Cuban Missile Crisis
September 26th October 1962, is the anniversary of when nuclear war between USSR (Russia) and the USA was prevented by the bravery of one of my heroes a Russian Executive Officer on a soviet nuclear submarine.
At the height of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the soviet submarine developed a radio fault whilst in international waters just off America and it was discovered by US warships which dropped depth charges to try to force it to the surface.
The soviet submarine Captain, unable to contact his base, thought World War Three had started and decided to fire nuclear weapons at the American ships, but three different keys had to be used in order for them to be fired. The Captain and the Political Officer both agreed to use their keys, but the Executive Officer, Vasily Arkhipov, at great risk to his own life, refused his commanding officer’s repeated direct orders to use the third.
His bravery saved us all from a nuclear holocaust, and later, the Soviet’s themselves recognised that bravery by promoting him first to rear admiral, then as the the head of the Kirov Naval Academy, and finally to vice admiral before his retirement in 1988.
