Thread by @AtomicAnalyst

Fifty-nine years ago today—October 27, 1962—was arguably the most dangerous day of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a day when human error and sky-high tensions together nearly started World War III by accident at least three separate times. Here's what happened:

While flying a scheduled Strategic Air Command air-sampling mission out of Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, over the North Pole to collect debris from Soviet atmospheric nuclear tests, Capt. Charles Maultsby’s U-2 accidentally strayed into Soviet airspace for more than an hour …

starting at 8:00am Alaska time (Noon in Washington, DC) because he was blinded by the aurora borealis and unable to navigate accurately using the stars. MiG-19 fighters were scrambled from Pevek Airport on the Chukotka Peninsula at 11:56am EDT (and a little later from Anadyr) …

but were unable to shoot down the U-2. Although Strategic Air Command was able to track Maultsby and the MiGs by eavesdropping on Soviet air defense communications, they could not share this vital information with him because those capabilities were a closely-held secret.

Instead, SAC guided Maultsby home by instructing him to turn left until Orion’s Belt was off his right wingtip (thereby flying westward and back to Alaska). Alaska Air Defense Command scrambled two F-102s from Galena Air Force Base to guide Maultsby home and intercept the MiGs.

Because DEFCON 3 had been ordered earlier in the week, the conventional weapons normally carried by the aircraft had been removed and each F-102 Delta Dagger was now armed with a Falcon air-to-air missile carrying a .25-kiloton (250 tons) W54 nuclear warhead.

Maultsby actually ran out of fuel after leaving Soviet airspace and had to glide to a safe landing at a remote airstrip in Kotzebue, Alaska, at 2:25pm EDT, after flying 10 hours and 25 minutes (making his the longest U-2 flight on record).

Incredibly, SAC did not inform SecDef Robert McNamara of Maultsby’s wayward flight until 1:41pm EDT. McNamara hurriedly left a meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and telephoned President Kennedy four minutes later. The Pentagon notified the State Department at 1:47pm EDT.

President Kennedy famously said of this very dangerous incident, “There is always some son-of-a-bitch who doesn't get the word.” But Maultsby was not at fault because no word had ever been given. No one at SAC had thought to review or suspend these flights during the crisis.

McNamara immediately ordered a second U-2 air-sampling mission to the North Pole already in the air to be recalled and subsequently canceled all U-2 air-sampling missions pending a full Air Force investigation into Maultsby’s errant flight (which remains classified to this day).

(Maultsby’s mistake made the New York Times front page the next morning, after Khrushchev disclosed the incident in a letter to Kennedy. Neither leader specified the type of aircraft involved and Khrushchev politely but firmly stressed the risk to peace such flights entailed.)

Meanwhile, Strategic Air Command rushed the first Minuteman 1A ICBM onto full alert at Launch Facility A-06 at Malmstrom AFB, Montana (some sources say this happened on October 26). Five more followed by October 30. Test missiles were also made war ready at Vandenberg AFB, CA.

As Scott Sagan wrote in “The Limits of Safety,” to make these ICBMs ready for war quickly (SAC went to DEFCON 2 on October 24), Air Force personnel jury-rigged systems and improvised their own safety procedures. Said one, “I could have launched it on my own, if I had wanted to.”

At 11:19am EDT, over eastern Cuba, Soviet air defense forces at Banes shot down a U-2 reconnaissance plane piloted by Maj. Rudolf Anderson, Jr., out of fear it would discover that 3 FKR nuclear-armed cruise missiles had been deployed just 15 miles from Guantanamo Naval Base.

That evening, Soviet Foxtrot-class submarine B-59 was submerged in international waters off Cuba when a group of 12 US Navy vessels located it. In order to identify it, the ships began dropping grenades and practice depth charges to force it to surface. nationalgeographic.com/culture/articl…

Submarine B-59 had been unable to surface for four days. As a result, it was excessively stuffy and carbon dioxide levels were dangerously high. And because it was not designed for tropical conditions, temperatures inside were almost unbearable, ranging from 122˚ F to 142˚ F.

To remain hidden from US forces, B-59 was sailing too deep to monitor radio traffic. No one aboard knew if the crisis had escalated into an actual war. Exhausted, confused, and rattled by the explosives, the captain ordered a torpedo to be prepared to launch at his tormentors.

Executive officer Vasili Arkhipov, 34, who was aboard the B-59 and also commodore of the entire Soviet submarine flotilla in Cuba, refused to authorize the torpedo launch and—following an argument—convinced Captain Valentin Savitsky to relent, surface, and await further orders.

(Fun Fact: in July 1961, Arkhipov was aboard the nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine K-19 when it suffered a catastrophic reactor accident that killed 23 crew members—8 of them within one to three weeks—and nearly led to the loss of the submarine.)

When the B-59 surfaced, US ASW aircraft harrassed it with searchlights, flares, and tracer fire. Savitsky and others on the bridge panicked, believing they were under attack. He ordered a 10-kt nuclear torpedo readied for launch and turned the sub toward the destroyer USS Cony.

Cdr. William Morgan, the Cony’s captain, ordered Ens. Gary Slaughter to apologize for the aggressive tactics with a flashing signal light. Savitsky had already gone below. Arkhipov and a signals officer were about to descend when the officer and his light got stuck in the hatch.

Momentarily delayed, Arkhipov saw Slaughter’s flashing message and instantly understood its meaning. He ordered a halt to all preparations to fire the nuclear torpedo, although it remained in its tube. Savitsky acknowledged the apology, closed his torpedo doors, and turned away.

The incredible story of the B-59 and Vasili Arkhipov was very effectively dramatized in this October 2012 episode of “Secrets of the Dead”:

In addition to all that, the US and the USSR each conducted atmospheric nuclear tests today in 1962. The US test—Calamity (part of Operation Dominic)—involved an 800-kiloton device airdropped and detonated at 11,780 feet 164 miles SE of Johnston Island.

The Soviet test—codenamed 192—involved a 260-kiloton device airdropped and detonated 5,090 feet above Area C at the arctic archipelago of Novaya Zemlya.

The crisis eased the next day when Khrushchev announced on Radio Moscow all Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba would be dismantled and removed. But it only ended on Nov. 20 when nuclear-capable bombers flew home. (Decades later, we learned 158 Soviet warheads were also in Cuba.)

A good clarification from @CobraBall3. By the time the first Minuteman 1A ICBMs were hastily activated on this day in 1962, SAC already had 132 Atlas E/F and Titan I ICBMs—each armed with a 4.5-Mt W38 warhead—deployed and on alert as the crisis intensified.