficulty of Captain Terenov’s assignment during the training phase was as nothing compared to the role he had to play after the submarine was transferred to the Indian Navy. Whereas in the first instance he had official backing and clearly defined statutory authority, in the later stage his status was far more ambiguous. There is a historic sanctity to the flag being flown by a ship at sea, and there cannot be any question of jurisdiction or authority on board. Obviously the unprecedented lease of a nuclear- propelled vessel automatically meant that certain safeguards had to be in place in this aspect to enable the USSR to comply with its international obligations, which meant that a few (about seven or eight) of their personnel had to be on board all the time, in harbour and at sea. But the fact that the submarine was under the Indian flag meant that the awesome responsibility for the vessel, its personnel and its nuclear plant was clearly that of the CO. All decisions and actions were taken by the CO, his officers and his crew exactly as in any ship of the Indian Navy and there was never any doubts about dilution of authority. Fortunately there was never a dispute between the Soviet and the Indian officers on this score at any time during the three years of the lease. This is amazing considering the delicacy of the situation, and speaks highly of the maturity and tact of both sides.
Captain Terenov’s difficulty, one feels, was at a different level. From being the Commanding Officer of the submarine he had to relinquish that title and assume the new designation of “Leader of the Soviet Specialist Group”. With his wisdom and maturity he shifted effortlessly into his new role, but his narrative still conveys the feeling that he and his group sorely missed the earlier status – there can be no other reason for the conspicuously scarce references in the narrative to the Indian crews.
But it was an enormously difficult adjustment for Alexander Terenov and his specialists to make, and I wonder how many Indian officers in his situation would have handled this situation so well.
Not being an experienced translator, I have had to set certain rules for myself. The first rule was that I had to tell myself that this was the author’s book, not mine. The value of the book lies in the fact that it conveys the impressions and views of the author and of his compatriots, who were unexpectedly sent to a strange, exotic and ancient land, with little or no time to prepare themselves. The reader may sometimes not be in agreement with the views expressed; but this is understandable when talking about a country as vast and varied as India. But the book is written with a refreshing candour and it is interesting to get the “outsider view” on many things that we as Indians take for granted. On the other hand, having been present during some of the events described by the author, I am aware that there are aspects that have not found mention in it – but as he himself says, not everything can be recorded in writing. So I have made no attempt to edit, correct or add to the narrative in any manner except to meet the idiomatic and grammatical needs of translation.
The other important rule for me was that the narrative also had to emulate the author’s style, so that his personality which so strongly permeates the book comes through. This was easier said than done, as Alexander Ivanovich has used a unique story- telling technique, interspersing the main narrative with flashbacks to his own past, vignettes of history, and social and professional comments. His book is a fascinating kaleidoscope of swiftly shifting scenarios in both time and space, with colourful imagery and sudden changes in his narrative style, which is in turns professional and prosaic, romantic and ribald. And throughout he enthusiastically expresses his frank and entertaining views on the navy and submarines in the irreverent and self-deprecating manner that is so characteristic of the man. All this posed an enormous challenge to the translator, especially to a novice such as me. What helped me to finish this onerous but pleasant task were my familiarity with the Russians as a people and my friendship with the author. This book has revealed unsuspected depths of romanticism and idealism in him, and in a strange way I feel that I know Alexander Terenov better than before, now that I have translated what he lightly brushes off as his opus.
The lease of the Chakra was a landmark in international naval cooperation and stands out as a major milestone in our naval development. The successful operation of the submarine by the Indian Navy demonstrated the professional and technical skills of our sailors and officers. It also proved the soundness of the training methods of the Soviet submariners and validated the complex and comprehensive training syllabus that they had designed. At a personal level, I may say that much of the credit for the success of the programme must go to Alexander Ivanovich, whose personal qualities had a great influence on all those who were associated with him. Those who participated in this saga at any level can rightly feel themselves specially privileged to have been part of our naval history.
Vice Admiral RN Ganesh (Retired)
Flag Officer Commander-in-Chief Southern Naval Command (1999-2000)
Austin had posted this book preview in another forum…..
Under three flags. The Saga of the submarine Cruiser K-43/Chakra
The book is dedicated to Soviet, Russian and Indian submariners and all those who helped the legendary submarine cruiser K-43/Chakra to sing its swan song.
Second Edition, with corrections and additions
The Author is grateful to his friend Vice Admiral (Retd) RN Ganesh (Indian Navy) for carrying out the incredibly difficult work of translating the book into English.
This Book is published with the cooperation of Designer General, ÎÀÎ “SPMBM MALAKHIT” Yuri Ivanovich FarafontovThe author thanks Vice Admiral (Retired) Arun Kumar Singh, Indian Navy, Admirals A.S. Berzin, VC Visotsky, V.P. Valuev, R.A. Golosov, II Nalyotov and KS Sidenko of the Russian Navy, and also all the readers of the ? rst edition who responded so warmly to the book, and impelled me to augment my reminiscences and re-publish them.
Some of the photographs were given to me by my friends B. Blednov, V. Kuzin, V. Masyagin, Yu. Semenyuk, I Sherbinin, for which I thank them sincerely.
Preface
Nearly five hundred years ago the Russian merchant adventurer Afanassy Nikitin, the first European even before Vasco da Gama to have visited India, described all that he had seen in his memoirs titled A Voyage across Three Seas. To reach India Afanassy sailed down the great Russian river Volga, across the Caspian Sea, Persia and the Arabian Sea, and after a few years, returned by the Black Sea. We went to India by a completely different route and crossed many more seas. The first (Russian) edition was titled A Voyage across Three Seas – the Swan Song of the Nuclear Submarine Cruiser K-43, as the submarine’s role in the training of Indian submariners and her subsequent passage to India was the final shining chapter in the history not only of the submarine, but of that entire class (Project 670, or in NATO parlance, the Charlie class). And for any Russian reader, the title of the book is identified completely with India.The Soviet Union’s lease to India of a nuclear submarine, an event without parallel in any other country, has long become public knowledge through the mass media. I therefore expose no secrets, especially since this relates to matters that occurred many years ago in another country. The history of K-43, the lead boat of the class, is all the more remarkable as she spent many years in all the oceans, and ultimately served longer than other submarines of the class, under the flags of the USSR, India, and Russia. I am proud to have had the opportunity to not just to serve on this legendary submarine, but also to have commanded her in this period of her service, perhaps one of the most glittering in the peacetime annals of submarines.
After finishing the glorious story of this ship, I rather fancied myself as a writer, and unable to hold back, like the Chukcha(1). in the popular anecdote, wrote a bit about India and the Indian Navy to augment the preceding chapter. I considered at that time and am still convinced that though we have given naval training to the Indians for many years, there are many things that we can learn from them.
I would particularly like to emphasise the important role of the Indian Commanding Officers during the lease as it was on their shoulders that the responsibility for the submarine squarely lay. The three of them: RN Ganesh, SC Anand and RK Sharma along with their crews, operated the nuclear submarine independently and safely for the three years of the lease, and demonstrated the capability of the Indian Navy even then, twenty years ago, to handle the most complex technology.
It is possible that some of my observations about India’s history and the Indian Navy will sound naive to Indians and other English-speaking readers, but the book is addressed mainly to the Russian-speaking readership, for the majority of whom this is a little-known theme.
The concluding chapter about the training of submarine commanders in the United Kingdom is perhaps a little out of the overall context and is meant for specialists, but I thought it essential to include this aspect. I understand that we will never again have such training schools, but nonetheless I secretly nurse the hope that we shall be able to benefit from some of the experience of others as long as we have submarines. This experience, too, was written in blood; only it was the blood of British submariners, which does not differ in colour from ours.
The vocabulary I have employed in my narrative may have sometimes been unconventional and I hope the reader will forgive me for any transgressions; while I do need the help of a dictionary to harness the mighty Russian language; my command of sailor’s language is perfect! As we all know, one speaks as one thinks, and I have attempted to discuss a serious subject in everyday language, eschewing propaganda, military language and officialese. When I read a book or see a film about submariners where they proclaim the courageous and hazardous nature of their profession with much breast-beating I find it laughable and pathetic at the same time. All this is fine for impressing the girls and to make them gasp with admiration and wonder, but one cannot flog this cliche endlessly – after all, we volunteered for this manly profession. And if it comes to courage and risk, surely the most demanding occupations today are those of the driver or pedestrian, who are fighting a real war with the traffic on the city roads. There is the old story about a British sailor from a seafaring family who is asked if he isn’t afraid to go to sea as his father, grandfather and great-grandfather had all lost their lives there. To which the sailor retorts: And what about you – aren’t you afraid to go to bed every night, knowing that your fore-fathers all ended their lives there?
Barely a year after the publication of the first edition of the book in Russian I was forced to take up my pen again under the pressure of circumstances and the persuasion of my friends, though prior to this I had written nothing longer than reasons in writing at the behest of my superiors for some perceived infringement! What amazed me personally was that the book was popular not only with Navy men, but with people far removed from the military profession. Deferring to the numerous demands and requests from readers, I added accounts of our daily lives in India and corrected the mistakes and inaccuracies in the first edition.
January 2008 marked the twentieth anniversary of the hoisting of the Indian flag on the submarine and the commencement of the lease. She was given the marvellous name Chakra – celebrated in legends and epic poems as the fearsome weapon of the Hindu god Krishna. Later we learnt that this name would be passed on as a legacy to the next Indian submarine. History marches on and perhaps soon we shall witness a Chakra – the bright symbol of friendship and trust between Russia and India – once again roaming the vast expanses of the Indian Ocean.
When I embarked on my journey into the past, I found that some episodes of service at sea were not as easy to put down on paper as they might have first appeared, especially when one writes not for oneself, but for a wide readership. As they say in the Navy – you need to think here – it isn’t a simple task like commanding a ship! I had never thought of following the example of the many retired officers who take to writing; I had never kept a diary, and to this day I have not fully understood what exactly I have created and what to call it: memoirs (I don’t like the thought of that – it is a bit early!), a novel about the southern seas (which I like, but I don’t have the audacity!) or a log book, comprehensible to a narrow readership circle? Let the reader decide for himself. As for me, I have nothing to fear – nobody’s going to follow my footsteps.
1 A hardy and brave people, the Chukcha, who live in the far North of the Eurasian land mass are not, however, renowned for their intellectual attainments. The reference is to a story about the Chukcha who decided to write a book and announced his intention of doing so. He was questioned about his ability by skeptics, who pointed out that he had never read any great authors like Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky or Sholokhov. His reply was ‘I said I want to be a writer, not a reader’.
The CG of the rocket flight last time was very good and I hope they release good & full video of the launch this time. Unlike the 2-dimensional visuals & updates of the trajectory that we are used to seeing in India during rocket launches, the North Korean visual representation of flight path of last launch was simulated in 3-dimension and very refreshing. I personally liked it.
Few more photos from msnbc
Rocket check up
Engineers check the base of the Unha-3 (Milky Way 3) rocket sitting on a launch pad at Sohae Satellite Station, in Tongchang-ri on April 8. North Korea has readied a rocket for a launch this week that will showcase the reclusive state’s ability to fire a missile with the capacity to hit the continental United States.
Satellite sighting
Officials show visiting journalists the satellite that they say will be put in orbit using the country’s Unha-3 rocket, on April 8 at Sohae Satellite Station in Tongchang-ri, North Korea. Space officials have moved a long-range rocket into position for the controversial satellite launch, and scheduled the launch for a window between April 12-16, in defiance of international warnings against violating a ban on missile activity.
Blast off!
A visitor poses with a soldier on guard in front of the Unha-3 (Milky Way 3) rocket sitting on a launch pad at the Sohae Satellite Launch Site, during a guided media tour April 8.
A glimpse of the control room
North Korean technicians work in the control room of the Tongchang-ri Space Center on April 8. North Korea’s long-range rocket is on its launch platform being prepared to carry the satellite into orbit. The usually secretive North organized an unprecedented visit for foreign reporters to the facility in an effort to show the launch is part of a peaceful program, not a ballistic missile program as feared by its critics.
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