Discovery Channel - Nuclear Sharks Cold War Submarine Adventures (1998) Part 1 Final Mission

For forty years, the Cold War was also waged beneath the sea between the United States and the USSR. Submarines faced submarines in close-quarter encounters which could have triggered major conflicts on many occasions. 'Nuclear Sharks' explores the silent, stealthy symbol of the Cold War. A war waged outside public view. A war about strategy and world domination. A war of technological advancement, with lethal consequences. By the early 1950's, the United States and the Soviet Union are entrenched in a harrowing conflict many fear will bring an end to humanity. This gripping series reveals the stories of submarines sunk to the bottom, their nuclear power plants in meltdown. Such incidents remained closely guarded military secrets both on the American and the Soviet sides. 'Nuclear Sharks' is a chronicle of chilling adventures which, as Cold War secrets are revealed, can only now be told. 'Nuclear Sharks' takes us into the post-Communist Kremlin, where men who once helped define the nuclear submarine conflict can now freely speak about the Soviet strategy. In Washington, the Navy confesses the crucial importance of the nuclear submarine in the effort to puncture the Iron Curtain. NUCLEAR SHARKS tells the story of the men who gave their lives to a hidden war in the silent deep.

Part 1 Final Mission

In March 1968, the Soviet submarine K-129, armed with 3 nuclear missiles, sanks after a mysterious explosion on board. K-129 was on a secret mission in the Pacific, trying avoid America's network of underwater listening posts. It was a cat-and-mouse game beneath the ocean waves. The K-129 was a diesel-electric Project 629 submarine, capable of carrying ballistic missiles, based at Kamchatka with the Soviet Pacific Fleet. Commanded by Vladimir Ivanovich Kobzar, a captain first rank with an unblemished record, the sub had conducted two successful 70-day patrols in the north Pacific in 1967 before leaving on a new mission in February 1968, which was scheduled to end in May. After conducting dive tests and reporting that all was well, the K-129 missed an expected contact when it crossed the 180th meridian, the dividing line marking its patrol area. Nothing more was heard by the Russian base. So something had gone wrong and a search was launched. But the wreckage of the K-129 eluded the Soviet searchers, who eventually gave up their mission and listed the submarine as missing at sea. They decide to keep the disaster secret, unaware that the US Navy has detected the submarine's sinking.

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