Background and position
Savitsky was responsible for B-59 and its crew during a demanding deployment far from Soviet home waters. The boat was a diesel-electric submarine: remaining submerged reduced opportunities to replenish batteries and communicate. Its nuclear armament gave an apparently local encounter potentially much wider consequences.
Sources for this passage: [1]Role in October 1962
Savitsky commanded B-59 during its encounter with American ships. Later recollections describe him interpreting the situation as an attack and considering use of the submarine’s nuclear torpedo. No nuclear weapon was launched. Accounts should be read alongside logs and other testimony, rather than treated as a verbatim contemporary record.
American forces used signalling explosives to try to bring the submarine to the surface. What those signals meant to the men inside could differ from the intention of the ships deploying them. Later Soviet recollections describe how the captain’s understanding of the situation became dangerously uncertain.
Sources for this passage: [1]Why their role matters
B-59 surfaced and no nuclear torpedo was fired. Assessing Savitsky requires attention to the information available aboard his boat, rather than knowledge acquired later. It is also necessary to distinguish his authority as captain from Arkhipov’s position as a senior officer travelling with the submarine.
Sources for this passage: [1]