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The KAL 007 related Soviet/ U.S naval confrontation (view source)
Revision as of 21:20, March 16, 2010
, 21:20, March 16, 2010no edit summary
*'''26 October''' Soviet combatants criss-crossed in front of the USS Tower and the Conserver.
*'''26 October''' Soviet combatants criss-crossed in front of the USS Tower and the Conserver.
From the USS Sterett’s Commanding Officer, Capt. George Sullivan, sharing his recollection of the “Sunday Afternoon Incident".
“First, we have to remember that these were the days before GPS. We were restricted to operating outside the 12 mile limit and usually tried to keep a mile or two buffer. At that distance, navigation fixes were not very accurate particularly for the purpose "scanning" the bottom to find the black boxes. You will remember the fleet tug Narragansett and the CG Cutter Munro had side scanning sonar which they lowered by cable from their fantails. (One also had a TV camera that would be lowered when something looked promising on sonar.) The search and salvage ship Conserver, also on station, had a 'pinger locator'. ('Black boxes' contain a pinger that last 30 days.) As they were sweeping the area, an accurate plot needed to be kept of what area they had covered."
“We hired three Japanese tugs and put them in a three point moor outside the 12 mile limit. Using triangulation off the three tugs, the scanning ships had an accurate fix of where they were. The Soviets didn't like this, hence the trawlers were sent out to cut these moorings. They were successful at least twice that I can remember."
“There was one Sunday afternoon when we were sitting by one of the tugs and five trawlers came down on us in a "Form 1" trying to take out the mooring of the tug next to us. As the trawlers came in on us, we were continuously sounding 5 short blasts on the whistle. As I recall, and looking at the pictures, the first two trawlers, with gear streaming, passed ahead of us. The third came in very close but passed ahead. At this point, the tug master decided to slip his mooring and haul out of there. The fourth trawler headed directly at us, and turned just before he would have hit us, but he got the mooring anyway. I ordered full astern at the last minute and just as I did he turned. I kept it on for less than 30 seconds - it had little if any effect. The pictures I have of this are quite definitive,"
“We tried to pick up the floating buoy and lines from cut mooring so we would have some evidence of what they did but it drifted so fast we couldn't get to it before it got inside the 12 mile limit."