Click2Flicks - K-19: The Widowmaker, The Story Behind the Movie, Heroic Efforts, Chapter 7

<body link="0000ff" alink="ff0000" vlink="000000" bgcolor=000033> <table width="100%" bgcolor=000033> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <table width=90% bgcolor=ffffff> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <tr> <td> <div align=center><p><b><font face="arial, helvetica" size=5 color=000000><b><i>K-19: THE WIDOWMAKER</i></p> <p><font size="4">CHAPTER 7 - HEROIC EFFORTS</b></font></p> </div>  </font> <center> <table width="90%"> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> <div align="justify"> <p><font face="arial, helvetica" color="000000" size="3">When a nuclear accident involving a loss of <a href="http://www.nucleartourist.com/basics/coolant.htm" target="_blank"><b>coolant</b></a> occurs, like it did aboard <i>K-19</i> (and, eighteen years later, at Three Mile Island), the outcome can be fatal. The reactor <a href="http://www.wowpage.com/tmi/core.html" target="_blank"><b>needs coolant</b></a> - quickly - to keep it from overheating and commencing an uncontrolled chain reaction. But how could that happen when <i>K-19</i> had no built-in system to deliver the critically needed coolant to the <a href="http://www.wowpage.com/tmi/pri.html" target="_blank"><b>primary</b></a> cooling loop? (Note: the link depicts the system in a pressurized water reactor which is different from the two liquid metal reactors aboard the Soviet submarine. Notwithstanding those differences, the importance of the primary cooling system - which contains radioactive material - is explained in the link.)</p> <p>The captain and crew needed to improvise. The leak had to be fixed or none of the men would live. Worse, a total core <a href="http://www.nucleartourist.com/events/meltdown.htm" target="_blank"><b>meltdown</b></a> would likely result in the loss of the ship through a thermonuclear explosion. Were that to occur, what would happen to the submarine’s ballistic missiles?</p> <p>Quick-thinking, risk-taking men (both officers and midshipmen) had to work under severe radioactive conditions. Working in the more remote areas of Compartment Six, self-sacrificing sailors were exposed to noxious gases and steam sure to cause radiation sickness.</p> <p>Captain Zateyev’s memoirs reflect the horror of <i>K-19</i>'s predicament and the courage of his crew:</p> <blockquote><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i>While working inside the reactor compartment, of course, they were alarmed, but they walked into that compartment without hesitation, ready for hard work. I saw the same calm, the same self-possession in Ryzhikov, Kashenkov, Penkov, Kharitonov, Savkin and Starkov.</b></i> (<i>K-19</i>, page 130)</font></blockquote> <p align="justify"><font face="arial, helvetica">Lt. Boris Korchilov specifically asked for permission to help. Zateyev responded: "Boris, do you know what you’re asking?"</p> <p>It took hours for the men to successfully weld the two pipelines together, thereby preventing a total catastrophe, but even those repairs had to be fixed. The ship’s executive officer Vladimir Yenin (referred to as "Mikhail Polenin" in the film), volunteered for that job. Zateyev recalled:</p> <blockquote><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i>At one point a leak did develop in the jury-rigged piping. My starpom</b></i> [second-in-command] <b><i>Yenin; Chief Petty Officer Ivan Kulakov; and Seaman Leonid Berezov (the commander of the missile operators’ department) repaired that leak and received heavy doses of radiation in the process.</b></i> (<i>K-19</i>, page 135)</font></blockquote> <p align="justify"><font face="arial, helvetica">Reaching Compartment Six, where the nuclear reactor was located, Zateyev saw Korchilov leave after his work was completed:</p> <blockquote><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i>...the bulkhead door opened and Korchilov emerged from the compartment. He ripped off his gas mask and immediately began vomiting a white and yellow foam...All the men who had been in Compartment Six were exposed to massive amounts of radiation, the doses they sustained going far beyond permissible levels.</b></i> (<i>K-19</i>, page 131)</font></blockquote> <p align="justify"><font face="arial, helvetica">In fact, some of the men were already dying.</p> </div> <p align="center"><font face="arial, helvetica" size="2"><a href="k19_widowmaker_ch6.htm">GO TO LAST CHAPTER</a>     <a href="k19_widowmaker_ch1.htm">BACK TO FIRST CHAPTER  </a>   <a href="k19_widowmaker_ch8.htm">GO TO NEXT CHAPTER</a></p><br> </td> </tr> </table>  </td> </tr> </table>  </td> </tr> </table> </body>