Vasili Arkhipov

The man who literally saved the world from nuclear war.....

 

 

 

One soviet Navy officer saved the World from World war three. His name was Vasili Arkhipov which was born on the 30th, January, 1926 in Zvorkovo, Russia. He refused to authorize the use of nuclear weapon.

It was October 1962, when the cold war between The United states and the Soviet Union was in full play. The world was at the brink of a nuclear war. The United States placed missiles in Turkey and Italy near the Soviet Union border. In response, The Soviet Union decided to launch missiles in Cuba. President Kennedy ordered to blockade the Island to prevent the soviets from accessing it. Tense negotiations between the two super powers began. And on October 28, the agreed to remove their missiles. But things got more serious in the Caribbean.  On October 27, Soviet submarine B-59 stopped near Cuba.

It was spotted by the United States navy who dropped depth charges to make the soviets to surface. The Soviets thought it was a fire attack and that a war had broken out. As they were too deep in the water, the radio didn’t work. They hadn’t received messages from Moscow for several days. They just couldn’t confirm whether World War three had begun or not. They were instructed to use a nuclear torpedo without approval if the submarine was under fire. The captain decided that the war had broken out and wanted to launch the weapon. Though the captain needed approval of the other two captains. The second one agreed but the third one, Vasili Arkhipov refused to launch the torpedo. The tension on the submarine was running high. The conditions were horrible. One of the crew members wrote in his journal. “My head us bursting from the stuffy air. The regeneration of air works poorly. Temperature in the sections is above 50’C.” In this chaos, Arkhipov managed to stay rational. He was convincing the captain that it was not a fire attack. He assumed that the Americans just wanted them to surface for identification.

                                        

Finally, Arkhipov persuaded the captain to cancel the launch of the nuclear torpedo. The submarine surfaced and waited for the orders from Moscow. Arkhipov was right, the war hadn’t broken out. But if he hadn’t prevented the launch a nuclear war could begin.  However, Arkhipov wasn’t acknowledged as a hero upon return to the Soviet Union. The crew was criticized for being detected by the Americans and going to surface. One admiral told them. “It would have been better if you had gone down with your ship.” Arkhipov’s heroic deed became public only in 2002. A retired commander of the submarine revealed that the Subs were armed with a nuclear torpedo. And that Arkhipov’s refusal to launch them saved the world from the war.

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