The Man Who Saved The World

And he's hardly remembered for it.

The orders to shoot came directly from the high command of the politburo, War Department section, codes 456 B, 762 M, 5600 A, and 384 WW. 

The captain asked for confirmation and surfaced the sub immediately. No ships were around. Then he contacted the destroyer, which was his sidekick escort. He asked Mikael, its captain, whether he had received any messages from Moscow. He confirmed he had. It said: “All units were ready for code red at 2300 hours Greenwich time. Prepare for combat. Get ready to launch your missiles once you receive the order. Confirm codes before action. End of message.”—Moscow).

He contacted his sister sub to verify. “Verification completed. All hands on deck. If attacked, retaliate immediately. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is NAD”. End of transmission. 

His name was Vasily Arkhipov; he was 36 years old and had three kids and a wife in Kazbegi, a town near the border with Georgia.

He rushed to his personal cabin and looked at their pictures with tears running down his face. He grabbed the weathered photo of his little girl, two years old Marina, and couldn't contain himself.

He collapsed on his bunk bed. Salty tears of defeat flooded his eyes, obscuring his vision. But time was cruel and demanding. The clock was his enemy now, and he kept on looking at it, as if he could somehow stop time.

Just for a moment. Maybe he could go back for a flash memento to last spring. His kids’ faces, his wife's giggles and teaser smiles…

The memories started to flow, and he was in two worlds, struggling to remain on the heavenly one but he only had a minute left to compose himself and return to duty. His memories dissolving into the cold and miserable darkness of metallic grey.

The orders were to release all the intercontinental ballistic missiles. They were all previously prepared for a situation like this. The orders were explicit. 

World War III was about to start, and he was the one to do it. No one, no other ship, was releasing the first volley. It was him first. One of the most powerful nuclear subs in the Soviet fleet.

No one said the obvious, no one uttered a word, but they all wanted to believe it was still a drill. That they were testing their readiness and discipline.

But Vasily knew that wasn’t the case. He knew who he was dealing with. He had experience with his commanders. This was the real thing. This was Armageddon. The end.

The end of it all. The family, the country; the world.

He composed himself and rushed upstairs. Ordered everyone to gather at 1100 hours. Ten minutes from now. He needed to speak to all his sailors.

24 hours earlier...

The Soviet B-59 Sub was travelling smoothly in the Caribbean waters on a cool summer night, undetected.

Nothing was amiss, and chatter was normal, but everyone was tense, as they were on a dangerous mission.

Vasily Arkhipov was second in command on this sub, but chief of staff of the entire fleet.

He'd have to use that rank soon enough.

On the second day, they patrolled the waters. They sought vulnerabilities in American defences and looked for spots on the Cuban coast that weren't heavily guarded.

That day, everything went wrong. The Americans have found the submarine, and they are closing in.

On those days, little could go wrong; the smallest mishap could cause a total catastrophe.

And what happened was no small mishap. A Soviet submarine carrying nuclear warheads was spotted and required to surface or else.

The Russians refused the order. Then, all hell broke loose. The closest American destroyer started dropping depth charges.

On a nuclear sub!!!

Of course, the captain of the destroyer had no idea he was "playing" with fire. He did not know they were carrying nukes.

The charges came down, one by one. The situation got worse inside the sub. They were low on battery power, and the air conditioning stopped working. There was no contact with Moscow for days because of radio silence and malfunctioning equipment.

To make matters worse, they were breathing in CO2 because of it.

The movements inside the sub must've been something out of a horror movie, with the events that unfolded. Two of the officers in charge, lacking leadership from the high command, had pre-set orders to shoot when threatened, and they decided that was the right course of action.

They voted to destroy an American aircraft carrier—the biggest prize in the American fleet—with a nuclear torpedo. As they moved away from the depth charges, the three of them gathered to confer and agree to what was going to take place. They'll attack and retaliate. They were sure they were at war.

Except there was a problem.

Persuading Time

Vasily disagreed. The other two lost their minds when they heard such insolence, but they had immense respect for this man, now conflicted.

Still, they listened to his argument against the launch—but they argued Russian style. Ink containers flew and smashed into an unsuspecting wall, fans crashed to the floor, and the yelling reached the other subs nearby—well, almost.

But Vasily kept his cool. He knew what was at stake—the end of the world as they knew it.

So, after the other two spent half an hour of precious energy yelling and screaming and breaking everything in sight, Vasily got to speak his piece.

He’d already studied the situation in his cabin methodically.

He explained to the other two trigger-happy officers that: 1) There was no communication with Moscow. 2) There's no evidence the Americans already started the war, which was what they believed because of the depth charges. 3) Before rushing into an action that will destroy the planet, they should get confirmation from Moscow. 4) It'd be far more prudent to resurface and confer with the enemy before taking such a rushed decision to torpedo a ship that would effectively cause WW3.

What if they were wrong, he asked, staring them right in the eye. One after the other. And he repeated the question for effect. What if? Who is willing to assume responsibility?

If silence could kill, they'd all be dead.

They saw that the man made more sense than they did. They chose to "postpone" the launch of the deadliest torpedo in human history until the Politburo news came.

So, with death staring them in the face, the captain decided to surface for a mini-reunion after contacting the American destroyer.

So, that's what they did.

And just to make sure no one was going to try something funny, some American planes showed up. They started shooting over the sub's tower to intimidate them.

Both sides displayed strength as a deterrent against any foolish actions they might decide to take. The American planes were acting irresponsibly. This was no time for war games of that kind. But they also didn't know what they were playing with. They had no idea there were actual nukes on board. This was a super-secret mission.

The meeting was short. But, from the American sailors' faces and the reception from the destroyer’s commander, it was clear that war had not began.

Instant relief was seen on the Russians’ pale and worried faces. WWIII hadn't started. The whole thing was a major misunderstanding. The Americans dropped the charges because the sub wouldn't identify themselves. They had orders not to, and their comm was working badly, to say the least.

Once on the surface, they managed to contact another sub nearby, which confirmed that hostilities had NOT begun.

Of course, the Russians wanted to hug everybody—the American captain, sailors, and cooks. Some even tried to kiss the American ship until their comrades stopped them.

They had to maintain decor and never show weakness, so they didn't. But they were ecstatic inside. Everybody got a new lease on life and they could barely believe it.

There were no hugs, but through sign language, both sides showed how pleased they were and wished each other the best as they waved goodbye.

The instructions that followed were to return to a Soviet port immediately.

The Cuban crisis was over without a single casualty, or shots fired (except for the salvos).

Vasily Arkhipov was promoted to admiral, and recognised for leadership and bravery in a time of chaos.

But in the USA, he’s not mentioned in the history books, although he’s the reason we’re all still alive from a freak event that happened 62 years ago.

~0~

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