Alfred Leo Pelletier
US SSN 681 BATFISH

Voyage of the Batfish: 50 days tailing Soviet sub

By Pauline Jelinek
The Associated PressWASHINGTON - They kept silent for 23 years. But yesterday, members of a U.S. submarine crew
finally described a top-secret mission some believe may have hastened the end of the Cold War.

In the 1978 mission dubbed "Operation Evening Star," the nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine USS Batfish detected
a Soviet submarine armed with 16 nuclear missiles and bound for America's East Coast.

The Batfish tailed the Soviet submarine for 50 days without being detected, collecting valuable information on how the
Soviets operated, said retired Rear Adm. Thomas Evans, who commanded the Batfish.

"It was tedious at times," Evans said of the mission, which began in South Carolina on March 2, 1978, and lasted 77
days.

Though it wasn't the first mission to follow the Soviets, nor the last, it was one of the more successful, and information on
it has been declassified by the Navy.

"We knew exactly where that submarine went on an hour-to-hour basis," Evans told a news conference at the
Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. He said the mission tracked the Soviets' route and mapped the
area the Soviets were patrolling.

The press conference was held by Smithsonian magazine, which publishes in its March issue the first story of the Batfish
mission, by author Thomas Allen.

Détente was wearing thin

In the article called "Run Silent, Run Deep," Allen says the mission came when the Carter administration's détente with
the Soviets was wearing thin amid concern about Soviet missile submarines cruising off both U.S. coasts.

Evans attributed the mission's success to the experienced crew, to the Batfish design that made it "extremely quiet" and
to a then-new, extra-sonar system that was dragged behind the American sub, making its sonar detection superior to
the less-advanced and noisier Yankee-class Soviet sub.

The U.S. technology meant the Batfish could get close enough to hear the Yankee, but not close enough to be heard by
it, Evans said. He usually hung back 7,000 to 10,000 yards.

Fifteen days into the mission, on March 17, 1978, the Batfish detected the Yankee at the north end of the Norwegian
Sea some 200 miles above the Arctic Circle.

Evans said that during the 50 days, the Batfish temporarily lost the Yankee only twice. Once was during a bad storm that
kicked up wind and waves, creating too much background noise on the sensitive sonar.

Another time, Allen says, the distracting noise came from a fishing fleet that passed overhead with its rumbling diesel
engines and whining hydraulic winches that are used to work the nets.
`
Acoustic signature'

By then, Batfish sonar technician Daniel Lawrence had figured out the Yankee's "acoustic signature," and could relocate
it without too much trouble after the distractions passed.

"Each submarine has its own acoustic characteristics," Evans said, like "when you hear Frank Sinatra over the radio you
don't have to be told it's Frank Sinatra, but you know who it is."

Evans said the Soviets never knew they were followed until they learned it through espionage - the infamous Walker spy
case.

Retired Navy Warrant Officer John Walker pleaded guilty in 1985. He admitted passing secrets to the Soviets while he
was a shipboard communications officer and, after his retirement, by recruiting his son, brother and a friend to provide
fresh information.

U.S. intelligence officials later came to believe that when the Soviets learned about missions such as Operation Evening
Star, they realized their subs were vulnerable and embarked on a budget-draining attempt to catch up that eventually
contributed to the end of the Cold War, Evans said.

The Navy last year declassified some information about the Batfish - and a similar 1972 mission - so the information
could be used in an exhibit at the National Museum of American History honoring the centennial of the U.S. submarine
force.

And what was his top-secret order, had the Batfish determined that Yankee was about to fire a nuclear missile?

"Only the captain had those orders sealed in his safe," said Evans, the captain. "And they remain classified today."
Submerged submarines in tandem.
A Sturgeon class nuclear-powered attack
submarine, possibly the Batfish (SSN-681), is
shown deplarting the Chesapeake Bay as the
guided missile cruiser Yorktown (CG-48)
enters the bay en route to the Norfolk Naval
Station, 26 Feb 1992.
Sturgeon Class Attack Submarine:

Laid down, 9 February 1970, at the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics Corp., Groton, CT.; Launched, 9
October 1971; Commissioned, USS Batfish (SSN-681), 5 May 1972; Decommissioned 2 November 1998; Struck from the
Naval Register, 17 March 1999; Final Disposition, laid up at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard awaiting disposal through the
NPSSRP (Nuclear Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program) at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, WA.

Specifications:

Displacement, Surfaced: 3,640 t., Submerged: 4,640 t.; Length 302'; Beam 31' 8"; Draft 28' 8"; Speed, Surfaced 15 kts,
Submerged 25 kts; Depth limit 1,300'; Complement 108; Armament, four 21" torpedo tubes amidships aft of bow, MK 48
Torpedoes, UUM-44A SUBROC, UGM-84A/C Harpoon, MK 57 deep water mines, MK 60 CAPTOR mines; Combat
Sensors, Radar, BPS-14/15 surface search, Sonars, BQQ-5 multi-function bow mounted, BQR-7 passive in submarines
with BQQ-2, BQS-12 active 7, TB-16 or TB-23 towed array, EW Systems, WLQ-4(V), WLR-4(V), WLR-9 ; Propulsion
System, one S5W nuclear reactor, two steam turbines, one propeller, 15,000 shp
Batfish (SSN-681)
Counter
A starboard bow view of the nuclear-powered attack submarine Batfish (SSN-681) with the guided missile destroyer
Scott (DDG-995) in the background. Personnel are being transferred from the Batfish to the Scott by way of a motor
whaleboat during exercise ADVANCE PHASE III off the coast of Florida, 1 Jul 1986.
MK 48 Torpedoes