Mutiny: The True Events That Inspired The Hunt For Red October (6 page)

It was mid-August in Pushkin, pleasant, not too hot, the fall colors already beginning to show, when Gindin showed up for his interview in the school’s Administration Building. It was a big conference room with three large windows through which the sun streamed. Immediately to the left was a long table, behind which sat the three officers.

“You did well on your exams, Comrade Gindin,” Admiral Nikolaev complimented Boris. The admiral is an old man, in his mid-sixties, with a longtime active navy career behind him. The students think of him as a father, because he is stern but warm and friendly. If you have a problem, the admiral will listen.

The other officers on the interviewing commission weren’t so nice; in fact, the colonel who was Admiral Nikolaev’s assistant for military training had never served in the active navy and was a mean, condescending man. Everyone in the school knew that if you happened to meet him on the street, you’d better cross over to the other side before he noticed you, because he was sure to find some fault and send you to your
rota
captain for disciplinary action.

The main thing the admiral and his two officers want from Gindin is the promise that he is ready to dedicate his life to serving his country. That means dedicated to
giving
his life for the Rodina, Mother Russia. Shedding his blood for the Soviet Union if need be.

Gindin is young, just seventeen, the navy is the glamour service: prestige, an impeccable reputation. Its officers are considered to be a part of the Russian elite that got its start with Peter the Great, who established the navy and, therefore, Russia as a world power.

This moment is the very beginning of Gindin’s life.

“Da,” he enthusiastically responds. Yes, he will dedicate his life to the Rodina; he will shed his blood for the Motherland if called upon to do so. As a gas turbine engineer, taking care of the power plants aboard the newest, most modern ships anywhere on earth.

But he had not counted on one fatal flaw. Despite his Russian passport, the admiral and his officers know that Gindin is a Jew. It was his first, though not last, experience that being a Jew in the Soviet Union meant fewer choices. Here at the academy it meant that sometimes you had to step out of someone else’s way so that his career could advance.

“We have no room for you in Gas Turbines, Comrade Gindin,” the colonel says, with a smirk. “You will be joining the diesel facility.”

Gindin nods dumbly. No other choice is open for him, not really. The diesel curriculum is easier, but it has less prestige and less opportunitiy than gas turbines. And since the gas turbine major is tougher, only the guys who did the best on the exams get chosen. This knocks the wind out of Gindin’s sails, because he knows he did very well. But he keeps his mouth shut because no one here is interested in his side of the story. He figures that he should consider himself lucky that he was accepted at all. Lucky and grateful.

“Da,” he will faithfully serve and defend the Motherland as a diesel engineer.

But two weeks later someone has pulled some strings, probably Gindin’s brother-in-law, and without any explanation he is suddenly transferred to Gas Turbines. He never questions the change in orders, but for the first few days he floats a few centimeters above the ground.

The period between the end of WWII and the early nineties, when the Soviet Union finally collapsed, was called the Cold War because the USSR and the United States were not shooting at each other. But both sides were constantly on alert for the hot war to begin. That meant Soviet missile forces were drilled 24/7 to launch their ICBMs against targets in the West. It meant that Soviet pilots stood by their interceptors and nuclear bombers. It meant that the vast Soviet armies were poised to pour across the border into West Germany. And it meant that the navy was almost always training for the big day.

The idea of Mutual Assured Destruction, MAD, that in the event of a global thermonuclear war no one could survive, was all that prevented a third world war. The Soviets, like the Americans, depended on what was called the triad: nuclear weapons delivered by long-range bombers, nuclear weapons delivered via silo- or train-launched ICBMs, and nuclear weapons launched by submarines.

It was to this last leg of the triangle that the navy and its Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) vessels, such as Gindin’s ship, the FFG
Storozhevoy,
were so important. A submarine could sneak to within spitting distance of the Russian coast and launch its missiles so that no warning would be possible. By the time the military defense forces knew that an attack had begun there would be absolutely nothing to be done. Innocent people would die. The Rodina would be wounded. Possibly mortally.

Sailors aboard ASW platforms, as they are called, were filled with a holy zeal. If submarine-launched missile attacks could not be defended against, then the submarines themselves would have to be detected and destroyed
before
they could launch.

Boris Gindin was especially filled with the Rodina. He had never been a devout Jew, but now out of the academy and in the fleet he’d fully replaced his Jewish religion with the religion of the state. He was on a holy mission, as were many Soviet officers. He wanted to do well so that he would be noticed. He wanted to have a life for himself. To get married, to have children, to have a nice apartment, maybe even a summer house, that most Russian of retreats, the dacha.

As a Soviet navy officer Gindin is allowed to shop in the Albatros or Bereska special stores that are stocked with imported goods.

As a Soviet navy officer he can smoke American cigarettes. Walking down the streets of Leningrad with a package of Marlboros in his pocket makes him feel nine feet tall. It sounds stupid, and maybe even foolish, but in ′75 people had nothing, so some little luxury gave you a sense of self-worth and an enormous satisfaction with the lifestyle you could afford.

Gindin will do anything to defend the Rodina and protect this life. He loves his father but won’t end up in the same boat, earning a lousy 160 rubles per month, when it costs more than 110 rubles a month just to keep food on the table for four people! Which means he’s going to do a good job in the academy, then go out into the fleet, where he will distinguish himself.

In exchange for a five-year education, the Soviet naval officer has one term of enlistment, and it is for twenty-five years. There’s no getting around it. But it’s not a hardship, because navy officers are privileged.

They stand among the high priests of the Communist regime.

In the summer of 1968, after his first year at the academy, Boris leaves from Kronshtadt aboard the T-58-class large patrol craft
Kirov,
a different vessel than the WWII heavy cruiser or the late eighties battle cruiser. But this ship, as old as he is, is good enough to train first-year students.

Except one night, sleeping on a hard cork mattress, Gindin is awakened to the screams of Jurij Kotovshhyk, one of the cadets in his
cubrick.
A gigantic rat is sitting on the boy’s chest, calmly grooming itself.

When the lights come on, dozens of rats scurry away into the dark corners. It’s Gindin’s first taste of the
real
navy with which Moscow expects to defend the Rodina against the soft Americans.

But it won’t be his last on this summer cruise in 1968.

One morning the captain announces over the ship’s intercom that the people of Czechoslovakia are about to start a revolution. They want to overthrow the Russian brand of Socialism. The
Kirov’s
crew is issued with Kalashnikov assault rifles and ammunition. They are to sail from their base at Kronshtadt to Czechoslovakia to put down the revolt.

“I was excited and scared all at the same time,” says Gindin. “I signed on to defend the Rodina with my life if need be. I’d promised the admiral. We’d all made the promise. But not one of us ever believed it would really come to this. Not like this. Not so soon.”

Gindin and the other cadets aboard are just eighteen, and as they steam out into the Baltic to head southwest, maintaining their shipboard routines as well as cleaning their weapons and going over military tactics with their division commanders, no one seems to take note that Czechoslovakia is a country that is completely landlocked.

But it becomes a moot point twenty-four hours later, when the captain announces that the revolt has already been put down by Special Forces (Spetsnaz), Russian Green Berets. Boris is there with Viktor Lugovoj, his best friend from the academy, and Sergei Strogonov who is the commander of their class, none of them certain whether
they should cheer that the revolt has been put down, so they won’t have to fight after all, or be disappointed that they won’t get the chance this time of living up to their oaths to defend the Motherland. But the
Kirov
is ordered back to base. Boris Gindin has taken the first step to becoming an officer in what he fervently believes is the finest navy on the planet.

Gindin is on his second rotation aboard the
Storozhevoy,
regular military duty in the Mediterranean Sea, in Februrary 1975 when the crew gets word that they will cruise south to Cuba, where they will spend one month. This is just eight months before the mutiny, and almost no one aboard has the least premonition that their lives are soon to be ended or altered forever. There isn’t an officer or jack-tar aboard who isn’t over the moon. Cuba, at the time, meant not only sunshine and warmth but also the possibility of visiting ashore for fabulous food and luxuries almost beyond imagination—the girls are said to be beautiful, even if they are out of reach. Whenever the men were allowed off the ship, it was always in a group; even so, visiting ashore was nothing short of wonderful.

The KGB doesn’t maintain a strong presence in Havana. In fact, the only KGB representative the officers and crew will have to contend with on the trip is Captain Lieutenant Sergey Drankov, the dour military intelligence officer assigned to the ship.

Among other things the
Storozhevoy’s
crew means to do in Havana,
besides eat, drink, and sightsee, is provide a little entertainment for their Cuban allies. Gindin figures that it is some gesture of gratitude that the Soviets have a military base there and that the two governments are friends.

One of the plans is for the crews of the
Storozhevoy
and his brother ship the
Silyni,
also en route to Havana, to put on a concert of singing and dancing. Capain Potulniy orders the
Storozhevoy
to come to all stop to wait for the
Silyni
to rendezvous. They are in the middle of the unpredictable Mediterranean Sea, but the captain means to send a contingent of sailors across in a launch so that the two crews can practice. He wants everything to be just right when they get to Cuba. The USSR is like a big brother, there to show its allies how a world-class navy operates.

The transfer of crewmen goes without a hitch, the three-hour practice is a success, and the little entertainment is ready. The only problem is the weather, which has piped up to 30 knots of wind, with mounting seas rising well above four meters. The
Storozhevoy’s
crew must be retrieved, but operating a motor launch in those conditions is difficult. Potulniy orders his ship to come around to the windward side of the
Silyni
to temporarily block the wind and waves for long enough to put the launch over the side, retrieve the crewmen, and make it back across the hundred meters or so of troubled sea.

“The situation went all to hell almost immediately,” Gindin recalls. He is with his men in the engine spaces, taking increasingly desperate orders from the bridge. The two ships are drifting together at an alarming rate, and there simply isn’t enough sea room or enough engine power to stop the
Storozhevoy
from slamming into the side of the
Silyni
with a sickening, ship-wrenching crash. The
Silyni’s
massive anchor breaks loose, some of its enormous chain pays out, and the three tons of metal begin swinging wildly like a wrecking ball bent on destroying everything in its path.

The first damage is a hole three by six meters punched into the
Storozhevoy’s
hull, thankfully above the waterline. Stanchions and
lifelines on deck are the next to go, along with a section of deck plating where the ship’s rockets were loaded aboard.

KGB captain Drankov, sitting at his desk, feels the tremendous crash. He jumps up, throws open the porthole in his cabin, and sticks his head outside, just as the huge anchor swings past, missing him by centimeters. The joke among the crew later is: Too bad he didn’t stick his head out a little farther.

Gindin is at the main board where the monitors and controls for the main engines as well as the fire and drain pumps are located. It is his normal posting. When the first collision occurs he is thrown violently across the compartment, where he smashes into a steel bulkhead.

This is a modern Soviet warship on his first rotation, but Potulniy and his officers know what they’re doing. They’ve trained for emergency situations. No one loses his head.

Gindin is back at the board, and between him and the captain they somehow manage to regain enough control to back away from the
Silyni,
get some sea room, and retrieve their crew, all without any serious injuries or loss of life.

For most of the crew the navy is a necessary evil of life in the Soviet Union. For many of the officers it’s just a rotten job that happens to pay well. But for Potulniy, who loves everything about the service and his position as captain, the accident is totally unacceptable. He has no one to blame except himself, and he knows that although sea duty aboard a Soviet warship, any warship, is by nature extremely hazardous, at times even deadly, Moscow does not reward failure of any kind, for any reason.

The
Storozhevoy
is ten days from Cuba, and Potulniy is in a tough spot. He can’t sail into Havana with a damaged ship. Nor can he call for help. His ship must be repaired. He must be repaired by the crew aboard with the materials at hand, no matter how impossible that might be, and he has to be repaired before they reach Cuba. So Potulniy turns to the one man aboard who shares his nearly holy zeal for the ship and the navy—Gindin.