It was only in 1957 that the T-5 was ready for real shooting. That, however, did not include a launch from a vessel, but only the submerging of the torpedo into the water and subsequent detonation. Only about 14 month later, a first testing with a nuclear-armed torpedo model T-5 was conducted. Hectic subsequent developments took place on site. Soviet authorities had in July 1954 decided that Novaya Zemlya, the Arctic archipelago situated between the Barents Sea and Kara Sea, would become test ground for nuclear weapons. The information is widely referred to in an article published in online military news journal VPK. The mission was top secret and none of the crew members, including Captain Lazarev himself, knew about their assignment, ship navigator on board the « S-144» Igor Murzenko recalls.Īll through August and September the submarine crew conducted comprehensive preparations in Novaya Zemlya, in the area of the Balushya Bay and the nearby Chernaya Bay, Murzenko reveals in conversations made with Professor Georgy Kostev. Then, the submarine was ordered to set course for Balushya Bay in Novaya Zemlya. There, a local shipyard had strengthened the vessel’s torpedo compartment. Lazarev and his crew had in May that same year first been ordered to sail from the home base of Polyarny near Murmansk to Severodvinsk. He had served in the Northern Fleet during the 2WW and in 1948 completed the Frunze Naval School in Leningrad.īut he had never been close to executing an order similar to the one he got in early fall 1957. Georgy Lazarev was only 37 years old, but already among the most experienced submariners in the Soviet Navy. It was a deadly arms race going on and the Soviet Union was intensely developing its nuclear weapons program and conducting high-risk testing.
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