7.00 "Secret Fairway" is a wonderful Soviet feature film in 4 episodes about the mysterious German submarine "Flying Dutchman". For everyone who hasn't watched, watch.
The action takes place in years during the years of the Great Patriotic War in the Baltic Fleet and in the post-war period. During a combat mission torpedo boat commander Boris Shubin discovers a secret fairway for a German submarine to pass through iton the surface at night. Shubin decides to continue monitoring the fairway, his expectations are confirmed - the next day, an unmarked submarine emerges between the islands. She is German, you can hear the conversation German officers. The submarine is called the "Flying Dutchman", and its crew performs top-secret missions for high command of the Third Reich.

Upon return Boris Shubin decides to find out as much as possible about this secret submarine, the English sailor Neila, released from the concentration camp, helps him in this, he saw this German submarine off the coast of Brazil. Bye Boris Shubin does not even assume that he will soon be on the "Flying Dutchman".

Secret fairway. 1 episode

Secret fairway. 2 series

Secret fairway. Episode 3

Secret fairway. Episode 4

Year: 1986
The country: the USSR
Producer: Vadim Kostromenko
Film Genres: adventure, military
Starring: Anatoly Kotenev Larisa Guzeeva Sergey Bystritsky Leonid Trutnev Vladimir Naumtsev Valery Yurchenko Uldis Dumpis Stanislav Riy Vidas Pyatkevicius Arunas Storpirstis

Interesting facts about the movie:

• The adult Shurka Lastikov, a pupil of the protagonist, is played by Sergei Bystritsky, who is only five years younger than the lead actor Anatoly Kotenev.
• The numbers engraved on the dishes used on board the Flying Dutchman indicate that under the mysterious submarine, the authors of the picture meant the boat U-127, but in fact this submarine died in 1941 and could not be a participant in the described events.
• In the role of torpedo boats were river patrol artillery armored boats "Bumblebee". The salvo fire system was dismantled from them, and dummies of tubular torpedo tubes were installed in its place.
• The name of the commander of the "Flying Dutchman" is an allusion to Jules Verne's famous novel about Captain Nemo "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea". Gerhard von Zwischen in German means "Gerhard from between", which is an analogy for the name Captain "Nobody".
• During the Soviet era, the film was always shown during the summer holidays.
• It was the fourth picture of the actor Anatoly Kotenev at that time, in all of them he played the role of the military.
• Some episodes of the biography of the book hero Shurka Lastikov (closing a radiator hole with his own body and Ushakov's medal among the awards) are drawn from the real life of a graduate of the Solovetsky school of jung AF Kovalev (Rabinovich).
• In the film, the role of the U-127 "Flying Dutchman" is played by a Soviet diesel-electric submarine of project 613.
• In the 2nd series, the Soviet Information Bureau reports on the radio: "The troops of the Karelian Front, continuing the offensive from the Petsamo (Pechenga) region, reached the state border of the USSR with Norway." The border of the USSR with Norway was established in 1947 as a result of the transfer by Finland to the Soviet Union of the territory separating these countries.
• At the end of the 4th series, Shubin quickly escorts the intruder along the shore to the rowing boat, while a magnetic wire cassette falls out of the latter's pocket - one of those that he took in the safe of the underground base. Thus, not all audio recordings get to the Soviet authorities.
• The saboteur who arrived on the island uses a Margolin sports pistol, made in the USSR, as a weapon.

27 years ago, Central Television showed a four-episode film "The Secret Fairway", filmed by V. Kostromenko based on the novel of the same name by Leonid Platov.
To this day, this modest tape is regularly shown on various TV channels, and already a new generation of viewers is happy to follow the adventures of the commander of the Soviet torpedo boat Shubin, who managed to neutralize the formidable German submarine. But few people know that in the "Secret Fairway" for the first time in world cinema, the passage of a real submarine under water was filmed.

There is no boat, but the cinema remains
The film takes place in 1944 on the Baltic Sea. Performing a combat mission, the commander of the torpedo boat Boris Shubin accidentally discovers the secret fairway of a German submarine without identification marks. An unforeseen event throws him onto the "Flying Dutchman" and makes it possible to lift the veil of the strictest secrets of the Third Reich that surrounds it.
Naturally, in a picture where a submarine operates, it was difficult to do without scenes under water. At first, it was assumed that the submersion and ascent of the submarine would be filmed in the famous pool of the Odessa Film Studio.
This pool was built to shoot naval battle scenes. The water was poured into the pool so that it overflowed. Models of ships from different eras, mainly sailing fleets, were launched into the pool, and they were put into action with the help of various devices. In the background, a panorama of the Black Sea opened up, thanks to which the illusion of a sea distance was created.
Local masters of combined filming managed to arrange quite plausible naval battles. Today, when reviewing these pictures, it is hard to believe that these scenes actually involved not real ships, but their very small scale models.
The model of the submarine was also being prepared for the "Secret Fairway", but when the director saw the dive of a real submarine, he literally fell ill with the desire to shoot this scene in kind.

- When the submarine is submerged,- Vadim Vasilyevich Kostromenko explains his decision, - there is such a whirlpool, such a stunning picture, that it is simply impossible to create such an effect in the pool.
Although the plot of the film was set in the Baltic, the underwater scenes were filmed in the Crimea, in Balaklava, especially since the water in these places was surprisingly clear.
At that time, filmmakers were treated with respect, especially since the film told about the heroism of Soviet sailors, so that everything that was required for the film crew, the naval command gave out without further ado and for free. (Under the current conditions, such shooting would cost millions of hryvnias, or even dollars). However, this episode did not work out at first.

The film crew was given a diving board, in which a rigid ladder goes deep into the water. The director decided that a cameraman would sit at the end of this ladder, suitably equipped, of course, and with a special underwater camera. And next to him was to pass a submarine.

And then came the day of shooting. The submarine has arrived, but...
- I set a task for the commander of the boat,- recalls V.V. Kostromenko. - He looked at me and said: “Vadim Vasilievich, we will both go to jail. Do you think that I’m going along the highway? I’ll swim under water. sit down. No, I won't do that!"
He turned his boat around and left.
The director had to go to Sevastopol to see the commander of the fleet.
- I understand him.- said the commander, after listening to the story of the director. - It takes a risk taker.
And he ordered to give another boat, with a different commander. The shooting went well, the expected effect turned out. During our conversation, Vadim Vasilyevich admitted that he did not remember the name of the dashing submarine commander. He remembers only his unique name-patronymic - Afrikan Afrikanovich. But the surname, as we managed to establish, the sailor wore the most simple - Popov.
And Lieutenant Commander Popov A.A. commanded the diesel-electric submarine S-296 of project 613, serial number 152. The first exit to the sea of ​​this boat was marked in 1955, and on October 1, 1990, the crew was disbanded. Apparently, during the subsequent turbulent years, the boat went to scrap. But she managed to enter the history of world cinema ...

With fun and courage
Vadim Vasilievich recalls other interesting situations during the Crimean filming. We had to shoot several underwater scenes of the meeting of two heroes. There is an unwritten law in cinema: during the filming of dangerous and important episodes, the director must be on the set. In this case, the underwater kingdom was such a platform, so the director had to take a scuba diver's course at an accelerated pace and even make the first test dive.
- But as soon as I submerged, the water filled the mask, - recalls V.V. Kostromenko. - I surfaced and said: "Guys, what did you give me for a mask that lets water through?" And they answer me: "Vadim Vasilyevich, the mask is not to blame, you need to shave off your mustache."
- Well, I can't shave off my mustache!- the director continues smiling and says that when he once performed this procedure in his youth, he felt as if he was without pants.

Anatoly Kotenev, who played the lead role, resolved this impasse by persuading the director to stay ashore, since this underwater filming was technically quite simple. Reluctantly, the director agreed. But the cats scraped at heart: after all, the actors had to act without scuba gear: they had to dive into the water and quickly emerge.

However, quite a long time has passed, and no one has appeared from the sea. V. Kostromenko rushed about on the shore in horror, assuming that the worst had happened. Meanwhile, the actors simply decided to play the director. They quickly shot the episode, then swam away from the director's eyes and calmly sunbathed themselves.

Now, of course, it's fun to talk about it, but what I said to the "jokers" then, I can't repeat to you, - Vadim Vasilyevich smiles.
The performer of the main role himself recalled that the consultant of the picture, the admiral, saw him on the set and asked: " You probably served in the Navy? You have a gait, naval bearing ".
Meanwhile, before the artist had nothing to do with the fleet. He served in the artillery, besides, he spent most of his service on the stage, since he already had an elementary theatrical education. Sports activities helped, which came in handy during the filming of "Secret Fairway", where the actor had to parachute, swim under water and stay afloat for a long time in the open sea. True, the artist admitted, for the most part, one of my understudies swam under water, the other jumped with a parachute, and the performer himself at that time ran in the catacombs, where he portrayed a fight with the "German" - stuntman Peter Sherekin. But in the water he had to spend a whole film shift.

- Found a long pier going into the sea,- the artist later said, - from it and filmed against the backdrop of the sea. I swim there, imitate something, and from the pier they shout: "Tolya! Wander a little! Now we will reload the camera!" And I see the operator's assistant clumsily climbing up the hill to the bus with the equipment. And I swim. That's when I realized that while the camera is working, the actor will go into the fire and into the water ... yes, he will do anything! And while I heard the loud crash of the Convas camera, I selflessly floundered in the water.

But once A. Kotenev wanted to personally jump with a parachute, although they were filming a general plan and it could well have been replaced by an understudy. However, the artist persuaded the director to give him the opportunity to jump, assuring that he had the experience of as many as five jumps.
"Truth- looking with honest eyes at the director, the actor said, - I have documents about this at home.. The problem was that during the war, round parachutes were used, which forty years later were no longer in warehouses. With great difficulty, they found an old round parachute, carefully checked it, and finally agreed to shoot. A command sounded, the camera was turned on, and a lump flew out of the plane. He flew suspiciously long and only almost at the very ground opened a parachute.
"Tolya, what happened?"- the worried director ran up to the artist.
"Nothing special,- "on a blue eye" he answered, - I just wanted to show you what a long jump is."

Another funny episode happened during filming in the Baltic. The script said: "The flotilla entered the bay, the water was boiling from explosions". To film this scene, pyrotechnicians planted explosives on a boat all day. But no one thought about the consequences of the explosions. And they did not keep themselves waiting. For, as soon as the shooting of the episode ended, thousands of fish corpses floated to the surface.
And, as if it were a sin, out of nowhere, a fish inspection inspector appeared, who demanded that the film crew pay a fine. But in the estimate of the film, of course, there was no such article. I had to have a conversation with the inspector on the subject of what kind of film it was. Who is filming in it, etc. Meanwhile, the sailors cooked a beautiful fish soup from a stunned fish, which the inspector could not refuse ...

Interesting facts about the film
- Some episodes of the biography of the book hero Shurka Lastikov (closing a radiator hole with his body and Ushakov's medal among the awards) are drawn from the real life of a graduate of the Solovetsky school, Jung A.F. Kovalev (Rabinovich).
- In the film, the mysterious German submarine is U-127. This is indicated by the number stamped on the plate from which Shubin is fed on this submarine, and the number on a bent fork found in a pile of garbage in the ship cemetery at Pillau. The real boat U-127 died in 1941.
- Project 1204 "Bumblebee" river patrol artillery armored boat was filmed as torpedo boats. The BM-14-17 multiple launch rocket system was dismantled from several "Bumblebees", and dummies of tubular torpedo tubes were installed in the vacant place. After that, in their new form, the 73-ton "Bumblebees" in the film played the role of the 15-ton G-5 torpedo boats.
- The name of the commander of the "Flying Dutchman" is Gerhard von Zwischen. Translated from German, it means "Gerhard from between", that is, from nowhere, and is an allusion to Captain Nemo (Nemo is Latin for "no one") from Jules Verne's novel "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea".
- The saboteur-scuba diver was really played by the commando Sherekin Pyotr Pavlovich. Master of Sports of the USSR in hand-to-hand combat. First Commander of the Republican Detachment special purpose Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR. The first absolute champion of Ukraine in karate-do.
The representative of taijutsu in Ukraine from the World Federation HOKU SHIN KO RYU BUDJUTSU. Life member of JU JUTSU INTERNATIONAL, member of the Black Belt Academy and the Samurai House.

The secret of longevity is sincerity
Jokes are jokes, but, as the director believes, his picture turned out to be prophetic to a certain extent. For in the last scene on the submarine, the fascist commander pronounces the following text: "This crazy, bad Hitler lost the war. And I want you to understand how easily and freely we will infiltrate the post-war world. We will enjoy the patronage important people We will preserve National Socialism and cultivate it carefully in the new soil."
- I am bitter that in some places, even here, fascism is rearing its head again,- says V. V. Kostromenko. - Our film is often shown on television, and I want to believe that these words will make someone think...

"The Secret Fairway" brought popularity to the lead actor Anatoly Kotenev. Now he is one of the leading actors in Belarus, starred in 60 films and TV series, and was even elected vice-president of the Belarusian Film Actors Guild.
There is no need to introduce Larisa Guzeeva, who starred in this film shortly after the resounding success of Cruel Romance. She was interested in playing a role in military uniform. Here are just some viewers who were dissatisfied with the death of the heroine, and after the release of the picture, the director received many letters with an angry question: "Why did you kill such a beautiful woman?"
"Secret fairway" can not be called a masterpiece of world cinema. Honest, solid work, which even a quarter of a century later looks with unflagging attention. What is the secret of such longevity? Even the director himself does not know the answer to this question. Most likely, in sincerity, a sense of personal involvement, with which V. V. Kostromenko, "a child of war," shot the film.

American cinematographers - for all their technical sophistication - only five years later risked filming a real submersion of a submarine. So the laurels of the discoverers remained with our filmmakers.

The naval battles of the First World War clearly showed the highest ranks of the naval headquarters of the whole world what a formidable weapon submarines are. Before the volleys of the August cannons in 1914, the doctrine of the actions of the navy of almost every state on the planet was based on the active use of dreadnoughts - heavily armed armored ships, the pinnacle of development battleship like a class. According to the idea of ​​the admirals, the mere appearance of these huge monsters in the sea, lined up according to the principle of "all-big-gun" - "only big guns", should have determined the outcome of any battle. However, the Battle of Jutland on May 31-June 1, 1916, when the dreadnoughts of the fleets of the two warring countries - the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet - met for the first time in battle, revealed a paradox: the dreadnoughts did not sink each other, moreover, the lion's share of the battle and losses fell more light cruisers and destroyers of both squadrons. And pulling these voracious mastodons out of their bases in the sea turned out to be a monstrously costly undertaking. At the same time, small, nimble submarines with small crews (for example, the German U-29 had only 35 people, while the British seven-tower (!!!) dreadnought "Agincourt" ("Agincourt" / "Agincourt" - named in honor of the victory of the British over the French at Agincourt in 1415) the crew included 1267 people) inflicted such significant losses on the enemy that even the most recent skeptic had to admit through his teeth that the submarines are a formidable and dangerous force.

Of course, this opinion was well founded. For example, the submarine U-29 of Otto Weddigen, already mentioned above, on September 22, 1914, sent three sentinel British armored cruisers to the bottom within one hour - Abukir, Hog and Cressy. On May 7, 1915, Walter Schwieger's U-20 launched the luxurious ocean liner Lusitania to the bottom. On June 27, 1915, the Russian submarine "Crab" - the world's first underwater minelayer - installed a minefield near the Bosphorus, on which the Turkish gunboat "Isa-Reis" was subsequently blown up. Similar examples The effective activity of submarines during the First World War significantly raised their importance in the eyes of admirals and politicians. During the period of Interbellum (the time interval between the First and Second World Wars), the leading maritime powers of the world carried out active work on the construction of strong submarine fleets, experimenting with the contours of boat hulls, materials, power plants and weapons. Perhaps the most unusual can be called the British underwater monitors of the "M" type, laid down during the First World War. The main weapons of these boats were not torpedoes, but one 305-mm gun mounted right in the wheelhouse. It was assumed that these strange boats would fire from a semi-submerged position - only the cannon barrel would stick out from under the water. However, the high cost, tightness problems and dubious efficiency did not allow us to fully appreciate the potential of these submarines. In the 1920s, the guns were removed from them.

However, such a strange English project could not but find a response among shipbuilders. Inspired by the underwater monitor, the French in 1927 laid down at the shipyard "Arsenal de Cherbourg" three huge "sous-marin de bombardement" - "submarines for artillery shelling" of the Q5 type at once. Of the three, only one was completed. Artillery titan entered service under the name "Surkuf".

The Surcouf, named after the legendary French privateer Robert Surcouf, was the pinnacle of attempts since the end of World War I to combine the stealth of a submarine with the firepower of a surface ship in one ship. The displacement of the "Surkuf" was 2880 tons in the surface and 4330 tons in the submerged position. The length of the submarine is 110 meters, the cruising range is 12 thousand miles.


"Surkuf" in the sea

"Surkuf" was intended for cruising operations on ocean communications and, in addition to the torpedo weapons common to submarines, was armed with two 203-mm guns. These guns corresponded to the armament of heavy cruisers and were located in a twin turret in front of the submarine cabin. Fire control was carried out using a mechanical computer and an optical rangefinder with a five-meter base, which provided measurements at a distance of up to 11 km. For reconnaissance and fire adjustment at long distances, the boat carried a Besson MB.411 seaplane in a sealed hangar behind the wheelhouse. The aircraft was designed specifically for "Surkuf" and built in two copies. Two 37-mm anti-aircraft guns and four 13.2-mm machine guns were installed on the roof of the hangar. Also, "Surkuf" carried 22 torpedoes in its womb.














Cannons of the submarine "Surkuf"

Seaplane Besson MB.411 - assembled and aboard the "Surkuf", as well as a view of the hangar for the aircraft

Just six months after the Surkuf was launched, in April 1930, the London Naval Treaty was signed, Article No. 7 of which contained restrictions on the construction of submarines - in particular, the maximum displacement on the surface was set at 2845 tons, and the caliber of artillery should not exceed 155 mm. The Surcouf of France was allowed to remain in service by a separate clarification in the contract, but the construction of two other boats of this type had to be forgotten.


Computer image of the hangar of the submarine "Surkuf"

After the construction of "Surkuf" was widely advertised by the French press and repeatedly visited foreign ports in order to demonstrate the naval power of the state. No wonder - the world's largest submarine, armed with guns worthy of a heavy cruiser, a whole battery of anti-aircraft guns and carrying a hangar with an aircraft, looked very impressive, like a real masterpiece of shipbuilding of those years.
However, there were also skeptics. “... Perhaps no one could say with certainty,” wrote one of the British experts, “for what purpose it was built. True, she was considered capable of winning an artillery duel with a destroyer of that time. But if at least one shell, she could not already sink, and a fast destroyer would certainly get the better of her ... "
Although the Surkuf looked great on the drawings, in reality the boat turned out to be much less suitable for real service than for propaganda photo shoots. It was noted that the boat has significant problems with stability: when it is rough, it sways very strongly on the surface, and when immersed, it hardly maintains a roll and trim within an acceptable range. The time for preparing the boat for diving turned out to be prohibitively long - even under ideal conditions, it took more than two minutes to go under water, which in a critical situation could easily lead to the destruction of the boat by the enemy. Aiming guns at a target from a submerged position, which looked so advantageous on paper, turned out to be impossible in practice - the engineers failed to ensure the tightness of the movable joints.

The tower of the submarine "Surkuf" was mobile, but because of the disgusting tightness, it almost never turned. Screenshot from the computer game "Silent Hunter"

The former captain, Englishman Francis Boyer, who served on the Surkuf as an Allied liaison officer from April to November 1941, recalled: “The submarine had a turret with two eight-inch guns. In theory, when approaching the target, we had to stick out the muzzles of the guns and shooting while remaining under water.But it didn’t work out that way: we had serious difficulties with ensuring water tightness, every time we tried to rotate the artillery turret, water entered it. as a warship, it was no good, a giant underwater monster.



















Submarine interiors

Surkuf met World War II in Jamaica, and almost immediately began preparations for returning to his homeland. He was included in the escort forces of the British convoy KJ-2, and on September 28, 1939 he left for the Old World. The ship met the New Year of 1940 in Cherbourg, and in May, with the beginning of the German invasion, it was sent to Brest, where it stood in dry dock for repairs. The Blitzkrieg developed rapidly, and by the time the German tanks approached Brest, the boat was still out of order, but thanks to the decisive actions of the captain and the Surkuf team, they managed to escape from the enemy literally from under their noses. Despite the fact that the boat had only one engine running and the steering wheel was faulty, she was able to cross the English Channel and reach Portsmouth. The crew did not know that the collaborator Admiral Francois Darlan sent an order to follow the Surkuf to return, but the dispatch was not accepted. The submarine arrived in the British port of Devonport on 18 July.


Submarine "Surkuf" in the dock

After the capture of the country by Germany, the French navy found itself in a strange situation: about half of the ships remained with Admiral Darlan, and the rest went over to the side of the armed forces of the Free French - the French army "in exile" under the command of General Charles de Gaulle who emigrated to England.
Most of the Free French ships submitted to the control of the allied forces, but relations between the allies were riddled with suspicion. Although British Prime Minister Winston Churchill sought to consolidate de Gaulle's leadership in the Free French armed forces, he also found the general stubborn and arrogant. The US government suspected de Gaulle of sympathies for the left and tried to nominate General Giraud, who was on the right, as an alternative leader.
There was also a split among the French officers and sailors: many of them, if they did not hold openly pro-Vichy views, could not hesitate to decide which side they should be on in a war in which they could be ordered to open fire on their compatriots.

For two weeks relations between the English and French sailors at Devonport were quite friendly. However, on July 3, 1940, at two in the morning, having apparently received a message that the Surkuf's engines were in order and he was going to secretly leave the harbor, Officer Dennis Spraig boarded the submarine with a boarding party to capture it. Then Sprague, accompanied by First Lieutenant Pat Griffiths of the British submarine The Times and two armed sentries, descended into the officer's mess, where he announced the secondment of the Surkuf to the fleet of His Majesty the King.

Having issued secondment of "Surkuf" to the Royal navy, Sprague allowed the French officer to go to the latrine, not suspecting that the French kept personal weapons there. Sprague received seven bullet wounds. Griffiths was shot in the back as he climbed the gangplank for help. One of the sentries - Heath - was hit in the face by a bullet, and the other - Webb - was killed on the spot. One French officer was also killed.

On the same day, in the Mediterranean, the English fleet opened fire on the French squadron stationed off the coast of Algiers and Merseille-Kebir, after the Vichy command of this French naval base rejected the English ultimatum, which proposed either to start hostilities against Germany and Italy , or disarm the ships. As a result of Operation Catapult, 1,297 French sailors were killed by the British shooting at ships anchored in the base. This massacre infuriated the French sailors and soldiers who had escaped from German captivity. As a result, only 14 out of 150 people from the Surkuf team agreed to stay in England and participate in hostilities. The rest disabled equipment, destroyed maps and other military documentation, before being taken to a POW camp in Liverpool. The officers were sent to the Isle of Man, and only Louis Blaison, who became commander, two sailors and a British communications officer assigned to the submarine, remained on the submarine as a senior assistant.

A crew of French sailors who joined de Gaulle's "Free France" movement and French sailors of the merchant fleet was assembled for the "Surcouf" from a pine forest. A significant part of them had previously served only on civilian ships, and even military sailors for the first time had to deal with such an unusual and difficult-to-handle design as the Surkuf. The lack of training was aggravated by the difficult morale of the sailors.
The task fell on the shoulders of Commander Bleson to train qualified submariners from inexperienced volunteers, while every evening they listened to French radio (under the control of the Vichy), transmitting German propaganda with calls to return home in order "to prevent the British from using themselves as cannon fodder(which vividly illustrates the desire of the French to fight).

The events in Devonport and Mers-el-Kebir left a characteristic imprint on the further participation of "Surkuf" in the war. Political considerations demanded that it be manned by Free French forces and fully participate in Allied combat operations, but premonitions told the RAF Admiralty that this submarine would become a liability.
The British Admiralty was also in a difficult position. On the one hand, the submarine had a significant combat value and, moreover, thanks to pre-war propaganda, the French associated it with the power of their country, so it was worth using it - this would allow inflicting damage on the Germans and their allies, while simultaneously increasing the morale of the Free Forces fighters. France". On the other hand, the design flaws of the boat, the poor training of its new crew and its unreliability led to the fact that many members of the Admiralty considered releasing the Surkuf into the sea a useless and potentially dangerous business. As a result, from April 1941 to January 1942, the boat was taken to combat missions only twice, both times without any success. The condition of the crew was deplorable, the sailors often found themselves under arrest or were written off to the shore for inappropriate behavior and various violations. Relations between officers and lower ranks were strained and reached the point of outright hostility, many members of the team openly expressed doubts about the usefulness of the Free French forces as such.
















"Surkuf" in the sea

On April 1, 1941, Surcouf left Halifax, her new home port, in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, to join convoy HX 118. But on April 10, the order was unexpectedly changed without any explanation - "follow at full speed to Devonport." This hasty and complete change of plan caused increased rumors in the fleet that the Surkuf had destroyed the ships that it was supposed to protect with its guns.
On May 14, the submarine was ordered to leave for the Atlantic and conduct a free search until autonomy allows, and then head for Bermuda. The purpose of the search is to intercept enemy floating supply bases.

"Surcouf" off Halifax

On November 21, Commander Louis Bleson reported from New London, Connecticut, that the Surcouf had collided with an American submarine during maneuvers. The impact caused leaks in the third and fourth bow ballast tanks, which cannot be fixed without dry docking. The Surcouf sailed from New London without repairing these damages, carrying new Englishmen on board: communications officer Roger Burney, chief telegrapher Bernard Gough and chief signalman Harold Warner. What Bernie saw on the Surkuf horrified him. In his first report to Admiral Max Horton, commander of the submarine force, Burney expressed doubts about the competence of the commander and concerns about the morale of the crew. He noted "strong animosity between junior officers and ordinary sailors" who, although they did not show hostility towards the allies, often questioned the significance and usefulness of the Free French forces in their combat operations, especially against the French. This first report by Burney was hidden from the top of the Free French.


Painting "Surkuf" in the fleet of the "Free French"

December 20 "Surcouf", along with three French corvettes, took part in the operation to liberate the archipelago of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon. On the way from Halifax to Saint-Pierre, the Surcouf got into a storm, the wheelhouse was damaged by the waves, and the gun turret jammed. The boat lost seaworthiness in a strong wave, her hatches, deck superstructures and torpedo tubes were damaged. She returned to Halifax, where she unexpectedly received a new task - to follow to Tahiti with a stop at Bermuda. There, the commander-in-chief of the British naval forces in the region of America and the West Indies, Admiral Charles Kennedy-Purvis, at the request of the commander of the submarine forces, Admiral Max Horton, was to receive young Barney for an oral report. Before leaving Halifax, Burney was returning to the submarine with a Canadian naval officer. At parting, Bernie said to him: "You just shook hands with a dead man."
"Surkuf" left Halifax on February 1, 1942 and was supposed to arrive in Bermuda on February 4, but arrived there late, having also received new damage. This time, defects were revealed in the main propulsion system, which would have taken several months to eliminate. On the way, she was battered by bad weather several times, due to which the wheelhouse, gun turret and several torpedo tubes were damaged, some hatches on the deck lost their tightness. The plane had to be left ashore due to malfunctions even earlier. The condition of the crew did not improve, moreover, it was incomplete. As a result of the transition, the British observer concluded that the cruiser was completely incapacitated. The Admiralty, however, was more inclined to believe that the degree of damage by the boat commander was exaggerated, and this was simply sabotage stemming from an unwillingness to fight.


Submarine "Surkuf" in the base

In a top secret telegram sent to Horton and then to the Admiralty, Admiral Kennedy-Purvis wrote: "The English communications officer on the Surkuf gave me copies of his reports. After talking with this officer and visiting the Surkuf, I am convinced that he in no way The two main reasons, he noted, were the inertia and incompetence of the crew: “Discipline is unsatisfactory, the officers have almost lost control. Currently, the submarine has lost combat value. For political reasons, it may be considered desirable to keep her in service, but in my opinion, she should be sent to the UK and written off.
However, "Surkuf" personified the spirit and power of the naval forces of the "Free French". Admiral Horton sent his report to the Admiralty and, consequently, to Winston Churchill: “The commander of the Surkuf is a sailor who knows the ship and his duties well. Long idleness and anti-English propaganda in Canada negatively affected the condition of the crew. I think the Surcouf can bring significant benefits ... The French navy has a special relationship with the Surcouf, and the Free France will be categorically against decommissioning it."


View of the cabin "Surkuf"

The report of the damage to the submarine did not convince Horton: "Even if the intermediate repairs in Bermuda turn out to be unsatisfactory, on the way to Tahiti, the Surcouf will still be able to go under water using one engine ..."
February 9 "Surkuf" was ordered to proceed to Tahiti through the Panama Canal. On February 12, he left Bermuda and hit the road. The route was extremely dangerous, since the boat could not follow in a submerged position due to damage, and therefore could easily become the prey of its German colleagues, who literally swarmed in this region. Burney's last report is dated February 10: "Following my previous report of January 16, 1942, the conversations and events on board that I heard and observed further strengthened my opinion that the failures on the Surkuf were caused more by the incompetence and indifference of the crew than by open disloyalty..."
On February 12, Surkuf left Bermuda and headed through the Caribbean Sea, which was teeming with German submarines. He was only able to go on the surface - Commander Blaison would not go under water with a faulty engine. In addition to the calculated coordinates of the alleged location of "Surkuf", there is no more information about him.


Sectional model of the submarine "Surkuf"

On February 19, an adviser to the British consulate at Colona Port (at the entrance to the Panama Canal from the Caribbean Sea) sent a telegram marked "Top Secret" through Bermuda to the Admiralty: "The French submarine cruiser Surcouf has not arrived, I repeat, it has not arrived." The cable went on to say: "The US Troop Transport Thomson Likes, which departed yesterday with a northbound convoy, returned today after colliding with an unidentified vessel, which apparently sank immediately, at 10:30 pm EST on February 18 at 10 degrees 40 "North latitude, 79 degrees 30 minutes W. The transport searched this point until 0830 February 19, but found no people or debris. The only trace is an oil slick. The Thomson Likes has severe damage to the lower part of the bow."

“American authorities,” it was reported further, “studied the report of the captain of the transport vessel, an extensive search is underway by aircraft. According to unofficial information, preliminary investigation indicates that the unidentified vessel was a patrol boat. There is still no reliable information about all US submarines that could be in the area, but their involvement is considered unlikely."
Thus, the report about the loss of the boat immediately contained a version of its death, which later became official - in the darkness of the night, the boat, about the location and course of which the Americans were not warned, collided with the Thomson Likes transport and sank with the entire crew.
The official version is quite plausible, but it has many questions and ambiguities. For example, no one from the Thomson Likes team saw what exactly their ship collided with, and representatives of the Free French were not allowed to attend meetings of the commission investigating the collision and were not allowed to familiarize themselves with its materials. In addition, it was clearly difficult not to notice a huge submarine 110 meters long, following in the surface position.

In the note that lay on Churchill's desk, the following words of the telegram were crossed out: "... in the 15th naval region, the United States is clearly not informed about the route and speed of the French submarine Surcouf and cannot determine its location. The only message , handed over by me to the Americans on February 17, was the mentioned encryption.
On March 15, 1942, a closed meeting of the official commission to investigate the incident with the Thomson Likes transport began in New Orleans. From the British side, Captain 1st Rank Harwood, a representative of the submarine forces of the British Navy in Philadelphia, was sent as an observer, in whose report to the representation of the British naval command in Washington it was said: "None of the witnesses saw the ship with which the collision occurred. Approximately a minute after the collision, a strong explosion was heard under the keel of the Thomson Lykes. Extensive damage to the stem of the transport well below the waterline suggests that the ship into which it crashed was of a large tonnage and sat low in the water. Like ships following oncoming routes, they ("Surkuf" and "Thomson Likes") inevitably had to pass at a close distance from each other. According to Garwood's calculations, the Surcouf was within 55 miles of where the Thomson Likes reported the collision.

The commission did not make an unequivocal conclusion that Thomas Likes collided with Surkuf. She only stated that the transport collided with "an unidentified ship of unknown nationality, as a result of which this ship and its crew were completely killed." However, subsequent studies did not cast doubt on the fact that it was Surkuf who died. While the commission was in session, FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover sent a secret memorandum to the Office of Naval Intelligence stating that the Surcouf had in fact sunk a few hundred miles further off St. Pierre on March 2, 1942. Perhaps Hoover was referring to the port of Saint-Pierre in Martinique. Did the crew rebel, as might be assumed from Gough's last message, and did he, exhausted by the Allied command, go to Martinique, deciding to sit out until the end of the war in this quiet harbor?

Some believe that the sinking of the "unreliable" "Surkuf" was planned by the allies in advance, but was not made public so as not to spoil relations with the "Free France". In 1983, a former marine who served on the cruiser Savannah in 1942 stated that his ship received an order in mid-February to join forces with a certain English cruiser, and then find and sink the Surkuf, as it fired on allied ships. True, according to this tale, when the cruisers arrived at the appointed place, the Surkuf had already sunk for other reasons.
For some time, there were rumors in the ports of the Caribbean Sea that the Surkuf was seen in different parts of the sea after the date of the official death. The veracity of these rumors is being questioned. The submarine is gone...

Shortly after the disappearance of the Surcouf, the Free French demanded first an independent investigation, then permission to attend a meeting of the commission in New Orleans, and, finally, an opportunity to familiarize themselves with the Thomson Likes logbook. All these demands were rejected by Whitehall. And many months and even years later, the families of 127 French sailors and 3 English signalmen did not know anything about the circumstances of the death of their loved ones.

If the Surcouf had to be sacrificed because its crew changed flags and went over to the side of the pro-Nazi Vichy government, which resulted in attacks on allied ships, then, of course, every effort had to be made to save the reputation of the Free French Navy. . Any rumors of a rebellion or the deliberate destruction of the Surkuf by the Allies would provide invaluable propaganda material for the Nazis and Vichyists. The political reputation of the Free French would also suffer if one of its ships voluntarily went over to the camp of the enemy. So the official version of the death of "Surkuf" suited all parties. It was necessary to adhere to this version in the future, because the national pride of the French will not allow them to agree that the warship, included in the honorary name list of the "Free France", has betrayed de Gaulle.

Unlike the previous ones, the version put forward by the British researcher James Rusbridger looks very weighty. In the documents of the American 6th bomber group, he found a record that on the morning of February 19 near Panama "a large submarine was discovered and destroyed." Since the German archives did not record the loss of boats in that area at the indicated time, it is logical to assume that it was the Surkuf. Most likely, the boat's radio was damaged by the collision with the Thomson Likes that took place the day before, and she simply could not let the pilots know that they were bombing their own, and the boat ended up in the Panama area because it was the nearest allied port where it was possible to stand on repair.

There is another unproven, but interesting version:
the captain of the "Thomas Likes", who suddenly saw an unknown submarine in front of him, who had no warning about the presence of his ships in the area and who knew about the huge number of submarines in the area, Admiral Doenitz, could well consider it necessary to drown the unfamiliar vessel with a ramming blow.
During the work of the commission investigating the circumstances of the Thomas Likes accident, the head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, sent a secret memorandum to the US Navy Intelligence Directorate, in which he reported that the Surcouf sank off the island of Martinique on March 3, 1942, i.e. almost 2 weeks after the Thomson Likes collided with an unknown object.

The death of "Surkuf" in the representation of the artist Roberto Lunardo. If the boat caught fire or exploded, then it would definitely be seen from the side of the Thomson Likes transport

Charles de Gaulle wrote in his memoirs: “At the end of December, the threat loomed over New Caledonia. The situation was further aggravated by the fact that New Caledonia covered Australia, the main object of the enemy’s offensive. Meanwhile, on December 22, anticipating the Japanese occupation of our islands in Oceania, Vichy appointed Admiral Deco High Commissioner of the French Possessions in the Pacific, wishing, no doubt, with the support of the aggressor, to return our possessions to his rule. The Admiral did not cease to call on the Saigon radio the population of New Caledonia to revolt against the Free French. At the same time, d' Argenlier, who had to overcome all kinds of difficulties and endure unpleasantness, sent me reports full of energy, but not very encouraging.As for me personally, without ceasing to express to him my confidence that he could at least save the honor of France, I gave the order to send to Nouméa some of the reserves that we had at our disposal: command staff, naval guns, auxiliary the cruiser Cap de Palme; and, finally, Surcouf, from which one could expect effective operations in the Pacific Ocean due to its qualities as a long-range submarine. But, alas, on the night of February 20, at the entrance to the Panama Canal, this largest submarine in the world collided with a merchant steamer and sank with its commander, Captain 2nd Rank Blezon, and a crew of 130 people "

The Surkuf itself would definitely shed light on what happened, but its wreckage has not yet been found. In 1965, amateur scuba diver Lee Prittyman claimed to have found the Surcouf at the bottom of Long Island Sound, but the story quickly petered out before going beyond a couple of newspaper articles. To this day, alternative theories of the death of "Surkuf" are put forward. One of the most popular says that the Surkuf crew nevertheless went on a betrayal, and that a pair of American submarines Mackerel and Marlin found him in Long Island Strait reloading supplies and fuel onto a German submarine, as a result of which the "German ", and the "Frenchman" were sunk. Variations of this version include a coastal defense airship or a British destroyer instead of American submarines.

If we accept the official version of the death of the Surkuf as a result of a collision with the Thomson Likes, then its wreckage should lie at a depth of about 3000 meters (9800 feet) at a point with coordinates 10 ° 40 "N 79 ° 32" W. However, this point of the seabed has not yet been explored with the help of underwater vehicles, and the exact place of the death of the Surkuf cannot be considered established. Huge submarine with powerful artillery weapons. pride of the french navy

P.S.: memory of "Surkuf"

The year before last, it was55 years of creative activity as a film director and operator of the Odessa Film StudioVadim KOSTROMENKO.

For reference.Kostromenko Vadim Vasilievich Honored Art Worker of Ukraine. In 1952-1957. studied at the camera department of VGIK, in the workshop of Professor B. I. Volchek. Since March 1957, he has been working at the Odessa Film Studio, first as a cameraman (he shot 13 films), then as a film director (directed 12 films). Since 1996 - director of the Cinema Museum of the Odessa branch of the National Union of Cinematographers of Ukraine.

A quarter of a century ago, Central Television showed a four-episode film "Secret Fairway", filmed by V. Kostromenko based on the novel of the same name by Leonid Platov. To this day, this modest tape is regularly shown on various TV channels, and already a new generation of viewers is happy to follow the adventures of the commander of the Soviet torpedo boat Shubin, who managed to neutralize the formidable German submarine. But few people know that in the "Secret Fairway" for the first time in world cinema, the passage of a real submarine under water was filmed.

There is no boat, but the cinema remains

The film takes place in 1944 on the Baltic Sea. Performing a combat mission, the commander of the torpedo boat Boris Shubin accidentally discovers the secret fairway of a German submarine without identification marks. An unforeseen event throws him onto the "Flying Dutchman" and makes it possible to lift the veil of the strictest secrets of the Third Reich that surrounds it.

Naturally, in a picture where a submarine operates, it was difficult to do without scenes under water. At first, it was assumed that the submersion and ascent of the submarine would be filmed in the famous pool of the Odessa Film Studio. This pool was built to shoot naval battle scenes. The water was poured into the pool so that it overflowed. Models of ships from different eras, mainly sailing fleets, were launched into the pool, and they were put into action with the help of various devices. In the background, a panorama of the Black Sea opened up, thanks to which the illusion of a sea distance was created.

Local masters of combined filming managed to arrange quite plausible naval battles. Today, when reviewing these pictures, it is hard to believe that these scenes actually involved not real ships, but their very small scale models.

The model of the submarine was also being prepared for the "Secret Fairway", but when the director saw the dive of a real submarine, he literally fell ill with the desire to shoot this scene in kind.

- When a submarine sinks, - Vadim Vasilyevich Kostromenko explains his decision, - there is such a whirlpool, such a stunning picture that it is simply impossible to create such an effect in the pool.

Although the plot of the film was set in the Baltic, the underwater scenes were filmed in the Crimea, in Balaklava, especially since the water in these places was surprisingly clear. At that time, filmmakers were treated with respect, especially since the film told about the heroism of Soviet sailors, so that everything that was required for the film crew, the naval command gave out without further ado and for free. (Under the current conditions, such shooting would cost millions of hryvnias, or even dollars). However, this episode did not work out at first.

The film crew was given a diving board, in which a rigid ladder goes deep into the water. The director decided that a cameraman would sit at the end of this ladder, suitably equipped, of course, and with a special underwater camera. And next to him was to pass a submarine.

And then came the day of shooting. The submarine has arrived, but...

- I set a task for the commander of the boat, - recalls V. V. Kostromenko. - He looked at me and said: “Vadim Vasilievich, we will both go to jail. Do you think that I’m going along the highway? I’ll swim under water. "Let's sit down. No, I won't do that!"

He turned his boat around and left.

The director had to go to Sevastopol to see the commander of the fleet.

- I understand him, - said the commander, after listening to the director's story. - Here you need a risk-taker.

And he ordered to give another boat, with a different commander. The shooting went well, the expected effect turned out. During our conversation, Vadim Vasilyevich admitted that he did not remember the name of the dashing submarine commander. He remembers only his unique name-patronymic - Afrikan Afrikanovich. But the surname, as we managed to establish, the sailor wore the most simple - Popov.


And Lieutenant Commander Popov A.A. commanded the diesel-electric submarine S-296 of project 613, serial number 152. The first exit to the sea of ​​this boat was marked in 1955, and on October 1, 1990, the crew was disbanded. Apparently, during the subsequent turbulent years, the boat went to scrap. But she managed to enter the history of world cinema ...

With fun and courage

Vadim Vasilievich recalls other interesting situations during the Crimean filming. We had to shoot several underwater scenes of the meeting of two heroes. There is an unwritten law in cinema: during the filming of dangerous and important episodes, the director must be on the set. In this case, the underwater kingdom was such a platform, so the director had to take a scuba diver's course at an accelerated pace and even make the first test dive.

- But, as soon as I plunged, the water filled the mask, - recalls V. V. Kostromenko. - I surfaced and said: "Guys, what did you give me for a mask that lets water through?" And they answer me: "Vadim Vasilyevich, the mask is not to blame, you need to shave off your mustache."

- Well, I can't shave off my mustache! - the director continues smiling and says that when he once performed this procedure in his youth, he felt as if he was without pants.

Anatoly Kotenev, who played the lead role, resolved this impasse by persuading the director to stay ashore, since this underwater filming was technically quite simple. Reluctantly, the director agreed. But the cats scraped at heart: after all, the actors had to act without scuba gear: they had to dive into the water and quickly emerge. However, quite a long time has passed, and no one has appeared from the sea. V. Kostromenko rushed about on the shore in horror, assuming that the worst had happened. Meanwhile, the actors simply decided to play the director. They quickly shot the episode, then swam away from the director's eyes and calmly sunbathed themselves.

- Now, of course, it's fun to talk about it, but what I said then to the "jokers", I can't repeat to you, - Vadim Vasilyevich smiles.


The performer of the main role himself recalled that the consultant of the picture, the admiral, saw him on the set and asked: "You must have served in the Navy? You have a gait, a naval bearing." Meanwhile, before the artist had nothing to do with the fleet. He served in the artillery, besides, he spent most of his service on the stage, since he already had an elementary theatrical education. Sports activities helped, which came in handy during the filming of "Secret Fairway", where the actor had to parachute, swim under water and stay afloat for a long time in the open sea. True, the artist admitted, for the most part, one of my understudies swam under water, the other jumped with a parachute, and the performer himself at that time ran in the catacombs, where he portrayed a fight with the "German" - stuntman Peter Sherekin. But in the water he had to spend a whole film shift.

- We found a long pier that goes into the sea, - the artist later said, - from it they filmed against the backdrop of the sea. I swim there, imitate something, and from the pier they shout: "Tolya! Wander a little! Now we will reload the camera!" And I see the operator's assistant clumsily climbing up the hill to the bus with the equipment. And I swim. That's when I realized that while the camera is working, the actor will go into the fire and into the water ... yes, he will do anything! And while I heard the loud crash of the Convas camera, I selflessly floundered in the water.

But once A. Kotenev wanted to personally jump with a parachute, although they were filming a general plan and it could well have been replaced by an understudy. However, the artist persuaded the director to give him the opportunity to jump, assuring that he had the experience of as many as five jumps. "True," the actor said, looking at the director with honest eyes, "I left the documents about this at home." The problem was that during the war, round parachutes were used, which forty years later were no longer in warehouses. With great difficulty, they found an old round parachute, carefully checked it, and finally agreed to shoot.

A command sounded, the camera was turned on, and a lump flew out of the plane. He flew suspiciously long and only almost at the very ground opened a parachute.


"Tolya, what happened?" - the worried director ran up to the artist.

"Nothing special," he answered "on a blue eye," "I just wanted to show you what a long jump is."

Another funny episode happened during filming in the Baltic. It was written in the script: "The flotilla entered the bay, the water was boiling from explosions." To film this scene, pyrotechnicians planted explosives on a boat all day. But no one thought about the consequences of the explosions. And they did not keep themselves waiting. For, as soon as the shooting of the episode ended, thousands of fish corpses floated to the surface. And, as if it were a sin, out of nowhere, a fish inspection inspector appeared, who demanded that the film crew pay a fine. But in the estimate of the film, of course, there was no such article. I had to have a conversation with the inspector on the subject of what kind of film it was. Who is filming in it, etc. Meanwhile, the sailors cooked a beautiful fish soup from a stunned fish, which the inspector could not refuse ...

Interesting facts about the film

- Some episodes of the biography of the book hero Shurka Lastikov (closing a radiator hole with his body and Ushakov's medal among the awards) are drawn from the real life of a graduate of the Solovetsky school, Jung A.F. Kovalev (Rabinovich).

- In the film, the mysterious German submarine is U-127. This is indicated by the number stamped on the plate from which Shubin is fed on this submarine, and the number on a bent fork found in a pile of garbage in the ship cemetery at Pillau. The real boat U-127 died in 1941.

- Project 1204 "Bumblebee" river patrol artillery armored boat was filmed as torpedo boats. The BM-14-17 multiple launch rocket system was dismantled from several "Bumblebees", and dummies of tubular torpedo tubes were installed in the vacant place. After that, in their new form, the 73-ton "Bumblebees" in the film played the role of the 15-ton G-5 torpedo boats.

- The name of the commander of the "Flying Dutchman" is Gerhard von Zwischen. Translated from German, it means "Gerhard from between", that is, from nowhere, and is an allusion to Captain Nemo (Nemo is Latin for "no one") from Jules Verne's novel "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea".

The secret of longevity is sincerity

Jokes are jokes, but, as the director believes, his picture turned out to be prophetic to a certain extent. For in the last scene on the submarine, the fascist commander pronounces the following text: "This crazy, bad Hitler lost the war. And I want you to understand how easily and freely we will infiltrate the post-war world. We will enjoy the patronage of important people, we will preserve the national socialism and we will carefully cultivate it on the new soil.


“I am bitter that in some places, even here, fascism is rearing its head again,” says VV Kostromenko. - Our film is often shown on television, and I want to believe that these words will make someone think...

"The Secret Fairway" brought popularity to the lead actor Anatoly Kotenev. Now he is one of the leading actors in Belarus, starred in 60 films and TV series, and was even elected vice-president of the Belarusian Film Actors Guild.

There is no need to introduce Larisa Guzeeva, who starred in this film shortly after the resounding success of Cruel Romance. She was interested in playing a role in military uniform. That's just some viewers were dissatisfied with the death of the heroine, and after the release of the film, the director received many letters with an angry question: "Why did you kill such a beautiful woman?"

"Secret fairway" can not be called a masterpiece of world cinema. Honest, solid work, which even a quarter of a century later looks with unflagging attention. What is the secret of such longevity? Even the director himself does not know the answer to this question. Most likely, in sincerity, a sense of personal involvement, with which V. V. Kostromenko, "a child of war," shot the film.

American cinematographers - for all their technical sophistication - only five years later risked filming a real submersion of a submarine. So the laurels of the discoverers remained with our filmmakers.

used materials
Roman Cheremukhin and Maxim Obod.

February 1, 1960, Gulf of Golfo Nuevo, which is one thousand three hundred kilometers south of Buenos Aires. Harsh, inhospitable shores, where to this day the shadows of the caravels of Magellan hover, with perseverance and perseverance looking for a new - western - way to India. So, on that day, the sailors of the Argentine patrol vessel Murature spotted a half-submerged object with the help of sonar - it was thirty meters deep, several miles from the ship. It is possible that these were the wreckage of a wrecked ship. Or maybe it was an unknown submarine: after all, a few days earlier, in a foggy haze, at the very line of the horizon, they saw a strange ship sitting deep in the water - only a superstructure that looked like a gun turret stuck out on the surface; however, the unidentified ship soon disappeared from view.

And the signal reflected on the screen of the Murature sonar once again confirmed this assumption. It was necessary to force an unknown submarine to surface. In the course went training depth charges. After that, the muffled echoes of explosions were heard, foaming the surface of the bay in many places. Then there was silence. And long minutes of waiting.
But the sea was deserted.

Meanwhile, the sonar of the Argentine patrol aircraft continued to intercept the mysterious signals. The sailors on the "Muratura" were at a loss and confusion: what kind of goal is this - inaccessible, invulnerable. Well, just a real ghost ship. What is true is true, only this time it turned out to be a submarine - the first "Flying Dutchman" of the deep sea.

It was logical to think that the attacked submarine would try to go to the open sea. However, in fact, she chose to seek refuge there, in Golfo Nuevo, even though the bay could become a trap for her.

Ghost of Golfo Nuevo

Gulf of Golfo Nuevo goes deep into the South American mainland for a good hundred kilometers; its shores are completely indented by sandy bays bordered by sheer cliffs, behind which undulating dunes stretch. There is only one town along the coast, Puerto Madryn. In general, few people know this bay, but in just a couple of weeks many people learned about it, because it was he who became a kind of stage on which one of the greatest tragicomedies that ever happened at sea played out.

And it began with the fact that one fine day in the serene sky over Golfo Nuevo appeared a brigade of bombers with heavy bombs on board. The pilots circled over the bay in search of a target - and from the outside it even seemed very funny. But the planes rushed to the attack. And after that, the water surface seemed to boil - columns of foam and spray shot up into the air, which slowly scattered under the breath of a light wind.

Then the planes swept over the very surface of the bay, their wings almost touching the dying swell raised by the bomb explosions. And suddenly a long, cigar-shaped, with uneven outlines flashed in the water. “We spotted a submarine at a shallow depth,” one of the pilots later reported. “Its hull was over a hundred meters long. At the bow and stern, we saw the mines of missile launchers.

But the matter did not end there. The water above the boat frothed - some kind of stain appeared on the surface. Black, iridescent oily stain.

The submarine appears to have been hit. However, the next day, February 4, she surfaced and at full speed rushed to the exit from the bay, moving in zigzags so as not to fall under the fire of patrol ships, and then again went into the depths.

Two days later, the submarine made another attempt to break away from persecution. The signal on the sonar of the Argentine guards became weaker and weaker and eventually disappeared altogether ...

It just so happened that the events that took place in Golfo Nuevo gave rise to a legend: in a wild, deserted place, a mysterious, unidentified object suddenly appears - it either floats to the surface, then disappears under water, then reappears as if nothing had happened, and nothing can break it - neither bombs nor shells. While the object hid in the depths for several days, in Argentina they began to talk about some strange misunderstanding, or a vision, or even an ordinary swindle. But then a clergyman appeared on the scene - Archbishop Mariatio Perez. Once he was driving along the Golfo Nuevo in a car and suddenly noticed on the surface of the bay sparkling in the rays of the midday sun an oblong gray object that had been moving at low speed for a quarter of an hour, and then plunged under water.

The Argentine authorities were surprised: wow, a minister of the church, and all the same - ranting about some kind of vision! But then they thought: what if it really was a submarine?

Yes, but whose? To an official inquiry from Buenos Aires, Washington replied that there was not a single American submarine near the Argentine coast. The nearest one in February was two and a half thousand kilometers from Golfo Nuevo. The USSR also confirmed that at that time there was not a single Soviet submarine off the coast of Argentina.

The staff of the General Staff of the Argentine Navy were at a loss. The surest way to find out which country a mysterious boat belongs to is to make it finally float to the surface. And the then president of Argentina, Frondizi, did not get tired of repeating: “We must act ...”, but against whom? ..

The United States sent the most advanced weapons and detection equipment to Argentina ... As soon as a signal began to flutter on the sonar screens, planes immediately soared into the sky from the aircraft carrier Independence, which was cruising at the entrance to Golfo Nuevo. The surface of the bay swelled from bomb explosions - but all to no avail, except for a ton of stunned fish that floated to the surface.

It was then that all sorts of rumors spread around the country: in the bay, they say, they fished out the body of a scuba diver, who was killed just at the moment when he was repairing the hull of a submarine damaged by the explosion. And some even claimed that an unknown submarine landed a detachment of saboteurs in order to kill President Eisenhower during his upcoming visit to Argentina. Soon there was talk about obsessions ...

On February 25, the Argentine authorities announced that the search for the submarine had been called off. But why would it suddenly? Has the boat gone home? Or for some unknown reason? And yet - what? As always happens in such cases, none of the questions posed was given a precise answer. But rumors spread around the country again. For example, such: the Soviet government sent a secret note to President Frondisi. Curious to know what that note was? Perhaps it contained a strong demand to close the case of the mysterious events in Golfo Nuevo? ..

How to know, how to know, however, this business never ended - it received a further continuation. So the ghost submarine forever entered the history of secrets and mysteries associated with the sea.

On the way to escape

Many assumed that the mysterious submarine from Golfo Nuevo belonged to the Navy of the "Third Reich", and to the shores South America, far away, she was brought in search of a safe haven - although a dozen and a half years have passed since Nazi Germany capitulated. So the legend was born, and it was based, like many legends, on very real facts.

In the early morning of July 10, 1945, off the Argentine coast, directly opposite the city of Mardel Plata, a submarine surfaced and headed at low speed towards the ship of the Belgrano Marine Border Guard. Coming closer, she gave a light signal - a request to grant her asylum in the Argentine port. It was the submarine U-530, commanded by Otto Vermouth. He stated that he left Kiel on 19 February. After waiting for some time off the coast of Norway, he broke into the Atlantic and crossed the ocean from north to south - so as not to fall into the hands of the Russians.

But was it only for this reason that Otto Vermouth ventured on such a long and dangerous journey? Most likely, there were actually several reasons. And the main thing - at least, so they said at that time - was something else. It was known that somewhere on the coast of Norway, a secret division of German submarines was based, which was at the complete disposal of the leaders of the Third Reich. And on July 16, The Times even suggested that one of them delivered Hitler to Argentina.

On July 17, 1945, two more submarines were sighted off the Argentine coast. On August 17, U-977 under the command of Heinz Schaeffer entered Mardel Plata, she was running out of fuel. U-977 and U-530 were not the only German submarines that left the shores of Europe in the last days of World War II. In fact, there were many more of them, only many of them were missing, some were sunk, such as the famous U-853, loaded with gold totaling a million dollars. And only a few managed to reach the distant shores, where they expected to find a true refuge. So, on September 25, 1946, the captain of the American whaler "Julian II" said that he had stumbled upon a submarine near the Falkland Islands, and its commander ordered the Americans to give up the entire supply of fuel. According to other, unverified reports, German submarines were seen off the coast of Patagonia even in the fifties. What if the "Flying Dutchman" who entered Golfo Nuevo was one of them? However, it's incredible. Without a repair base, spare parts and, most importantly, fuel and food, not a single submarine could have sailed autonomously for so many years.

Be that as it may, German submarines from the Second World War made themselves felt in 1965. For example, on June 2, American diver Lee Prittiman discovered and photographed at a depth of forty-two meters near New York, between Long Island and the coast, the wreckage of a large submarine. Presumably these were the wreckage of the famous Surkuf.

It was officially believed that Surkuf sank on February 18, 1942 as a result of a collision with a transport ship. But not at Long Island, but three thousand eight hundred kilometers from New York and one hundred and forty kilometers east-northeast of the entrance to the Panama Canal.

At one time, the Surkuf was the largest and most powerful submarine in the world - a real cruiser, with a huge cabin, completely studded with barrels of 203-mm cannons and anti-aircraft machine guns; the boat had ten torpedo tubes, in addition, a seaplane was placed on board and one hundred and fifty crew members served.

This hulk was supposed to sow terror in the seas and oceans: for it was named after the famous corsair, whose name, having survived the centuries, has become legendary. However, in 1939-1940, when the war broke out, Surkuf was assigned the role of a patrol submarine, which was supposed to escort Canadian convoys. In June 1940, the Surkuf was in a repair dock in the French port of Brest when the Germans raided there. The boat miraculously managed to go to sea - and she safely reached Plymouth. It was there that her troubles began. English sailors tried to take possession of the Surkuf. The French opposed. There were threats from the British. A quarrel broke out. Revolvers were launched. Two English officers and one French sailor were killed in a skirmish...

Subsequently, re-equipped with the funds of the "Free France" ("Free France" - a patriotic movement for the liberation of France from the fascist invaders, led by Charles de Gaulle.), "Surkuf" again went to escort sea convoys. On February 12, 1942, he left Bermuda and headed for Tahiti through the Panama Canal. Since then, no one has seen him again.

On February 18, the American transport Thomson Laike left Cristobal (Cristobal is a port in Panama, located at the outlet of the Panama Canal, in the Caribbean Sea.) and headed for Guantanamo Bay (Guantanamo is a bay on the southeast coast of the island of Cuba.) That day it was overcast, the sea was a slight swell.

The night was coming on. The excitement at sea intensified. The running lights on the Thomson Like are darkened for the purpose of disguise: nothing can be done - war. On the bridge, surrounding the helmsman, three stand silently - the captain and two officers of the watch; only one light is on, the one that illuminates the compass card, and in its weak light the faces of all four seem unnaturally haggard. Tense eyes fixed on the night. Visibility leaves much to be desired.

At 10:30 p.m., a barely perceptible flash broke the darkness for a moment. Maybe the sailors' eyesight failed?
Or maybe this is an ordinary glow of the sea? However, it is possible that the ship is directly ahead. There is a cry: "Left aboard, quick!"

The steering wheel turns sharply on command - "Thomson Laike" with all its weight falls to the port side. The hull of the ship shudders under the impact of the waves and disappears for a moment behind a wall of foam spray.
The seconds are long, very long.

The captain and his subordinates stand with open mouths in surprise, brows furrowed, hands clenched into fists - the sailors continue to feel the darkness with restless eyes, which is getting even thicker, as if trying to hide the impending disaster. A faint hope appears on the faces of the sailors: what if they really dreamed of a ghostly fire ...
But no! Here it is again - fire. Already very close. There is no doubt: this is a ship. He seems to be within easy reach.

The captain gives a new command: "Right to the rudder!" We must try to get around the unknown ship from the stern.
However, all efforts are hopeless. And futile. There is a blow - somewhere under the bottom of the Thomson Laike. A thud and a piercing echo throughout the ship.

Then there was a real hell: a huge column of flame shot up into the black sky, illuminating the rearing prow of the transport with gloomy reflections and blinding the sailors. The fire, which seemed to burst from the very depths of the sea, brought to the deck the acrid, suffocating stench of burning fuel.

Then, indeed, there was something resembling a vision. Something huge and black floated along the starboard side of the Thomson Likee, like the wreckage of a ship sticking out of the water. The vision was followed by an explosion that shook the heavily loaded transport like a fragile boat, flames again soared into the air, merging into one fiery fountain, as if crowning the tragedy. When the flame, slightly weakened, sank to the deck, night and silence again reigned on the sea.

All this resembled a nightmare in which space and time were mixed up - awakening was not easy and painful. On the Thomson Lake, first one searchlight flashed, then another. Both beams, cutting through the darkness, fell into the sea. It was deserted - no wreckage, no boats, no hands of rescued people raised above the waves. The only thing that was more or less clearly visible on the surface was a wide, iridescent oily stain.
The Thomson Likee cruised until dawn, changing course now and then, combing the ill-fated section of the Caribbean for mile after mile ...

It's time to take stock of what happened. This is what experts have done. After hearing the testimony of the captain of the Thomson Laike and the crew members, the commission of inquiry came to a unanimous conclusion: the transport sank the submarine.

The death of an unknown submarine seemed absurd to many at that time - there certainly was not without an evil irony of fate. Indeed, a submarine is capable of sinking any ship, cargo, passenger or military... and even winning a war. But on the surface, and even at night, it is quite vulnerable - especially if it collides with a surface ship, whatever it was. Then the submarine goes to the bottom. And then - and this sometimes happened - the debris can again float to the surface, like a ghost rising from the underworld.

In the case of the Thomson Laike, there was no debris, and confirmation of this is a mysterious black object that passed by the transport, already after the explosion, sitting low in the water, which then disappeared without a trace. That's why everyone decided that the transport ship sank the German submarine.

And this - that it was German - seemed quite unbelievable. Why? Yes, very simple. On December 11, 1941, Germany entered the war with the United States, and immediately after that, submarines of the "Third Reich" appeared off the east coast of America - from New York to Florida. At the beginning of January 1942 there were five of them, in July - seventy, and in September - already a good hundred. And they acted extremely effectively, which plunged the Americans into horror. Still: after all, only from January to April 1942, they sent one hundred and ninety-eight ships to the bottom, and almost at the exit from the ports.

The Americans offered no resistance to the aggressors. Although, however, they would be glad - but with what? At the very beginning of hostilities, the American Coast Guard was armed with only a dozen patrol aircraft and a hundred wrecked aircraft, while under the circumstances, both were required ten times more. Only a few trap boats (Trap ship - usually a merchant ship converted to fight submarines.) made fearless raids in the Caribbean - and among them was one large yacht with a powerful engine, armed with heavy machine guns, bazookas, depth charges and equipped with reliable means of disguise. And the yacht was commanded by a forty-three-year-old healthy man with a short-cropped beard framing a high-cheeked face - in a word, none other than the famous writer Ernest Hemingway. He acted boldly and decisively - he let enemy submarines get as close as possible and opened fire on them from all types of weapons that he had on board.

In the early years of the war, German submarines in the Caribbean were innumerable. They piracy everywhere there - they robbed bulk carriers and oil tankers leaving Maracaibo and Curaçao. And yet, between January and June 1942, the Germans lost twenty-one boats. What if just one of them was sunk by the Thomson Laike?

As for the Surkuf, the American government made a completely official statement in connection with its disappearance, which, among other things, said that “the Surkuf submarine, which left Bermuda on a course to Tahiti, should be considered missing, since it has been missing for quite some time doesn't make itself known...

The mass invasion of German submarines into American territorial waters after the entry of the United States into the war was preceded by a period of long preparation. Some even claimed that some kind of German boat had been in Newport Harbor more than once in December 1941. It was a large transport designed to supply other submarines. He was served by a French team. Yes, and he sailed under the tricolor flag.

And then one night, just a few days after the outbreak of hostilities, this hulk was taken by surprise by an American anti-submarine ship (PLK) - just at the time when food supplies were transported from it to another boat. The Americans opened fire - and the underwater floating base sank in an instant. Where did it happen? Right next to Long Island. And a German sailor, an acquaintance of Lee Prittyman, claimed that this was the Surkuf, captured by the Germans on one ill-fated day and transferred to the armament of the Third Reich navy, only under the French flag.

Surprisingly, having touched this mysterious story, we seemed to have crossed the line between reality and fantasy. However, this time the fantasy has outdone itself. After all, Surkuf, as you know, left Bermuda on February 12, 1942. Therefore, there was no way the Germans could capture it before the United States entered the war - that is, until December 13, 1941.

However, even if we assume that the Surkuf was torpedoed by the Germans or by mistake the Americans themselves, how could this happen near New York if it lies much north of the Bermuda-Panama highway?

Of course, the most likely assumption was that the Surkuf sank as a result of a collision with a transport ship. But such an ordinary - albeit tragic - end of the giant submarine, of course, few people would have arranged, and therefore its mysterious disappearance immediately formed the basis of the legend.

"Titanic" of the deep sea

In 1955, a revolution took place in the submarine fleet. On January 17, the captain of one submarine sent a message on the air for the first time: “We are going on an atomic engine.”

From now on, there was no need to replenish fuel supplies on a long trip - the energy of a small uranium rod was more than enough to go around the globe twenty times in a row. Now it was not even necessary to surface to calculate the coordinates - an automatic radio sextant that captures the electromagnetic waves of stars made it possible to determine the location in a constant underwater mode. In addition, thanks to air regenerators, desalination and refrigeration plants - for storing large stocks of food - the submarine could already be at a depth, without surfacing, from two to three months. So, for example, in 1960, it took Triton only eighty-four days to make an autonomous circumnavigation under the water.

Soon, nuclear submarines earned themselves the reputation of being unsinkable. Such, for example, was the Thresher, “the fastest, most reliable and most maneuverable submarine of the US Navy,” in a word, the Titanic of the deep sea.

On April 10, 1963, teletypes carried around the world a short - but completely unbelievable - message: “During a training dive, the American nuclear submarine Thresher went missing. What? .. Is this a sea monster, as if resurrected from medieval legends and, thanks to its ultra-modern weapons, terrifying surface ships, went to the bottom due to some trifling leak or mechanical failure? Yes, that cannot be!

Everything happened surprisingly simply - and this only aggravated the misfortune. On the eve of the tragedy, the Thresher left the Portsmouth arsenal, where it was repaired and re-equipped, and went to the open sea to undergo sea trials in a submerged position. April 10, he reached the maximum depth. The Skylark ship monitored the progress of the dive. Every quarter of an hour a voice was heard from the depths of the ocean over the hydrophone. The submarine went halfway to the maximum depth - a hundred meters remained to the critical point of immersion. Finally, the maximum depth is reached. At 9:12 a.m., a calm, slightly nasal, metallic voice was heard again in the hydrophone, sounding like a distant echo, as if it came from the underworld itself: “We are experiencing minor complications. Let's go to positive angle lift. We are trying to blow out the ballast. Before contact."
Further - silence.

Long, tense silence. Too long. And too stressful. The people on the Skylark were already getting impatient. And in the hydrophone, from the surface, the question sounded: “How are you doing there - is the boat obeying control?” It would seem the most common question - but how much anxiety there is in it! However, there was no response...

Finally, through the countless static from the abyss, came fragmentary, indistinct cries: “Probing depth! ..”, and then something like: “... we crossed the permissible limit ...” Then there were clicks - and silence again. However, according to the testimony of the crew of the bathyscaphe, launched from the Skylark, the silence was not dead - it was filled with thousands of distant, barely distinguishable sounds, which were soon mixed with a distinct crackle and, after that, a strange roar, as if from an explosion. The giant Thresher, the invincible, unsinkable Thresher, flattened at great depths like a pitiful tin, and shattered into many pieces of debris, which slowly sank to the seabed.

Over the next few days, thirty-three surface ships searched for the wreckage of the Thresher - or at least for signs of the wreck. The day after the disaster, a submarine picked up "distinct, sharp sound signals." Where did they come from? Perhaps they were served by submariners who miraculously survived in some tightly battened compartment of a dilapidated boat? But the United States Department of the Navy did not take into account this last hope: the Thresher did not have a transmitter capable of transmitting similar signals. So, "Thresher" disappeared, and without a trace.

And then a rather strange thing happened. More precisely, it was a mirage, similar to what sailors, prowling in search of sunken ships, had seen more than once. Once from Skylark, which caught Last messages"Thresher", noticed an unknown ship "dirty gray". It moved, deep in the water, there were no superstructures on it - only some strange triangular object above the bridge. What is the subject? One of the Skylark sailors later said: “At first we thought it was a submarine with a sail ...” Miracles, and nothing more: a nuclear submarine with a sail!

However, jokes aside. Alas, there was no doubt that the Thresher sank: in the place where the disaster occurred, oil slicks were soon discovered on the surface of the sea and miscellaneous items, undoubtedly belonged to Thresher.

But why did the boat sink? Did the hull fail? Well, it is quite possible: after all, the Skylark's sonar detected a noise that looked like crackling. Yes, but in that case, a lot more debris would float to the surface. Most likely, the watertight bulkheads were cracking, unable to withstand the crazy pressure of water that rushed inside the boat into a leak formed under enormous pressure.

A little later, at a depth of 2800 meters, where the wreckage of the Thresher rested, the bathyscaphe Trieste sank. The surveyors on board photographed everything that was left of the submarine that had broken into pieces, and raised separate parts of the pipeline to the surface.

While experts scrupulously studied the finds recovered from the ocean floor, rumors spread that the Thresher sank because it was repaired in haste, that it was a victim of sabotage, or that it was attacked by a Soviet submarine. Such conjectures were also supported by the report of the Boeing 707 crew: on April 11, pilots, flying over the Atlantic, observed a strange whirlpool on the surface of the ocean; yes, but it happened 2500 kilometers from the crash site.

If the cause of the death of the Thresher was more or less clear, then the catastrophe of the nuclear submarine Scorpion remained a complete mystery - the greatest of maritime mysteries.

After exercises in the Mediterranean, the Scorpion went to a base in Norfolk, Virginia. The boat was supposed to approach the American coast on May 21, 1968, at exactly 5 pm. However, she never returned to base that day. What happened to her?

A vast square eighty kilometers from the coast - between the point where the last "radio" from the Scorpion came from, and Norfolk - mile after mile was searched by 55 ships and 30 aircraft. However, they could be more or less - what's the difference. The main thing that the sailors and pilots lacked was good luck and luck.

After some time, 1,300 kilometers from the Azores, a search aircraft noticed an oily spot and a lone orange object on the surface of the ocean. But the rescue ships that arrived at the indicated place did not find anything similar to the object described by the pilots. Maybe it was a signal buoy fired by shipwrecked submariners. Or maybe not. After all, a great many different debris drifts in the ocean, and each has its own history and secret.

But then one fine day, some radio amateur from Yorkshire caught an incredible message: “Scorpion is in touch. Our capacitor has failed. But we will try to reach the base.” However, the US Department of the Navy again only shrugged. If the message was relayed via the emergency beacon fired from the Scorpion, it should have been repeated several times: the emergency beacons are programmed to constantly transmit a distress signal. So the highest ranks of the US Navy reacted to the news of the Yorkshire radio amateur with obvious distrust.

But, be that as it may, the hope of finding the "Scorpio" has not yet disappeared. On May 31, another American submarine spotted, using sonar, an elongated, cigar-shaped object lying at a depth of fifty-five meters, one hundred and ten kilometers from Cape Henry. Scuba divers immediately descended to the indicated place - the “object” turned out to be a rusty hull of a German submarine, overgrown with algae and shells, which sank during the Second World War ...

On June 8, Newsweek wrote that the Scorpion had been assigned a secret mission to observe a Soviet nuclear submarine. Further, the magazine hinted that even in peacetime, such surveillance operations often end tragically. However, there are exceptions.

So, for example, in May 1974, not far from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, a submarine surfaced, foaming the expanse of the ocean. At first glance, it would seem, nothing unusual. But a few minutes later, another submarine appeared on the surface, in the same place. Perhaps both boats returned from a joint voyage? Nothing happened. The first of them - "Pintado" - was American. And the second is Soviet. And they followed each other. Moreover, the distance between them was so small that during the next maneuver at a depth of two hundred meters, they simply collided. So another tragedy almost happened, which hardly anyone would have known about, especially since it would have happened at a considerable depth. However, thank God, this time everything worked out, the tragedy turned into a tragicomedy, and there were no victims - both the Russians and the Americans escaped with only minor injuries. And the end of this story was completely funny: the boats turned stern to each other and each went to its own base ...

On March 19, 1975, The New York Times wrote that the Russians lost a nuclear submarine - in the Pacific Ocean, 1,500 kilometers from the Hawaiian Islands, and it sank at a depth of five thousand meters. It happened in 1960. Then the sonars of American anti-submarine patrol ships detected a deep explosion in that area and established the exact place where it occurred.

Time passed - and the Americans managed to raise part of the boat's hull from the bottom of the ocean. According to the same New York Times, the CIA organized a secret search expedition in the disaster area, code-named Operation Jennifer, financed by Howard Hughes.

This expensive operation involved a ship equipped with special electronic equipment that allows you to quickly decipher the secret identification codes of Soviet submarines.

After a long, careful preparation, the hull of the boat was finally picked up by the hoists with great difficulty and began to be carefully lifted to the surface. However, during the ascent, it fell apart in half - and that part of the submarine, where the missiles, engines and communications center were located, irrevocably sunk into the abyss.

So “Operation Jennifer”, which was carried out in the strictest silence, failed: the nuclear heart, power and missile installations of the super-modern Soviet nuclear submarine, along with all the top-secret ship documentation, remained forever resting on the ocean floor. But as a result, a new legend about the "Flying Dutchman" of the deep sea was born. And how many more there will be - only God knows.

Robert de Lac French writer | Translated from French by I. Alcheev