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HUGHES GLOMAR EXPLORER
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HUGHES GLOMAR EXPLORER

San Francisco
1970's

At this stage she was not officially a USN ship being built as a drilling ship by the Hughes Corporation for the CIA. However she was not used for drilling but as a platform to raise a USSR Nato category Golf class diesel ballistic missle submarine which had sunk in the Pacific.

This was achieved under the usual cloud of secrecy however the reports to date state the submarine broke up as it was being raised, but this was possibly propoganda knowing how reliable any press releases from the CIA or US military are.It was a major Cold War success for the USA.However as the USSR had a family of spies in the USN no doubt they were kept informed in real time !

She was aquired by the USN in 1976 and renamed Glomar Explorer AG-193.

Eventually she was sold by the USN and rebuilt.

launched 14/11/1972
63300 GRT
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Now that is an interesting ship....read three books on the subject some years ago...Jennifer Project, A Matter of Risk and Blind Man's Bluff. I believe they recovered the bodies of six Soviet Submariners and gave them a buriel at sea which was filmed and passed to the relevant Soviet authorities.
Cheers....Bill
 

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Nice picture. The depth/exploration technology has improved a little since then, but one wonders if the trust will ever be told. regards Paul
 
C

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When the "cover story" broke in regards to this vessel being built to recover valuable material's from the sea floor a number of other Companies fell for the story and started build programme's to do the same. It makes you wonder when the American's went this far to recover a Sub as to whether they ever got to the Moon.
 

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There are stories relating to the Russian Golf, which suggest she was subject to foul play.
As much of the Golf broke up during the process of raising it from the bottom, I wonder if the cost was worth it?
 
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have seen the tv do***entry about the attempted sub recovery a couple of times
 
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Stevo, from what I understand the American's were overjoyed with what they retrieved, but I suppose they would say that, never seen any estimated cost's for it.
 
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I was involved with Glomar Explorer while in the Navy and the Operation was Code named Project Jennifer and also Project Azorian. The entire project was highly classified and certain elements remain so till this day. I can say that multiple remains of Soviet Sailors were recovered and buried at sea with full Military Honors. The Cold War was in full blossom but a film of the Burial Ceremony was sent to Admiral Sergi Gorbichov CIC of the Soviet Navy at the time.

Hugh
 
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This photo shows her under tow in San Francisco Bay. The tugs are either the Sea Duke or Sea Queen on the starboard bow, Sea Lark lashed up on the starboard quarter, and Sea Horse on the stern. She was a very heavy ship, and would probably have had one more tug made up on the port bow of the ship. All the tugs are part of the Red Stack fleet of Shipowners and Merchants Tugboat Company.
 
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watched a program about this on a satelite channel the other day, very interesting stuff and showed some footage that has been declassified which shows parts of the grab and the submarine, was an incredible achievement to raise what they did considering how and when they did it, i was well impressed

ben
 

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