There is almost an element of humor in this story. The sub captain claiming that island popped up out of nowhere. Kind of like a poor driver saying that car came out of nowhere when I ran that red light. Another fine report. Thank you.
From the original Battlestar Galactica. A Cylon pilot crashed. When asked for an explanation it said "I was flying in a straight line. The planet came up us."
The submarine grounded because it followed a Swedish navy military navigation route that had an overgrown marker. This caused the navigation error that grounded the submarine in a minefield. The submarine had been laying on the bottom draining its batteries as it spied on Swedish torpedo trials that had been delayed. This is why the submarine had empty batteries and it went into the archipelago to recharge because it would not show up on radar among the islands. A whiskey sub cant reverse on diesel engines only batteries that is why they ran the diesels all night.
@@kevinvilmont6061 It's great to hear from a Swede what actually happened off the coast of Sweden. We get glossed over condensed versions of the stories of events outside of our own localities, if we get any news at all. It makes perfect sense that diesel engine powered screw shafts on a submarine would not be run through a gear box. The DC drive motor(s) can easily be reversed, by simply reversing the polarity of the DC supply. And if they had drained their battery banks, they'd have those prime mover diesels roaring away to get a fast charge on those batteries. Odd they didn't have some way to run their DC motors off the generators through the rectifiers, but equipment space is at quite a premium on any submarine.
@@Satchmoeddie My taxi driver when i was in the navy was actually a "witness" to this. He was a coastal ranger/Jaeger that was handed live ammunition, then driven out to a very small island and told to shoot the spetsnaz if they appeared. First and only time they were ever handed live ammunition like this, and given permission to fire if they felt it was necessary. (Outside of guard duty at base etc)
Fascinating, having sailed around this area when in Merchant Navy it was clear that the Soviet Union was playing games with Sweden. Whiskey on the Rocks is a great title. Thanks again for your entertaining and educational channel
A few notes worth mentioning regarding the situation. 1. if they had blown the torpedoes the city of karlskrona would have gone up with it as the plan from Swedens coastal jaegers was to tow the sub under pretext of security and safety of the harbour of karlskrona, The Submarine would have therefore been in Karlskrona during the operation. 2. whenever the subs officers comunicated with the USSR command Sweden was listening in on their conversations. And everytime they tried to use codes in the communications Sweden jammed it completly ending with the Captain or other officer screaming back almost in tears begging them to stop jamming and he would comply and not use codes. it is quite funny to hear. 3. The Swedish Submarine which they Russians had been spying on was testing Swedens new secret torpedo model Type 42 and that was likely why they had been there in the first place, Now when the USSR fleet started to mass it was the Swedish Submarines turn to hide and alarm them. If i remember correctly HMS Neptun was kitted with some special lighting systems for the torpedo tests and was now instead hiding under the USSR ships and when the moment came they turned of the lights under the water making the soviets suddenly see a burst of light right under them. Needles to say it was quite a sight according to soviet eyewitnesses.
Good Video - some additional tidbits I learnt: 1. When the Soviet Flotilla had gathered and stated to move towards the border, the Swedish coastal artillery was not done with fire preparations (apparently the unit was quickly cobbled together from personal at Karlskrona naval base and not a regular unit) - the fire control radar was not connected to the weapons, but the officer in charger ordered the radar to switch to jumping frequency (a war time setting done just as you are about to unleash hell upon a target). The flotillia stopped and later investigations has given that the Soviet commander ordered the operation to be stopped when his operators reported that the Swedes has switched to jumping frequency since he was convinced that the Swedish coastal artillery was preparing to fire on them. 2. A bit later, when the coastal artillery was ready to fire and in high alert, a contact moved from the flotillia towards the border. This did not make sense since the situation had cooled down a bit and only one ship would be no realistic threat, so a Viggen (probably a AJ73 or a SF37) was sent up to identify the target. The target turned out to be a western-German freighter en-route to Sweden that decided to "take a look" at the Soviet ships not knowing the risk they took. 3. A Swedish some what legendarily Officer in the Paratroopers was called in to go to Karskrona (since he as part of a quick reaction force), he got his gear and left home and his wife called out to him "When are you returning?", his response was reportedly "Second world war lasted 6 years!"
Outside Gothenburg there is a small town called Kungälv. When you drive over the bridge into town there is a kind of square black rock sticking up in the river. Someone have painted U137 on that rock. It must have been there for fourty years now. You can Google for a picture.
My Ph.D. advisor was the Lt. in change of the nearest coastal battery when this went down. Make no mistake, Sweden was 60 seconds from sending the Russians to the bottom had they crossed the line on the map.
Brings back the old days. As a submariner one of the things we learned in visual ID of Soviet Ships was for the Whiskey the back of the sail had steps that when viewed diagonally looked like a W. So one of hints we had in ship IDs. Loved it! Remember those days!
When I saw the title I thought you were doing an episode on the S.S. Politician running aground in 1941 in the Scottish Hebrides. The old movie Whisky Galore is based on it. The cargo included a load of whisky. Several islanders "saved" the whisky...not much of it was ever seen again.
There is another possibly related Cold War mystery: the Luleå Tracks. In June 1983 some tracked vehicle drove up from the water onto a breach adjacent the an air base at Luleå. It left behind its tracks which what was discovered. It's thought that it was some kind of tracked submersible, possibly Russians doing beach reconnaissance.
It was not "coastal infantry and paratroopers", but Coastal Rangers and Para Rangers, the two special operations capable commando units Sweden had at the time. They had orders from the Supreme Commander himself to be fully prepared to board the submarine with lethal force if needed (the Coastal Rangers were intended to board it while the Para Rangers would be in external support, primarily). They also had orders to shoot any Soviet who shot at potential Soviet deserters. The Soviet political officer, in his memoir, has an interesting description of how it felt like when the Coastal Rangers replaced the local conventional unit next to U-137. From the Coastal Rangers' point of view, they simply moved in tactically with good overwatch, and had overwatch with proper tactical considerations over the submarine when they held the position, which the local conventional unit had barely done at all. But from the perspective of the Soviet political officer, he thought of it as some kind of political statement, that Sweden had replaced a border guard unit with an elite unit that was deliberately aiming at them and signalling that the Soviets were targets, and that it was intended to send some kind of message. So what was considered merely tactical considerations from the side of the Coastal Rangers, were interpeted as some kind of symbolic signalling from the Soviets. The event also lead to the creation of a secret unit within the Coastal Rangers which worked together with the British SBS to specialise in boarding submarines (and later on they would be focused more on intelligence gathering), which was one of the first "embryonic" units toward what would become Sweden's first tier-one special mission unit: SSG.
So rare to see ones hometown pop up on a popular TH-cam channel. I grew up in Karlskrona. This is one of those stories that gets retold and retold in the town. It's probably the most exciting thing that happened there in the past 100 years. Everyone has their variant of it, and everyone wants to make it look like a way more decisive incidence for determining the outcome of the cold war than it really was. Supposedly the crew was heavily intoxicated, why they got stuck.A faulty compass was also blamed but this compass was later tested and found to be functional. Some say that was one of the official excuses but that the submarine was actually highjacked/crew bribed so that its tech and crew could be studied/debriefed. The latter theory is probably one that has evolved over many many drunk nights in good company, wanting to make Karlskrona look more important through some involvement with the usa and its intelligence services. It might be true, but coming from Karlskrona and wanting this beautiful little town to be more significant than it is, I have to be aware of confirmation bias. It's very plausible the Russian crew had too much vodka.
I really want to visit the island where it all went down. I know people that worked on F17 Kalinge at the time of the “incident” and the stories they tell sound insane
@@darraghmckenna9127 we're visiting in summer. You can rent small houses pretty cheap, they go around 40 bucks a night with kitchen, bathroom, wifi etc. I highly recommend. The people there are really kind and it doesn't get more swedish than that. Brändaholm which is a part of Karlskrona is often featured, it's full of red wooden houses and when people think of Sweden they usually have that place in mind visually from it being featured in media so often.
Including you. Folks, this is why you don't make videos about small places in Europe. Everyone tho lives there pops up in the comments and tells you you did it wrong. Sometimes they meet each other in the comments. It's pathetic. SWEDEN YES
Before I was on it in the 1980s, my Navy cruiser USS Leahy ran aground in a Japanese channel in the 1970s. It's nickname after that was Leahy on the Rocks.
I grew up not far from Karlskrona and also lived here when this happened (and still do) so I clearly remember these exciting days. But we had a lot of incidents with submarines in our waters and harbors at this time, however whiskey on the rocks was the only one that came up above the surface, all the others managed to escape. But it is correctly reported in the video regardless of what other home made theories say. 🇸🇪🥃
1987? '86? USS Roanoke (AOR-5, I think. I was on USS Kansas City AOR-3) Was first into Pearl Harbor following a 3-fleet exercise to load up stores for West-Pac. She ran aground. The harbor was closed with three full fleets outside doing laps while everyone waited for the ship to clear. Meanwhile, the Kansas City was the only supply ship. By the time we made it to the Hotel pier (fueling station), we were transferring water to the rear of the ship to keep the screw in the water. Mostly. Wed then took on all their stores and did the first few months of their WestPac until they were repaired and relieved us. I don't remember if it was Japan or the Philippines where we handed off and returned home. As far as I know, there was no loss of life, nor any injuries beyond those incurred by sharing liberty boats...a foolish idea from the outset.
In another incident Swedish military did detect another submarine, submerged. When "challenged" it surfaced - it was Westgerman. It was a few years later. Btw. a compass is not quite enough for navigating when you cannot see a thing. Sending a surfaced (!) submarine into such waters on a darkened spy mission seems foolish. If that was the case or they just failed to navigate I do not know. Fools do exist.
Great you cover this history and maybe some have commented, but anyhow here I go: 1) The Swedish prime minister was in Norway when journalists confronted him asking for a comment about the incident. Mr Torbjörn Fälldin, the prime minister, who hadn't yet been briefed just answered "The boooat?????" 2) Just outside the town Kungälv, north of Gothenburg, in the river is a rock looking much like a submarine tower. Once, painted on this rock was U137. 3) Shortly after the incident, a set of various alcohol was sold in taxfree shops onboard ferries, all referring to the cold war. One of these drinks was the U137 - WHISKY ON THE ROCKS. (There was also a brandy named 12 Years Behind The Bar)
Fälldin also dropped one of the coldest lines a Swedish PM has ever dropped. When asked for his orders by the chief of the military, he responded: "Hold the border."
There were pictures in the press at the time of local Swedes rowing out to a sub stuck on the rocks with hot coffee and cinamon rolls. I don´t know if it was Whiskey or some other , as there were a couple of others that managed to duck out before they became much of an incident (or so it is said) but the optics were hilarious!
Fun with something from Sweden. I work at the marine base in Karlskorna ones a year as a small arms instructor. First thing I do every time when I get there is to drive down the docks to check out the submarines. We used to have much better anti submarine capabilties then these days. Back in the 80s we had a known phenomena with TIR trucks. Eastern states license plate trucks always happening to be close to military training exercises.
When the Russian ships appear to be crossing the border, the coastal artillery units were not ready to fire. They bluffed the Russians by switching to frequency jumping, which was not normally allowed to be used because it was still technically secret. In addition, a four group of attack aircraft from 6 Air Wing in Karlsborg took off with orders to prepare to sink the russians. They had only made it to Jönköping (a few minutes flight), when they were recalled. There's a very moving interview with the group Commander.
The sub captain wrote a book about the experience. A very interesting read, as the crew wanted to leave, but could not without help from the Swedes. The Swedes didn't want to let the submarine leave without interrogating/interviewing the crew. So the had effectively reached an impasse. Eventually some level of trust was found and members of the subcrew left the submarine so the Swedes could interview them.
Reminds me of the song by Ray Stevens, “Surfin’ USSR” : “We were out in the Pacific where it's nice and deep When our sonar operator went and fell asleep Then a terrible crash awakened every hand And we woke up stuck here in the California sand”
From what I'vr read on it, as the Doviets upped thr pressure with ships, looking as if they'd 'go in and fetch the sub', Fälldin's (PM) response to what to do if that happened was "håll gränsen!" (hold the border.) Also a previously never activated radar/missile battery was turned on, to foster thought...
I live just 50 km from Karlskrona and I did my military service att the airbase mentioned. I've seen a text saying that all russian submarine commanders has to sail his boat into "hot" swedish water and back again as an exercise. But getting to that place at night by chance is just ridiculus. Tip: Do something about the Psilander-affair.
I'm a little baffled by that Soviet account about said outcome of exploding the submarine. Nuclear weapons only explode under VERY mathematically specific circumstances. You really can't detonate a warhead in a way that initiates fission otherwise. It's more likely, based on my understanding mind you, that it would cause significant radiological contamination in the waters around Karlskrona.
He was implying that the crew would detonate the weapon in order to destroy the boat rather than allow its capture. But exactly how safe nuclear weapons are is a matter of debate. I have certainly heard many on this channel discount the possibility of an accidental detonation even where the weapon designers are quoted saying that accidental detonation is possible. This was a nuclear torpedo already in the tube. I would not overestimate its safety in 1981.
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel you yourself have reported the broken arrow incidents where something like 8/9 failsafes were found to have failed, leaving only one failsafe to keep a detonation from occurring. It could happen. Especially with soviet tech
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel I think the difference is between "accidently triggering the detonator" and "sympathetic detonation". If all you do is blow something up next to a nuclear warhead, all you're going to get is a bunch of radiation. But if you're doing something that interacts with the detonator, like, say, dropping a bomb, then the only thing keeping the detonator idle is the safeties.
As I watched this episode of THG, I tried to recall the incident and what I saw of it on the CBS Nightly News (my parents personal favorite). Thank you, History Guy, for clarifying some misremembered information. Once again, a stellar and brilliant piece of history that deserves…well, y’all know the rest.
Dear THG, thank you for enlightening us about this "almost comical" Sub don't he rocks incident form the Cold war. it seems funny now, but it was no joke in 1981.
I was stationed at the US Navy SOSUS station at Keflavik when this occurred. As I recall we mostly thought that the whole thing was pretty funny and for the most part it was mainly posturing by both sides.
Im norwegian and remember this one. I created a drink after this: whiskey on the rocks, with a dash of vodka. Whats important is that you pour the vodka first. I think you all understand why the vodka comes first…
When I first saw this, I thought it was going to be about the Whiskey War (aka the Liquor Wars) between Canada and Denmark, over possession of Hans island - a bloodless war that was finally resolved in 2022, as an example to Russia about how to conduct a land dispute peacefully.
Stunning! Active duty at Norton A.F.B. Oct '81. I have no recollection of this event happening. I must've been young, dumb and 21. Oh, wait I was.... I do enjoy some of the events you unearth The History Guy! KUDOS!
I remember this one, I was not 21 at the time, I was 26 years old and starting my fourth year flying canceled checks in a Cessna 310Q. An airplane I really loved to fly.
I toured a Russian Udaloy class destroyer in 1992 while stationed in Bahrain with Commander US Naval Central Command (COMUSNAVCENT) embarked on USS LaSalle AGF 3.
The nuclear package on a recon mission just emphasizes how incompetent the Soviet military was. What is more dangerous? A stupid enemy, or an evil enemy? At least with Hitler, you could predict his pathology.
Completely fascinating Sir. When I first saw the title of today’s THG episode I thought we were all going to hear a fascinating story about a famous (but largely forgotten) prohibition era Rumrunner out somewhere on the Atlantic coast in a fast boat- and how he and his cargo of then illegal hooch ended up on a sandbar or rocks after being chased by Federal Revenue Agents and/or the USCG. Only to hear a fascinating story of how the Soviets got caught red-handed spying on Sweden. Thank you again for such an interesting story. If I had one question Sir, it would be whether anything is known of what happened to the Soviet sub’s crew when they finally made it back home? Especially the captain. Off to the Gulag?
A little side track on one of the many results derived from this story: Following the incident, the Swedish navy started dumping sonar buys all over the shop and chasing every sound they didn't recognize at once, even depth charging schools of fish. Some years later, a group of scientists got access to the recordings made by all the sonar activity, and landed an IG-Nobel prize in 2004 for the discovery that fish do in deed fart, quite a lot actually, and a school of herrings can be very loud doing so.
The sheer ATTITUDE the Soviets would display over obvious intelligence ops was frikkin amazing, We can see where Putin learned his audacity from,....and it's doubly risky behavior as crazy as the world is, today!
Life imitating art. "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming" was a Norman Jewison comedy about a Russian sub run aground off of Gloucester Island. Alan Arkin, as and a handful of sailors row ashore to find a big power boat large enough to tow them free, sparking panic among the residents, wild rumours and hilarious situations.
I remember this incident clearly although I was only a kid at the time The fear that my parents had of possible escalation was clearly understood by me even at that young age The cold war was a frightening time and the way things are going now I this geopolitical landscape is a stark reminder that it only takes a whiskey on the rocks to escalate in to full blown war 😮😮 Let's hope that our politicians are willing to go the long way round so as to end up whit peace and not war Just saying 🇳🇴
As I recall at the time, this incident was one of a series that made Swedes begin to question the value of neutrality in the Baltic region. That came to a head last year, when Sweden joined the world (with a few notable exceptions) in condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
This was nothing new; the Soviets had already been snooping in Swedish waters for decades. My father, who is Swedish, has long memories from his army days. He remembers well, sitting on the banks of his country's home islands and observing those very same subs through binoculars. That's how close they were. Of course, this is just one example of the several centuries of conflict between Sweden and Russia. The Swedes have an old saying: "Never, ever trust the Russians". Long experience with their bellicose imperial neighbor has taught them that.
Have you done the 1980 Titan Missile explosion in which a socket fell off of a guy's wrench (that weighed 8 pounds) and damaged a rocket in a missile silo and almost triggered a nuclear explosion?
Remember that incident quite clearly. Had just been assigned for the last 3 month of my initial military service to a new battalion that was part of NATO's AMF brigade and we were on full alert throughout the whole incident... Didn't have that much excitement until the '89 Russian MiG-23 crash in Belgium....
When I saw the title of this video, I thought at first HG was going to cover the story of the SS Politician and the real history behind the inspiration of the old film Whisky Galore!
Would have been funny if they have just left it there. “No, we aren’t going to punish you. No we aren’t going to storm the vessel to get your men out. If they want to stay, so be it.” Obviously the men would have run out of supplies and the USSR would have had to make further concessions to get their men and boat back. But also obviously the Swedish weren’t thrilled with having another country’s nukes off their shore. But maybe I also find it funny when offenders are caught doing something they shouldn’t and the party catching them just says “lm just not going to do anything, just keep doing what your are doing, since you must have wanted to be doing that to be doing it in the first place” and lets the offending party begin to drown in their own prior actions.
It was a cowardly submission to an enemy that had been provoking with such intrusions for years. A golden opportunity to hand them a defeat, and a strongly worded letter was the only consequence. SWEDEN YES
I know how the U.S.A. would have handled it.... I read the book, "Hunt for Red October", so I know of what I speak! ha,ha 6061 has the right idea. What would be the downside if they just waited them out?
Sweden should have told the Soviet Union that they would sink any unidentified vessels in their waters from that point on, so make sure your boats are sure of their locations around Swedish territory. "We wouldn't want to see a loss due to "accident"
As a kid during these event, it was really cool. The Swedish military police with help of the police did search cars for Russian divers. I remember how we kiss almost forgot to breath when the MP search my parents car. Haha
I kept waiting for THG to tell the part where the people of the local village helped save the submarine from destruction after its crew helped save young Johnny Whitaker after he had fallen from the church steeple. 😅
Whisky is also Canadian and whiskey is American (United States.) I was told at a tasting that if the country name started with a vowel it was whiskey and if it started with a consonant it was spelled whisky. India seems to violate that rule because in India it is called whiskey but the mane India is used by others. India calls itself Bharat.
There is almost an element of humor in this story. The sub captain claiming that island popped up out of nowhere. Kind of like a poor driver saying that car came out of nowhere when I ran that red light. Another fine report. Thank you.
Nah. It was a tree. (just like John von Neumann's car wreck.)
From the original Battlestar Galactica. A Cylon pilot crashed. When asked for an explanation it said "I was flying in a straight line. The planet came up us."
There is a political tv-satire based on the incident coming out this christmas.
Yes, especially considering he would have to have made several hundred very fine course adjustments to get to that point without hitting something :P
The submarine grounded because it followed a Swedish navy military navigation route that had an overgrown marker. This caused the navigation error that grounded the submarine in a minefield.
The submarine had been laying on the bottom draining its batteries as it spied on Swedish torpedo trials that had been delayed.
This is why the submarine had empty batteries and it went into the archipelago to recharge because it would not show up on radar among the islands.
A whiskey sub cant reverse on diesel engines only batteries that is why they ran the diesels all night.
Good stuff!
@@kevinvilmont6061 It's great to hear from a Swede what actually happened off the coast of Sweden. We get glossed over condensed versions of the stories of events outside of our own localities, if we get any news at all. It makes perfect sense that diesel engine powered screw shafts on a submarine would not be run through a gear box. The DC drive motor(s) can easily be reversed, by simply reversing the polarity of the DC supply. And if they had drained their battery banks, they'd have those prime mover diesels roaring away to get a fast charge on those batteries. Odd they didn't have some way to run their DC motors off the generators through the rectifiers, but equipment space is at quite a premium on any submarine.
Thank you! Something sounded off about the whole thing, you’ve cleared it up.
@@Satchmoeddie My taxi driver when i was in the navy was actually a "witness" to this. He was a coastal ranger/Jaeger that was handed live ammunition, then driven out to a very small island and told to shoot the spetsnaz if they appeared. First and only time they were ever handed live ammunition like this, and given permission to fire if they felt it was necessary. (Outside of guard duty at base etc)
Fascinating, having sailed around this area when in Merchant Navy it was clear that the Soviet Union was playing games with Sweden. Whiskey on the Rocks is a great title. Thanks again for your entertaining and educational channel
A few notes worth mentioning regarding the situation.
1. if they had blown the torpedoes the city of karlskrona would have gone up with it as the plan from Swedens coastal jaegers was to tow the sub under pretext of security and safety of the harbour of karlskrona, The Submarine would have therefore been in Karlskrona during the operation.
2. whenever the subs officers comunicated with the USSR command Sweden was listening in on their conversations.
And everytime they tried to use codes in the communications Sweden jammed it completly ending with the Captain or other officer screaming back almost in tears begging them to stop jamming and he would comply and not use codes.
it is quite funny to hear.
3. The Swedish Submarine which they Russians had been spying on was testing Swedens new secret torpedo model Type 42 and that was likely why they had been there in the first place, Now when the USSR fleet started to mass it was the Swedish Submarines turn to hide and alarm them.
If i remember correctly HMS Neptun was kitted with some special lighting systems for the torpedo tests and was now instead hiding under the USSR ships and when the moment came they turned of the lights under the water making the soviets suddenly see a burst of light right under them.
Needles to say it was quite a sight according to soviet eyewitnesses.
This installment is now one of my favorites. I've never heard of this incident.
Never heard of this either
Good Video - some additional tidbits I learnt:
1. When the Soviet Flotilla had gathered and stated to move towards the border, the Swedish coastal artillery was not done with fire preparations (apparently the unit was quickly cobbled together from personal at Karlskrona naval base and not a regular unit) - the fire control radar was not connected to the weapons, but the officer in charger ordered the radar to switch to jumping frequency (a war time setting done just as you are about to unleash hell upon a target). The flotillia stopped and later investigations has given that the Soviet commander ordered the operation to be stopped when his operators reported that the Swedes has switched to jumping frequency since he was convinced that the Swedish coastal artillery was preparing to fire on them.
2. A bit later, when the coastal artillery was ready to fire and in high alert, a contact moved from the flotillia towards the border. This did not make sense since the situation had cooled down a bit and only one ship would be no realistic threat, so a Viggen (probably a AJ73 or a SF37) was sent up to identify the target. The target turned out to be a western-German freighter en-route to Sweden that decided to "take a look" at the Soviet ships not knowing the risk they took.
3. A Swedish some what legendarily Officer in the Paratroopers was called in to go to Karskrona (since he as part of a quick reaction force), he got his gear and left home and his wife called out to him "When are you returning?", his response was reportedly "Second world war lasted 6 years!"
Thank you for covering this !
Outside Gothenburg there is a small town called Kungälv. When you drive over the bridge into town there is a kind of square black rock sticking up in the river. Someone have painted U137 on that rock. It must have been there for fourty years now. You can Google for a picture.
My Ph.D. advisor was the Lt. in change of the nearest coastal battery when this went down. Make no mistake, Sweden was 60 seconds from sending the Russians to the bottom had they crossed the line on the map.
No you weren't. You surrender monkeys are so cute when you try to act tough.A strongly worded lettter, lol. SWEDEN YES
And then there would have been no Sweden.
Brings back the old days. As a submariner one of the things we learned in visual ID of Soviet Ships was for the Whiskey the back of the sail had steps that when viewed diagonally looked like a W. So one of hints we had in ship IDs. Loved it! Remember those days!
When I saw the title I thought you were doing an episode on the S.S. Politician running aground in 1941 in the Scottish Hebrides.
The old movie Whisky Galore is based on it.
The cargo included a load of whisky.
Several islanders "saved" the whisky...not much of it was ever seen again.
Me too,
Great movie!
A ship named the Politician ran aground? (Insert joke here).
So did I. Hello Kilearn?
Me too !
I appreciate you and thank you for making content.
Please know that The History Guy team appreciates our viewers! You are the ones who allow us to continue doing what we love.
There is another possibly related Cold War mystery: the Luleå Tracks. In June 1983 some tracked vehicle drove up from the water onto a breach adjacent the an air base at Luleå. It left behind its tracks which what was discovered. It's thought that it was some kind of tracked submersible, possibly Russians doing beach reconnaissance.
It was not "coastal infantry and paratroopers", but Coastal Rangers and Para Rangers, the two special operations capable commando units Sweden had at the time. They had orders from the Supreme Commander himself to be fully prepared to board the submarine with lethal force if needed (the Coastal Rangers were intended to board it while the Para Rangers would be in external support, primarily). They also had orders to shoot any Soviet who shot at potential Soviet deserters. The Soviet political officer, in his memoir, has an interesting description of how it felt like when the Coastal Rangers replaced the local conventional unit next to U-137. From the Coastal Rangers' point of view, they simply moved in tactically with good overwatch, and had overwatch with proper tactical considerations over the submarine when they held the position, which the local conventional unit had barely done at all. But from the perspective of the Soviet political officer, he thought of it as some kind of political statement, that Sweden had replaced a border guard unit with an elite unit that was deliberately aiming at them and signalling that the Soviets were targets, and that it was intended to send some kind of message. So what was considered merely tactical considerations from the side of the Coastal Rangers, were interpeted as some kind of symbolic signalling from the Soviets.
The event also lead to the creation of a secret unit within the Coastal Rangers which worked together with the British SBS to specialise in boarding submarines (and later on they would be focused more on intelligence gathering), which was one of the first "embryonic" units toward what would become Sweden's first tier-one special mission unit: SSG.
So rare to see ones hometown pop up on a popular TH-cam channel.
I grew up in Karlskrona. This is one of those stories that gets retold and retold in the town. It's probably the most exciting thing that happened there in the past 100 years. Everyone has their variant of it, and everyone wants to make it look like a way more decisive incidence for determining the outcome of the cold war than it really was.
Supposedly the crew was heavily intoxicated, why they got stuck.A faulty compass was also blamed but this compass was later tested and found to be functional.
Some say that was one of the official excuses but that the submarine was actually highjacked/crew bribed so that its tech and crew could be studied/debriefed. The latter theory is probably one that has evolved over many many drunk nights in good company, wanting to make Karlskrona look more important through some involvement with the usa and its intelligence services.
It might be true, but coming from Karlskrona and wanting this beautiful little town to be more significant than it is, I have to be aware of confirmation bias. It's very plausible the Russian crew had too much vodka.
I really want to visit the island where it all went down.
I know people that worked on F17 Kalinge at the time of the “incident” and the stories they tell sound insane
@@darraghmckenna9127 we're visiting in summer. You can rent small houses pretty cheap, they go around 40 bucks a night with kitchen, bathroom, wifi etc.
I highly recommend. The people there are really kind and it doesn't get more swedish than that. Brändaholm which is a part of Karlskrona is often featured, it's full of red wooden houses and when people think of Sweden they usually have that place in mind visually from it being featured in media so often.
Including you. Folks, this is why you don't make videos about small places in Europe. Everyone tho lives there pops up in the comments and tells you you did it wrong. Sometimes they meet each other in the comments. It's pathetic. SWEDEN YES
thx for the insider story🤗
Thanks for sharing your story
Before I was on it in the 1980s, my Navy cruiser USS Leahy ran aground in a Japanese channel in the 1970s. It's nickname after that was Leahy on the Rocks.
I grew up not far from Karlskrona and also lived here when this happened (and still do) so I clearly remember these exciting days. But we had a lot of incidents with submarines in our waters and harbors at this time, however whiskey on the rocks was the only one that came up above the surface, all the others managed to escape. But it is correctly reported in the video regardless of what other home made theories say. 🇸🇪🥃
What a great story..
We love you Lance.
Thank you!
1987? '86? USS Roanoke (AOR-5, I think. I was on USS Kansas City AOR-3) Was first into Pearl Harbor following a 3-fleet exercise to load up stores for West-Pac. She ran aground. The harbor was closed with three full fleets outside doing laps while everyone waited for the ship to clear. Meanwhile, the Kansas City was the only supply ship. By the time we made it to the Hotel pier (fueling station), we were transferring water to the rear of the ship to keep the screw in the water. Mostly. Wed then took on all their stores and did the first few months of their WestPac until they were repaired and relieved us. I don't remember if it was Japan or the Philippines where we handed off and returned home.
As far as I know, there was no loss of life, nor any injuries beyond those incurred by sharing liberty boats...a foolish idea from the outset.
In another incident Swedish military did detect another submarine, submerged. When "challenged" it surfaced - it was Westgerman. It was a few years later.
Btw. a compass is not quite enough for navigating when you cannot see a thing. Sending a surfaced (!) submarine into such waters on a darkened spy mission seems foolish. If that was the case or they just failed to navigate I do not know. Fools do exist.
Thank you History guy and team.
Love when THG drops a new video definitely one of my favourite TH-cam creators along with Mark Felton! Keep up your awesome content!
Great you cover this history and maybe some have commented, but anyhow here I go:
1) The Swedish prime minister was in Norway when journalists confronted him asking for a comment about the incident. Mr Torbjörn Fälldin, the prime minister, who hadn't yet been briefed just answered "The boooat?????"
2) Just outside the town Kungälv, north of Gothenburg, in the river is a rock looking much like a submarine tower. Once, painted on this rock was U137.
3) Shortly after the incident, a set of various alcohol was sold in taxfree shops onboard ferries, all referring to the cold war. One of these drinks was the U137 - WHISKY ON THE ROCKS. (There was also a brandy named 12 Years Behind The Bar)
It wasn't the PM it was the Defence Minister Torsten Gustavsson.
Fälldin also dropped one of the coldest lines a Swedish PM has ever dropped. When asked for his orders by the chief of the military, he responded:
"Hold the border."
In my hometown someone planted a "periscope" labeled "U137" in a pond called Viktoriasjön (Lake Victoria).
@ Nybro?!
There were pictures in the press at the time of local Swedes rowing out to a sub stuck on the rocks with hot coffee and cinamon rolls. I don´t know if it was Whiskey or some other , as there were a couple of others that managed to duck out before they became much of an incident (or so it is said) but the optics were hilarious!
Fun with something from Sweden. I work at the marine base in Karlskorna ones a year as a small arms instructor. First thing I do every time when I get there is to drive down the docks to check out the submarines.
We used to have much better anti submarine capabilties then these days. Back in the 80s we had a known phenomena with TIR trucks. Eastern states license plate trucks always happening to be close to military training exercises.
How remarkable. I turned sweet 16 on Oct 28 1981. Blithely unaware of these world events being more interested in high school life in the Caribbean.
Always learning something new. Time to start catching up on some topics...
When the Russian ships appear to be crossing the border, the coastal artillery units were not ready to fire. They bluffed the Russians by switching to frequency jumping, which was not normally allowed to be used because it was still technically secret. In addition, a four group of attack aircraft from 6 Air Wing in Karlsborg took off with orders to prepare to sink the russians. They had only made it to Jönköping (a few minutes flight), when they were recalled. There's a very moving interview with the group Commander.
You sir are a treasure and a wonderful presenter of history I missed. Thanks for sharing.
The sub captain wrote a book about the experience. A very interesting read, as the crew wanted to leave, but could not without help from the Swedes. The Swedes didn't want to let the submarine leave without interrogating/interviewing the crew. So the had effectively reached an impasse. Eventually some level of trust was found and members of the subcrew left the submarine so the Swedes could interview them.
Thank you for the lesson.
Reminds me of the song by Ray Stevens, “Surfin’ USSR” :
“We were out in the Pacific where it's nice and deep
When our sonar operator went and fell asleep
Then a terrible crash awakened every hand
And we woke up stuck here in the California sand”
Came here, after seen some episodes of the TV series with the same name, but it's comedy/satire. Thanks for sharing this page of history.
From what I'vr read on it, as the Doviets upped thr pressure with ships, looking as if they'd 'go in and fetch the sub', Fälldin's (PM) response to what to do if that happened was "håll gränsen!" (hold the border.)
Also a previously never activated radar/missile battery was turned on, to foster thought...
Thanks again Thomas. great show
As they used to say in "Get Smart," "I find that very hard to believe." "Would you believe...?"
What are you trying to say, this factual event was made up? Cope harder.
I live just 50 km from Karlskrona and I did my military service att the airbase mentioned.
I've seen a text saying that all russian submarine commanders has to sail his boat into "hot" swedish water and back again as an exercise. But getting to that place at night by chance is just ridiculus.
Tip: Do something about the Psilander-affair.
Karlshamn?
Excellent summation. Right on target. A+
I'm a little baffled by that Soviet account about said outcome of exploding the submarine. Nuclear weapons only explode under VERY mathematically specific circumstances. You really can't detonate a warhead in a way that initiates fission otherwise. It's more likely, based on my understanding mind you, that it would cause significant radiological contamination in the waters around Karlskrona.
Unless they intentionally detonated the weapons.
@@tommost1 Exactly.
He was implying that the crew would detonate the weapon in order to destroy the boat rather than allow its capture.
But exactly how safe nuclear weapons are is a matter of debate. I have certainly heard many on this channel discount the possibility of an accidental detonation even where the weapon designers are quoted saying that accidental detonation is possible. This was a nuclear torpedo already in the tube. I would not overestimate its safety in 1981.
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel you yourself have reported the broken arrow incidents where something like 8/9 failsafes were found to have failed, leaving only one failsafe to keep a detonation from occurring.
It could happen. Especially with soviet tech
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel I think the difference is between "accidently triggering the detonator" and "sympathetic detonation". If all you do is blow something up next to a nuclear warhead, all you're going to get is a bunch of radiation. But if you're doing something that interacts with the detonator, like, say, dropping a bomb, then the only thing keeping the detonator idle is the safeties.
Love your work. Thank you THG
I thought we'd already done this one - then again always good to go over events for those who're new to it :D
As I watched this episode of THG, I tried to recall the incident and what I saw of it on the CBS Nightly News (my parents personal favorite). Thank you, History Guy, for clarifying some misremembered information. Once again, a stellar and brilliant piece of history that deserves…well, y’all know the rest.
I lived in Karlskrona at that time. I remember how scared people was when they heard about about the nukes.
Dear THG, thank you for enlightening us about this "almost comical" Sub don't he rocks incident form the Cold war. it seems funny now, but it was no joke in 1981.
Last time a swedish primeminister showed some balls. His order was short and succinct to the Commander in Chief : "Hold the border"
They sure don't do that today! SWEDEN YES
I was stationed at the US Navy SOSUS station at Keflavik when this occurred. As I recall we mostly thought that the whole thing was pretty funny and for the most part it was mainly posturing by both sides.
In Sweden even the rocks hate the Russians. 😎
Somehow I missed your channel. Keep up the good work!
Im norwegian and remember this one.
I created a drink after this: whiskey on the rocks, with a dash of vodka. Whats important is that you pour the vodka first. I think you all understand why the vodka comes first…
Learn something new every day.
When I first saw this, I thought it was going to be about the Whiskey War (aka the Liquor Wars) between Canada and Denmark, over possession of Hans island - a bloodless war that was finally resolved in 2022, as an example to Russia about how to conduct a land dispute peacefully.
The best channel on TH-cam!!!
Liars lie, and do it with no remorse....even when caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Absolutely shameful !!!
Fascinating.
Stunning! Active duty at Norton A.F.B. Oct '81. I have no recollection of this event happening. I must've been young, dumb and 21. Oh, wait I was....
I do enjoy some of the events you unearth The History Guy! KUDOS!
I remember this one, I was not 21 at the time, I was 26 years old and starting my fourth year flying canceled checks in a Cessna 310Q. An airplane I really loved to fly.
I toured a Russian Udaloy class destroyer in 1992 while stationed in Bahrain with Commander US Naval Central Command (COMUSNAVCENT) embarked on USS LaSalle AGF 3.
The nuclear package on a recon mission just emphasizes how incompetent the Soviet military was. What is more dangerous? A stupid enemy, or an evil enemy? At least with Hitler, you could predict his pathology.
Good morning history fans. Welcome to Hump Day class.
🐪!
🥃🥃🥃
Håll gränsen
Completely fascinating Sir. When I first saw the title of today’s THG episode I thought we were all going to hear a fascinating story about a famous (but largely forgotten) prohibition era Rumrunner out somewhere on the Atlantic coast in a fast boat- and how he and his cargo of then illegal hooch ended up on a sandbar or rocks after being chased by Federal Revenue Agents and/or the USCG. Only to hear a fascinating story of how the Soviets got caught red-handed spying on Sweden. Thank you again for such an interesting story.
If I had one question Sir, it would be whether anything is known of what happened to the Soviet sub’s crew when they finally made it back home? Especially the captain. Off to the Gulag?
I don’t know- the Russians are not very public about such things
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel : Thank you for answering Sir. It was a great presentation.
A little side track on one of the many results derived from this story: Following the incident, the Swedish navy started dumping sonar buys all over the shop and chasing every sound they didn't recognize at once, even depth charging schools of fish. Some years later, a group of scientists got access to the recordings made by all the sonar activity, and landed an IG-Nobel prize in 2004 for the discovery that fish do in deed fart, quite a lot actually, and a school of herrings can be very loud doing so.
The sheer ATTITUDE the Soviets would display over obvious intelligence ops was frikkin amazing, We can see where Putin learned his audacity from,....and it's doubly risky behavior as crazy as the world is, today!
Life imitating art. "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming" was a Norman Jewison comedy about a Russian sub run aground off of Gloucester Island. Alan Arkin, as and a handful of sailors row ashore to find a big power boat large enough to tow them free, sparking panic among the residents, wild rumours and hilarious situations.
Now we has a movie about it...commedy very funny.
Both countries needed to look tough and save face in an embarrassing situation. Quite the balancing act.
Thanks for post. Training exercise? I believe incident this showed the need for additional training.
Love your videos
Very interesting!
Very good.
*Reminds me of a couple of episodes of Star Trek where they used this excuse*
very interesting!
I wonder what happened to the captain of this Soviet submarine?
I saw him in a Swedish documentary some years ago. He was alive and well, still maintaining most of his story if I remember correctly.
I remember this incident clearly although I was only a kid at the time
The fear that my parents had of possible escalation was clearly understood by me even at that young age
The cold war was a frightening time and the way things are going now I this geopolitical landscape is a stark reminder that it only takes a whiskey on the rocks to escalate in to full blown war 😮😮
Let's hope that our politicians are willing to go the long way round so as to end up whit peace and not war
Just saying 🇳🇴
As I recall at the time, this incident was one of a series that made Swedes begin to question the value of neutrality in the Baltic region. That came to a head last year, when Sweden joined the world (with a few notable exceptions) in condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The only "accident" was that they got caught.
This was nothing new; the Soviets had already been snooping in Swedish waters for decades. My father, who is Swedish, has long memories from his army days. He remembers well, sitting on the banks of his country's home islands and observing those very same subs through binoculars. That's how close they were. Of course, this is just one example of the several centuries of conflict between Sweden and Russia. The Swedes have an old saying: "Never, ever trust the Russians". Long experience with their bellicose imperial neighbor has taught them that.
Defending neutrality is critical to it's claim. A neutral nation must be adamant in protecting its borders.
I remember this
Bon succès dans vos nouveaux projets.
Good night
They should have sold the sub to the Americans. As is, where is. Buyer beware. Lol
Great presentation, THG.
As always.
Thanks Lance and family.
Have you done the 1980 Titan Missile explosion in which a socket fell off of a guy's wrench (that weighed 8 pounds) and damaged a rocket in a missile silo and almost triggered a nuclear explosion?
th-cam.com/video/jDcog2ZP684/w-d-xo.htmlsi=6xOj6jThViL0Ovf5
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel thank you!
I guess that Soviet submarine really wanted their whiskey on the rocks! 🥃🚢
History Guys got the coolest intro music! Where did he find it?
Remember that incident quite clearly. Had just been assigned for the last 3 month of my initial military service to a new battalion that was part of NATO's AMF brigade and we were on full alert throughout the whole incident...
Didn't have that much excitement until the '89 Russian MiG-23 crash in Belgium....
Is it just me, or does THG have a mug that resembles Don jr. on the shelf under the globes behind him?
When I saw the title of this video, I thought at first HG was going to cover the story of the SS Politician and the real history behind the inspiration of the old film Whisky Galore!
Releasing the sub was both, wise and pragmatic.
Would have been funny if they have just left it there. “No, we aren’t going to punish you. No we aren’t going to storm the vessel to get your men out. If they want to stay, so be it.”
Obviously the men would have run out of supplies and the USSR would have had to make further concessions to get their men and boat back. But also obviously the Swedish weren’t thrilled with having another country’s nukes off their shore.
But maybe I also find it funny when offenders are caught doing something they shouldn’t and the party catching them just says “lm just not going to do anything, just keep doing what your are doing, since you must have wanted to be doing that to be doing it in the first place” and lets the offending party begin to drown in their own prior actions.
It was a cowardly submission to an enemy that had been provoking with such intrusions for years. A golden opportunity to hand them a defeat, and a strongly worded letter was the only consequence. SWEDEN YES
I know how the U.S.A. would have handled it.... I read the book, "Hunt for Red October", so I know of what I speak! ha,ha 6061 has the right idea. What would be the downside if they just waited them out?
Sweden should have told the Soviet Union that they would sink any unidentified vessels in their waters from that point on, so make sure your boats are sure of their locations around Swedish territory. "We wouldn't want to see a loss due to "accident"
Aftonbladet. You did ok with the Afton, but the A in Bladet is a soft, longer a. Like the a in Garden. Garden, Bladet
The Cold War had many scary moments.
Back in the Saddle Again Naturally
As a kid during these event, it was really cool. The Swedish military police with help of the police did search cars for Russian divers. I remember how we kiss almost forgot to breath when the MP search my parents car. Haha
According to one news report at the time the subs captain was court marshaled and jailed for this incident.
The Soviets only had a guy with a machine gun in the tower after the submarine had been discovered and was watched by Swedish military units.
Was the USSR ever forthcoming with the truth on any incident?😂😂😂😂😂😂
Good Wednesday morning class. Be seated, class is beginning. Turn on brains and tune in your ears for today's lesson
I kept waiting for THG to tell the part where the people of the local village helped save the submarine from destruction after its crew helped save young Johnny Whitaker after he had fallen from the church steeple. 😅
I remember when all this happened. It was all over the news. Made the Russian Navy look like incompetent landlubbers.
Seems like some of our current “leaders” took some lessons of how to stretch the truth from this incident.
Whiskey with an "E" is Irish, without is Scot's, Whisky.
I guess that NATO prefers Irish whiskey. first10em.com/quick-reference/nato-phonetic-alphabet/?amp
Whisky is also Canadian and whiskey is American (United States.) I was told at a tasting that if the country name started with a vowel it was whiskey and if it started with a consonant it was spelled whisky. India seems to violate that rule because in India it is called whiskey but the mane India is used by others. India calls itself Bharat.
Whiskey with ice is an abomination. Lucky it wasn’t winter.