Know Your Enemy The Silent War

40 years ago at the height of the Cold War,

these nuclear submarines were locked in battle against the Soviet Navy.

Their crews were bound by a code of silence,

forbidden to tell their families where they were going or what they were doing.

Deep in the oceans, submariners from three navies,

British, American and Soviet,

played cat and mouse on the front line of the Cold War.

I was obsessed with the Soviets.

The whole idea was to go in and put a decisive blow and walk away.

The Cold War superpowers pledged to reduce their arsenals of nuclear weapons.

But beneath the waves,

Soviet and Western submarines spied on each other,

hunted each other down

and prepared to fight a war with enough firepower to destroy civilisation.

In that ship we had more explosive power

than all the weapons dropped in World War Two.

And we're talking about both sides now.

This was a secret war

driven by espionage to maintain the tactical advantage.

Can you tell how many propellers it has? Yes.

Can you tell how many blades are on each propeller? Yes.

Does one of them have a nick in it? Yes.

For over 40 years the details of this Cold War stand-off

have been a closely guarded secret.

We're in a submarine that actually could sink him in three minutes.

He would have difficulty sinking us.

Now the story can be told.

Captain speaking.

We shall be going from Plymouth towards the nearest point in the ice edge, north of Iceland.

The submarines of the 1950s had hardly changed

since the days of the Second World War.

But Soviet, American and British sailors didn't mind.

Joining up felt like a special calling.

It's a club, it's a small club, and it's great to be a member of it.

# No other love

I can probably tell you fairly rapidly

whether a chap is a submariner after ten minutes of conversation or not.

# Now that I've known...

# Every time, every time...

He said, "Honey, I really don't want to leave you

but it's just something I have to do.

I want you to know I don't want to go."

I say, "OK."  He gets upstairs, he's packing and I hear...

SHE WHISTLES

He's happy as a clam!

# ..to glory in your kiss...

Good company. And good pay.

And we had extra food, special food, called submarine comforts.

Things like tinned sausages, that was a luxury in those days.

Still had rationing in this country.  And fruit juice. Absolutely amazing.

Good life.

On the surface, submarines were still powered by diesel engines.

Under water, rechargeable batteries took over.

The maximum sort of speed underwater was sort of 15 or 16 knots

and you could do that for about ten minutes, the battery ran out.

Oxygen was limited so the submarine could stay submerged for no more than 20 hours.

Water was rationed.

The captain used to say, "I will use the basin," which is about so wide and about so deep,

"first in the morning and have my shave

and you make such use of what I leave in the pan afterwards."

So that was it.

-So you would wash in his shaving foam?

-So we didn't wash.

Echo classified submarine.

Submarine, surfacing on the fourth quarter, sir.

The diesel submarine's limitations

meant they were often reduced to acting as training targets

for sonar operators on Nato ships.

Submarine altering course towards us.

It was known as "ping running".

Ping running is when the submarine runs for a surface ship

who pings on him with his active sonar

and it was a very basic, boring way of spending the time.

We were really acting very much as the loyal opposition in those days

and without a particularly warlike role.

From sturding to Captain Deezer,

thank you for the Royal Salute,

and regret we must consider ourselves sunk.

In the Cold War stand-off between East and West

the battle for supremacy was taking place on land, not on the high seas.

In 1956, the Soviet Union invaded Hungary.

For the West, this was an ominous sign that the Soviet still had ambitions beyond the Iron Curtain.

Well, it's easy to forget now what the Cold War was like.

I mean, we lived with a threat from the Soviet Union

right up until the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Nato's conventional forces were far outnumbered by the Red Army.

The West saw America's long-range nuclear weapons

as an essential deterrent to Soviet aggression.

You have to go back and think about how attractive nuclear weapons,

if you could maintain an advantage,

how attractive that prospect was for a NATO alliance

that perceived that it could never defend Western Europe conventionally.

Anything that could give you the promise of compensating for that,

and that would preserve basically the status quo,

was incredibly attractive.

But in 1957 the Soviets launched Sputnik.

If they could send a satellite into space

they would soon be able to launch nuclear ballistic missiles

against mainland America.

"As Sputnik whirled around the globe,

American citizen bases became as vulnerable to Soviet threat

as Soviet defences had been in the past to the nuclear strike power of America."

It gets the American people alarmed that a foreign country, especially an enemy country, can do this.

I think it's a very bad thing to have around.

-To have these satellites going round?

-That's right.

As Sputnik went up

the Russians were launching missiles more successfully

than the US was at the time.

We fear this.

We fear that they have something out there that the majority don't know about.

Western Europe could no longer rely on America's land-based nuclear missiles.

President Eisenhower looked to the navy for a new way to defend the West.

President Eisenhower said he wanted to be able to shoot a ballistic missile from sea.

We had no missile, we had no warhead,

we had no guidance system, we had no submarine.

The US Navy launched a massive programme

to build a new kind of submarine, capable of launching nuclear missiles.

# You keep saying you got something for me

This is a simplified schematic drawing of a nuclear propulsion plan.

The part of the navy that Eisenhower liked was the part that had nuclear in it.

And so this was where the money was, this is what the future was,

this is what the West's strategy was at the time.

# These boots are made for walking

# And that's just what they'll do

# One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you

Submariners were back in business.

What are we going to do on Thanksgiving? We're going to work, that's what we're going to do!

Your family just almost ceased to exist, you know.

But we got through it.

# These boots are made for walking

# And that's just what they'll do

We were the pioneers for the finest weapon system on earth.

The nuclear reactor gave the submarine limitless power.

Twice the speed of a diesel submarine,

it could also produce its own water and oxygen supplies.

As long as there was enough food it never had to surface.

Going from diesel to nuclear was like going from riding a bicycle to driving a Formula One.

Armed with Polaris nuclear warheads,

the missile submarine was capable of destroying Soviet cities

at a range of more than 2000 miles.

In that ship we had more explosive power

than all the weapons dropped in World War Two.

And we're talking about both sides now.

It's a terrible responsibility.

The modern submariner. A new breed.

Young, technically oriented.

Make your depth 200 feet. Make your depth 200 feet.

Hidden in the ocean, impervious to Soviet attack,

submarine crews were now on the front line of the Cold War.

I said, "This sounds dangerous to me,"

and he said, "I am far safer than you will ever be staying at home."

He said, "I don't know what's going to happen to you,

and I don't know what's going to happen to this country,

but nothing's going to touch me. I'm...

Where I am they can't get me."

The defence of the Western world

was now in the hands of a small band of young American submariners.

It was a tremendous deterrent that was always available to the National Command Authority.

We felt proud about that and I think the country did also.

The Soviet Union was racing to produce its own missile submarine programme

but it was beset with engineering problems.

The Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev

needed a land-based launch site within range of the United States.

In the late summer of 1962,

Khrushchev sent as many as 40 ballistic missiles to Cuba.

And provoked the worst crisis of the Cold War.

It shall be the policy of this nation

to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba

against any nation in the western hemisphere

as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States.

Four diesel submarines, known as Foxtrots,

were sent to defend the Soviet forces in Cuba.

Each was armed with a nuclear-tip torpedo.

Enough firepower to destroy the American fleet.

Anatolii Andreev was a young submariner on one of the four Soviet submarines.

As the Soviet Foxtrots neared Cuba,

the American fleet was lying in wait.

We knew they were coming.

We had known for weeks because of our detection capabilities,

including our sound surveillance system

which was top secret at the time.

Unknown to the Soviets,

the Americans had placed a 3000 mile transatlantic cable

deep on to the ocean bed.

It was known as SOSUS.

Devised after the Second World War,

SOSUS was an early warning system for any approaching enemy Navy.

Fixed on the cable was an array of highly sensitive sonars.

As the four Soviet Foxtrot submarines entered the Atlantic,

SOSUS could detect the sound of the submarines

and pinpoint their position.

The Soviet submarines were forced to stay underwater

with no way of replenishing their dwindling air supplies.

Our orders were simply to harass them to bring them to the surface

and we were very, very good at that.

They knew we were right on top of them.

Our sonar could be used as an offensive weapon essentially.

We could turn up the volume and the amplitude of the sound

that we could transmit

and bounce off the hull of a submarine was immense.

Starved of oxygen and overwhelmed by two days of constant pounding,

the Soviet submarines were finally forced to surface.

They didn't really stand a chance. We had them outnumbered.

Our skill levels were extremely high,

and I felt sorry for them in a sense.

I welcome Chairman Khrushchev's decision dismantling offensive weapons,

returning them to the Soviet Union under UN verification.

Vladimir Chernavin was a young submariner during the Cuban Crisis.

He would later become commander-in-chief

of the Soviet Navy.

The Foxtrot crews would find no heroes' welcome on their return home.

Determined never to be humiliated again,

the Soviet leadership instructed their shipyards

to build a new class of nuclear submarine

that could retaliate in the event of an American nuclear attack.

The whole idea was in some sense driven by Soviet vulnerability.

We're in this very dangerous competition,

we're at a great disadvantage,

we really have to achieve parity with the US Navy that have been,

you know, for ten years outbuilding us and had these advantages.

We have to catch up.

In just five years the Soviet Union built 34 nuclear-powered missile submarines.

They called the new class Project 667-A.

Western submariners dubbed the submarine the Yankee.

The theory of nuclear deterrence between the superpowers

was known as Mutually Assured Destruction.

Many people preferred the acronym MAD.

# This is the story of the land of the free

# And what we have done for your security

# For the greatest thing you must agree

# Is that you be safe in the land of the free

# Safe as can be

The Soviets could go after our bomber bases,

they could go after our bombers,

they could go after our land-based missiles.

# So then we showed that we had the means

# To launch our missiles from submarines

# We sent the subs far across the sea

# For retaliatory capability

But they couldn't go after the submarines.

# But then they got the same sort of thing

# With all that power would any state

# Dare to tempt such a horrible fate

# Balance of terror

The nuclear submarine was the ideal weapon to apply the calculated logic of Cold War strategy.

When the ballistic missile submarine came along

it was like this perfect match

between these theories about trying to seek a kind of balance.

You can see unfolding a period of not instability but complete stability.

We wanted to make sure we could properly deter action

that would be bad for the world, not just for our country.

In 1966 the Royal Navy joined the nuclear club

when it launched the first of four ballistic missile submarines.

Britain's submarine force would now work alongside the United States

to deter the Soviet Union.

The British and American submarine service relationship was extremely close.

We talked about almost everything, and we shared information,

and we had something to offer.

Britain's bases in western Scotland would now harbour US and British submarines

before they headed into the Atlantic.

Right. Pipe action stations, set condition 1SQ.

Polaris missiles had a range of 2500 miles.

Submarines could hide far from the Soviet Union and still remain a threat.

Launcher prepared.

They would be a continuous presence.

Ready to launch, 365 days a year.

If you consider the Doomsday scenario,

which is that the UK has been taken out by a nuclear strike,

there are instructions on board which tell you what you are then supposed to do.

Navigation ready.

The envelope was kept in a safe in my cabin behind my bunk.

So I slept alongside it

and all the other material in that safe every time I lay down.

It came from the Cabinet office.

I think it gave instructions about

whether you were to fire your missiles and if so what targets.

Well, I must have sorted it out in my mind at some stage

and talked to Toby about it

and if he's happy with what he's doing that's OK.

I didn't dwell on it because how can you?

The potential targets for British, American and Soviet missile submarines

were always a closely guarded secret.

Patrols were classified.

Few were allowed to know the submarine's location.

Hopefully the navigator knew where you were.

But the nearest thing you got was you knew the seawater temperature.

That gave you the nearest indication

of am I in the Tropics or am I in the Arctic or what.

Critical to the success of the deterrent

was the submarine's ability to remain undetected by the enemy.

The prime reason for remaining undetected

was because you wanted to be sure as you went into missile launch mode,

that a Soviet submarine that might have been trailing you

wouldn't then fire a torpedo and take you out.

Staying hidden meant remaining quiet.

Crews were rigorously trained in what was called "noise hygiene".

Submariners, it's drummed into them from the first day to the last

that by dropping a spanner at the wrong moment you're capable of getting yourself sunk.

If a spanner hits a metal deck,

the noise will be transmitted through the hull of a submarine into the ocean.

Sound travels easily through water

and enemy sonar would pick up the sound of the spanner.

Britain and America rubber-insulated their decks

to ensure no sound was transmitted outside the submarine.

Machinery connected to the hull was suspended on rubber mounts.

New recruits quickly learned the difference between sounds that could be transmitted into the ocean

and the ambient noise of voices that stayed inside the submarine.

My first day at sea, I always remember this.

It was a Sunday and, er, there was a church service on board.

But somebody mentioned to me they give you a free drink so I went down to it.

And then after it had finished, after we'd been singing these hymns, which were quite loud,

I went from 1 Deck down to 2 Deck on a ladder

and stumbled at the bottom and fell and I made a bit of noise

and the first lieutenant shouted at me, "You're making a lot of noise there."

And I thought, that's funny because we'd just been singing for the last hour, you know.

I used to do a lot of chess myself

and the winner would win a packet of cigarettes.

# Hold on honey I'd like to say

# I'm busting out and breaking away

On a boat, you're on a tin can, underwater for months on end,

and it becomes very close knit.

# Think about how it's gonna be

The only way you identified the days that were going by

was you got grapefruit segments on Sunday,

you got mushrooms on Wednesday.

Food was critical. We had steak once a week. We would have things like lobster once a week.

We had frogs' legs way too often.

This time I shall not fail!

Oh ye gods, help me!

Crews stayed submerged for two months.

# Get out of my space

# Leaving now

# I'm leaving now

The nuclear stalemate between the Soviet Union and the West

failed to deter Soviet aggression in Europe.

I was duty minister in the summer of 1968

with the forecast from Nato

that there would be no invasion in the immediate future,

and was woken up in the early morning

to be told that they had invaded with Russian tanks into Czechoslovakia.

"Heavy tanks rolled through the streets of Prague

as Russian, Polish and Hungarian troops carry out their cold-blooded occupation of Czechoslovakia."

We had an enemy and a serious enemy

and we were in ideological conflict

with the Soviet Communism all through the Cold War.

By 1970 the rapidly expanding Soviet fleet

had further fuelled Western insecurity.

I couldn't think why they were building so many ships and submarines

unless they wanted to use them offensively one day

so it didn't seem like a defensive force.

At Northwood military headquarters in north London,

naval intelligence devised a new strategy

to locate and follow all Soviet missile submarines.

If war broke out,

the West would sink the submarines before they could launch their warheads.

An organisation was set up known as Task Force 311.

I was the operations officer for two years

and I ran many, many operations

out of Northwood prosecuting Soviet submarines.

SOSUS, the Americans' secret underwater surveillance system,

remained critical to Western strategy.

Naval intelligence knew that with a missile range of just 1300 miles

the Soviet Yankee submarines had to cross the Atlantic

before they could threaten American cities.

As they entered the Atlantic,

they still had no idea that SOSUS had located them.

And SOSUS had improved.

It was now so sensitive

it could differentiate between the frequencies emitted by each submarine.

If naval intelligence could identify the frequencies SOSUS detected,

they would always know what type of Soviet submarine was entering the Atlantic.

That became the job of both American and British nuclear submarines in the Cold War,

which is to acquire those signatures from Soviet submarines

so that they could be put into a database that would be maintained and updated.

That would enable SOSUS to maximise its effectiveness.

To record a Soviet submarine's acoustic signature

meant shadowing it at close quarters.

A new kind of submarine was needed.

The hunter killer.

They were weapons of war. They're dark, they're black. They're aggressive.

They look evil, and the whole idea was to go in and put a decisive blow and walk away.

The hunter killer was smaller and stealthier than the missile submarine.

It was also nuclear powered so could stay submerged indefinitely,

shadowing enemy ships.

It was a complete revolution.

The whole concept of operations now allowed you to get in close enough

to get a good readout from this signature,

which you recognised as only emanating

from the particular sort of target that you were looking for

so it was almost possible to fingerprint each submarine.

In 1975 Britain and America released their hunter killers into the Atlantic.

"We're going north," that was the phrase.

We're going to make a northern run.

When? In the fall.

OK. Make your plans now.

I used to say a quiet prayer and hope that it all went well.

A large number of the operations were extremely highly classified.

The intelligence they collected was always known as "the take".

The whole boat was in quiet mode.

Everybody on the vessel was told to walk around in their stockinged feet, you know.

No stomping about. If you didn't have to move, don't.

Stay in bed.

It was all about trying to get close to them.

It was a whispered excitement.

SOSUS could guide the hunter killer into the area of the ocean

where the enemy had been detected.

Then the sonar crews had to identify the submarine's noise signature.

Bearing node 116.

Sitting at the sonar stack with the headphones on,

scanning the water back and forth

and if you get to a part that sounds different than the rest of it

that could be a submarine.

Bearing node 113.

Very quiet, not really so much as a tone,

just sort of a ssssshhhh, a different sound in the water.

Can you tell how many propellers it has? Yes.

Can you tell how many blades are on each propeller? Yes.

Does one of them have a nick in it? Yes.

We have phase one audible on track 296. Possible dangerous contact.

That is what you listen for.

You can tell the difference by the rhythmic beats

and on the rhythmic beats is one stronger than the rest.

If one's stronger than the rest there's some sort of damage to that particular blade of the propeller.

There really wasn't a lot of sound to hear, it was more like low hums.

Bearing 111.

But very quietly.

Once they had found the submarine,

the hunter killer closed in on its prey.

So you'd get in behind the Soviet submarine

recording all the radiated noises from the submarine,

then usually one of the sonar riders would come out and say,

"No, no, we didn't get enough, we need more."

Sometimes the captain would say, "We'll make another run at it."

Sometimes he'd say a bad word and say, "You've got enough."

You weren't fighting the submarine, you were fighting the bloke who was driving it,

and therefore you had to focus on what these people were like.

It's all about trying to outwit your opponent.

And that game of chess, if you want to call it that, to me was fascinating.

Closing, increasing.

American and British submariners knew that their ability to go undetected at close quarters

gave them the tactical advantage over the Soviets.

Although our numbers theoretically were lower than theirs,

in fact, it certainly convinced me that we were in a position to win a shooting war

against the Soviet submarine service, yes.

Collecting intelligence on Soviet submarines wasn't without risks.

We were very conscious that what we were doing was somewhat dangerous.

Frank Turvey was a young engineering officer on a British hunter killer submarine.

Its crew of 98 had been at sea for five weeks.

One night when I went on watch,

I left my sleeping area, my bunk space,

and I had to walk through the control room.

Everything looked good and we were in silent mode.

About 25 minutes past midnight there was an awful bang.

And crushing and scraping.

And we were pushed right over in our chair...chairs,

about 74 degrees, so we were almost on our backs.

There were alarms on all of the panels, bells ringing, red lights flashing.

The submarine had lost much of its electrical power.

The severe listing had also damaged some of its engineering equipment.

But a strange thing happened to me.

When I was at school we had a great Latin teacher.

One of the sentences he diagnosed in detail.

Una salus victus nonum sparare salutem.

The one hope of the defeated

is not to think about your safety.

Do the right thing.

For the next three hours

Turvey and his team of engineers fought to stabilise the submarine.

Only later did he ask what had happened.

We were told as far as I remember that we collided with ice.

An iceberg.

And, er, that was it.

What did you think when you were lying in your bunk?

I suppose I thought that I was, and all of us, we were lucky.

And er...

I, er, in situations like that you think of family a lot.

I did. Erm...

And I could look forward to...

It's become known now that during my tenure

one of our submarines was quite badly damaged.

I mean, its conning tower was not quite destroyed but very seriously bent.

And of course we lied about how it had happened

and just said that now it is known it had hit a Soviet submarine

because it was shadowing it.

Now, boys will be boys

and there was an element of just going off and doing this for bravado

and we needed to curb some of it and I think some of it was curbed.

The Ministry of Defence has never confirmed any collision with a Soviet submarine.

Operational details remain classified.

On their return home, American, British and Soviet crews

were forbidden to talk about their patrols.

# No other lips

# Could want you more

I didn't know very much because he never told me very much.

I knew he was at sea, and I knew he would be gone for three months

and they knew that, and that was it, that was it.

I was so excited about him coming home, it had been three months,

so I made this big plaque that said "Tonight's the night",

and I took it down and waved it over the pier.

Well, I was frowned on.

-Who frowned on you?

-All the Admirals and their wives.

What did they think was going to happen?

I think they thought we were going to have sex.

# The wonder of your smile

In 1974,

East and West agreed to reduce their arsenals of nuclear ballistic missiles.

But at sea, western naval intelligence learned of a new threat.

The most dangerous ship in the Soviet Fleet,

a 40,000 ton aircraft carrier called the Kiev.

Along with fighter aircraft,

the Kiev had eight Cruise missiles,

each eight times more powerful

than the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.

We were dealing with some pretty big bits of kit.

There was a slight sort of apprehension verging on fear

that the Soviet fleet were flexing their muscles.

The carrier was also faster than any submarine.

Within 18 hours of leaving territorial waters,

she would be capable of launching her missiles on Europe.

I name this ship Swiftsure. May God bless her and all who sail in her.

In early 1977, Britain's newest hunter killer submarine, HMS Swiftsure,

was sent north to find the Kiev and record her acoustic signature.

Swiftsure was an operational submarine who'd done all its tricks and was ready,

and what's more, about to go on front line deployment.

Oh, it's exciting.

I always found sailing extremely difficult,

leaving your family knowing that there was going to be

a very significant challenge ahead.

There was a feeling that perhaps in the back of our minds, Soviets were eight foot tall.

We wanted to bring them down to five foot nine, which is probably the average.

Swiftsure was heading for the Barents Sea, home to the vast Soviet northern fleet.

The only way you could detect the potential enemy

was going there close up and covertly.

And when they're operating in their own areas

they're obviously a little bit freer and easier,

thinking that maybe they are on their own.

They were engaged in a very dangerous activity.

But they knew what they were doing, they knew how dangerous it was,

they knew how important it was.

And they experienced when they did it how difficult it was.

Among the crew were Russian linguists and electronic intelligence experts.

We were going to do business with the Soviet Navy

so Soviet terms would be used, Russian names would be used.

Swiftsure would be operating near the Arctic Circle.

With just an hour of daylight in every 24-hour period,

special red lighting had to be used.

When it's dark up there, which it is for a lot of the time,

light inside, at the bottom of the periscope,

has got to be the same or less than the light at the top of the periscope.

It was red lighting for the best part of, probably going to be about two months.

It became very, very tiring.

When Swiftsure entered the Barents Sea

the crew found themselves in the middle of a major naval exercise.

I was surprised at how incredibly busy we really were.

Your level of activity is absolutely constant, reporting, noise.

I saw missiles streaking through the air.

I saw firings by guns.

I saw a torpedo firing exercise.

Never ever in my wildest dreams thought I would do that.

Well, you're sitting there at the centre of the spider's web.

It's a lovely feeling of being surrounded by people who can't see you but you can see them.

Then, Swiftsure's sonar detected something new.

The Kiev.

I remember the excitement first time I saw her.

The captain and the XO had lots sightings before I did

and I remember thinking, come on, I want to have a look at this. I really want to see her.

And when I did she was impressive. Beautiful-looking ship.

She was big, clean lines, just looked the part.

Soon after that Captain John said, "Right, let's go and have a look at this."

We started our approach from behind the carrier,

and obviously we had to go in at a slightly higher speed than his.

We were constantly assessing his course and speed as accurately as we possibly can.

Coming up from astern you can identify the wash from the propellers.

Once we see that we know we are very close.

Course 130. Speed 50 knots.

We needed to match his speed almost exactly.

Going up one revolution at a time.

And you give yourself enough time to get down,

steady on the depth that you want to do this operation at

and then slide in underneath.

It was quite a relief to find that we were sliding under him.

Gently and without incident, so to speak.

Swiftsure's cameras and acoustic devices began gathering the Kiev's secrets.

CAMERA CLICKS

Always tense, always total concentration.

How close were you to the Kiev?

Top of the periscope be about 10 to 12 feet.

We're running 12 feet away from a 40,000 ton aircraft carrier.

Well, so be it. That's what we're doing.

If that makes you nervous to think about it, yes, fine.

But if you're there, you're sharp, you're on the ball.

You're not day dreaming while you are doing this, that's for sure.

But we are in a little ship.

You say it but we are in a submarine that could actually sink him in three minutes.

He would have difficulty sinking us.

That's the sort of arrogant bit of knowledge to tuck away.

We know he's there and we're controlling this whole evolution.

And he doesn't know we're there.

CAMERA CLICKS

After we had been underneath for quite a long time

we felt we'd seen everything that we could usefully see.

We pulled out gently and went off to a decent distance.

After 70 days at sea, Swiftsure returned to Britain.

Contained in her sonar bays was the Kiev's entire acoustic fingerprint.

If the carrier ever planned to attack,

the West would be able to find and sink her

before she was in range of Britain or Western Europe.

It was sharp end, cutting edge of the services.

It was the front line of the Cold War operations.

And it was a very exciting thing to be part of.

Over two decades, British and American hunter killers

brought back vital intelligence about the Soviet fleet.

This gave the West a priceless strategic advantage over the Soviet Union.

Well, this was given to me as a parting present by my ship's company

and it says HMS Swiftsure on it.

But this actually is a model made by my ship's company

who, over a glass with them, this was presented to me.

I was absolutely delighted.

It's based on the Kiev, the carrier.

-Did you talk to your wife about it when you came home?

-No.

I wasn't allowed to do that, no.

So what did you tell your wife?

I said, well, we had a story that we had just been on a training patrol.

That's what all the ship's company were told.

My wife knew that these were difficult patrols

and she was used to seeing me come back having lost weight and grown a beard and tense.

No doubt about that.

My wife was absolutely incredible looking after my children.

Very, very rarely there.

Through the Swiftsure days through... Tough.

The whole part of that world

that you've put to one side for almost two months you pick it up again.

You hadn't seen the colour green for a long time.

Grass.

All the delights, you know. The smell of a woman.

And I don't mean that salaciously, I just mean smelling a woman.

And touch.

No one touches you in a submarine and that's something that I found I noticed.

-How did it feel?

-Ah, it was lovely, lovely. What you haven't had you miss.

# It's all over

# Didn't even cry

# I just stopped living

# When you said goodbye

# It's all over

# Didn't feel a thing

# I just stopped living...

In the next programme, the Russians fight back.

Secret weapons beneath the ice and a disaster at sea.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd