{"id":102,"date":"2014-02-27T16:35:13","date_gmt":"2014-02-27T22:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnkilgallon.com\/blog\/?p=102"},"modified":"2014-03-27T12:18:50","modified_gmt":"2014-03-27T17:18:50","slug":"opening-shot-of-the-komar-incident-want-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/johnkilgallon.com\/blog\/opening-shot-of-the-komar-incident-want-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Opening Shot of The Komar Incident ~ Want More?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am well into writing The Komar Incident<\/em> and have decided to post the initial opening to this story placed within the context of the Cuban Missile Crisis aboard a GUPPY III modified US Navy diesel submarine, the USS Whitefish (SS-432). Would you want to read more?<\/p>\n

\"The
The Komar Incident (Draft)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Komar Incident<\/strong><\/p>\n

By<\/strong><\/p>\n

John Kilgallon<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cJim, you got the camera ready on scope one?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n

\u201cAye, aye, Skipper. What bearing?\u201d Jim Waters, my XO, replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got two Cuban patrol boats, Soviet Komar class, exiting Puerto de Mariel bearing zero-one-seven relative. Let\u2019s get good snaps for the Intel guys.\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSonar, do you have a speed for me on these Komars?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCaptain, speed 10 knots on the targets Charlie One and Two. Holy! Torpedo in the water bearing 195 relative!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSound collision! Dive! Dive! Full left rudder, engines all ahead flank! Sound battle stations torpedo! Let\u2019s get her down to 160 feet!\u201d My commands energize the crew of the USS Whitefish and galvanize them out of our earlier ultra quiet state.<\/p>\n

\u201cTorpedo is running shallow, should miss above! I\u2019ve got submarine screw noises, designate target Fox One, bearing along the torpedo\u2019s reciprocal. Soviet Foxtrot class. He\u2019s turning away and increasing speed! Looks like a course of three-five-zero true,\u201d said Chief Petty Officer Falcone, on duty in the sonar shack.<\/p>\n

\u201cWait, torpedo is running shallow?\u201d Jim asked.<\/p>\n

WHAMMM!<\/p>\n

\u201cJim, put us on a pursuit course for Fox One! Falcone what did that fish hit?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCaptain, contact Charlie Two, one of the Cuban boats, just disappeared off my screen.\u201d Falcone said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSir, we\u2019re on course three-five-zero true, increasing speed to 16 knots. Our batteries can only run this speed for about 30 minutes,\u201d said Jim.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know. Falcone what\u2019s that sub\u2019s speed?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCaptain, Fox One speed is eight knots and steady.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay. Jim slow to ten knots and bring us up to periscope depth. I need to see what happened. Stand by with the camera on number one will you?\u201d<\/p>\n

What is going on? I\u2019ve got a Russian sub firing on me and missing? We\u2019ve got Cuba blockaded to prevent the Soviets bringing in missiles and arms to Castro. How did this one slip past? All these thoughts crowd my head as I grab at the scope handles and snap them down. I clear the horizon as I spin through a 360.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll clear close aboard. I see smoke aft and one Komar circling at slow speed, now accelerating. Changing course to, damn, he\u2019s spotted our scopes and is coming this way! Jim, you got pictures?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSeveral good ones, Skipper.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDown scopes, increase speed to 12 knots and let\u2019s go after that sub!\u201d<\/p>\n

~~~~~~~~~~~<\/p>\n

Thanks for reading, comments are always welcome. By the way GUPPY stands for Greater Underwater Propulsive Power. The “y” made it easier to say. This program applied lessons learned from captured German advanced U-boats at the end of World War II. The streamlined hull form, snorkel and other engineering advancements were applied to several of the US Navy’s fleet submarines from the same war. Indeed the hull form was used for our first nuclear powered submarine, USS Nautilus, and our first class of nuke boats \u00a0the Skate class.<\/p>\n

-John<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am well into writing The Komar Incident and have decided to post the initial opening to this story placed within the context of the Cuban Missile Crisis aboard a GUPPY III modified US Navy diesel submarine, the USS Whitefish (SS-432). Would you want to read more?   The Komar …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,7,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-war","category-wip","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnkilgallon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnkilgallon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnkilgallon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnkilgallon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnkilgallon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/johnkilgallon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":120,"href":"http:\/\/johnkilgallon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions\/120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnkilgallon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnkilgallon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnkilgallon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}