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‘Lament of Commanding Officer Victor’

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It was after dark on March 21, 1984. The Cold War was still in full swing, and the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk was a central figure in that year’s Team Spirit exercise operating in the Sea of Japan.

The crew was used to endless noise. When the catapults toss off an aircraft, it can be felt down to the second deck — five decks below the flight deck — and sounds like it’s happening right on top of you. The perpetual whine of fans and the ship’s propulsion machinery are constant companions night and day.

But that night, it was different. Suddenly the ship’s routine noises were interrupted by shaking and shuddering as if the ship had run aground, but they were miles at sea. Sailors rushed to any open deck space on the ship’s starboard side just in time to see what appeared to be a submarine slinking off into the black night without any running lights on.

The next morning, helicopters from Helicopter Squadron Two confirmed those reports when they saw a Soviet nuclear-powered Victor Class submarine limping along on the surface, escorted by a cruiser flying a salvage flag. The air crews could easily see a dent where the submarine had struck the Kitty Hawk as it surfaced underneath the carrier. The submarine turned out to be the K-314 also known as the Yersh – Russian for Scorpion fish. Kitty’s escorts monitored the submarine for several days and eventually broke contact as the submarine limped to her home port of Vladivostok.

The Soviets managed to get to the aircraft carrier undetected, though U.S. officials passed it off, saying that there is little they can do in to prevent a Soviet vessel of any kind from going where it chooses in peacetime.

The ship pulled into the U.S. naval base Subic Bay Philippines to survey the damage. Divers located a blade from the submarine’s screw embedded into the Kitty Hawk’s hull. Part of the blade’s edge was cut off and mounted on a very heavy plaque that sits today in the Captain’s import cabin adorned with the title “Lament of Commanding Officer Victor.” I wonder if Soviet officials relieved their COs when they ran their ships into other vessels?

The Yersh would leave service permanently a year later after a reactor explosion killed six people and rendered the submarine unusable.

It would not be the last time Kitty Hawk would be associated with a foreign submarine. In October 2006, Kitty Hawk and her escort warships were undergoing exercises near Okinawa when a Chinese song-class submarine shadowed the battle group, surfacing six miles away on Oct. 26, causing an uproar in the U.S. press when it was reported that the submarine had been undetected until it surfaced.