General Discussions
This is the place to discuss general issues related to the U-boat war or the war at sea in WWII.
Re: SUBMARINES ON SWEDISH TERRETORY IN WW2
Posted by:
Yuri IL\\\\\\\'IN
()
Date: March 21, 2002 07:40AM
<HTML>Reuters - A Soviet submarine that ran aground off neutral Sweden two decades ago was lost and did not intentionally violate Swedish territorial waters, according to a report submitted to the Swedish government on Thursday.
The much-publicised "Whiskey on the Rocks" incident off Sweden's southeastern Baltic coast in autumn 1981 soured relations between Stockholm and Moscow for over 10 years and can still raise waves of acrimonious debate in domestic politics.
It set off a submarine surveillance frenzy in militarily non-aligned Sweden. More than 6,000 alleged sightings were reported to the authorities during the 1980s and early 1990s.
The massive hunt for the submarines, which embarrassed the Swedish military by failing to find anything, was one of the biggest military operations in Western Europe since 1945.
The fresh report commissioned by the government of Prime Minister Goran Persson, who commentators say is eager to get the issue out of the way before a September 2002 election, said there were fewer than 10 verified violations of Swedish waters.
It released hitherto unpublished information suggesting that the Soviet Whiskey-class U-137, which ran aground on October 27, 1981, had lost its way, just as Moscow claimed all along.
"The investigation has learned that the Soviet side was searching for the submarine for six hours in its assigned patrol area east of Bornholm before realising that it was in Swedish territory," it said.
"This has been known to the Swedish defence command ever since the incident," the report added, noting that earlier reports on the submarine affair had nevertheless concluded that the violation of Swedish territory must have been intentional.
Bornholm is a Danish island in the Baltic Sea off Sweden's south-eastern tip, about 120 km (75 miles) from Sweden's Karlskrona naval base, near which the submarine ran aground.
The report said it had not been possible to unearth solid evidence about the nationality of other submarines that probably entered Swedish waters during the 20-year period reviewed.
Despite the lack of hard facts, earlier reports pinned the territorial water violations squarely on the Soviet navy.
In March 2000 former U.S. Defence Secretary Caspar Weinberger said NATO submarines had operated in Swedish waters in the 1980s under a tacit agreement with Stockholm.
Allegations that submarines from NATO rather than the Soviet Union had been sighted have surfaced from time to time, most recently on Swedish TV4 television news on Wednesday evening.
"There was an explicit American strategy to carry out these kind of violations in waters of other countries to make people realise how serious the Russian threat was," Swedish foreign ministry official Ulf Svensson told TV4, citing a soon-to-be-published book.</HTML>
The much-publicised "Whiskey on the Rocks" incident off Sweden's southeastern Baltic coast in autumn 1981 soured relations between Stockholm and Moscow for over 10 years and can still raise waves of acrimonious debate in domestic politics.
It set off a submarine surveillance frenzy in militarily non-aligned Sweden. More than 6,000 alleged sightings were reported to the authorities during the 1980s and early 1990s.
The massive hunt for the submarines, which embarrassed the Swedish military by failing to find anything, was one of the biggest military operations in Western Europe since 1945.
The fresh report commissioned by the government of Prime Minister Goran Persson, who commentators say is eager to get the issue out of the way before a September 2002 election, said there were fewer than 10 verified violations of Swedish waters.
It released hitherto unpublished information suggesting that the Soviet Whiskey-class U-137, which ran aground on October 27, 1981, had lost its way, just as Moscow claimed all along.
"The investigation has learned that the Soviet side was searching for the submarine for six hours in its assigned patrol area east of Bornholm before realising that it was in Swedish territory," it said.
"This has been known to the Swedish defence command ever since the incident," the report added, noting that earlier reports on the submarine affair had nevertheless concluded that the violation of Swedish territory must have been intentional.
Bornholm is a Danish island in the Baltic Sea off Sweden's south-eastern tip, about 120 km (75 miles) from Sweden's Karlskrona naval base, near which the submarine ran aground.
The report said it had not been possible to unearth solid evidence about the nationality of other submarines that probably entered Swedish waters during the 20-year period reviewed.
Despite the lack of hard facts, earlier reports pinned the territorial water violations squarely on the Soviet navy.
In March 2000 former U.S. Defence Secretary Caspar Weinberger said NATO submarines had operated in Swedish waters in the 1980s under a tacit agreement with Stockholm.
Allegations that submarines from NATO rather than the Soviet Union had been sighted have surfaced from time to time, most recently on Swedish TV4 television news on Wednesday evening.
"There was an explicit American strategy to carry out these kind of violations in waters of other countries to make people realise how serious the Russian threat was," Swedish foreign ministry official Ulf Svensson told TV4, citing a soon-to-be-published book.</HTML>
| Subject | Written By | Posted |
|---|---|---|
SUBMARINES ON SWEDISH TERRETORY IN WW2
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Juan | 03/17/2002 01:46PM |
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Re: SUBMARINES ON SWEDISH TERRETORY IN WW2
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Yuri IL\'IN | 03/18/2002 12:27AM |
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Re: SUBMARINES ON SWEDISH TERRETORY IN WW2
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JE | 03/23/2002 07:10PM |
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Re: SUBMARINES ON SWEDISH TERRETORY IN WW2
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Yuri IL'IN | 03/24/2002 06:47PM |
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Re: SUBMARINES ON SWEDISH TERRETORY IN WW2
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JE | 03/26/2002 07:27PM |
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Re: SUBMARINES ON SWEDISH TERRETORY IN WW2
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Juan | 03/25/2002 06:38PM |
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Re: SUBMARINES ON SWEDISH TERRETORY IN WW2
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walter M | 03/19/2002 09:11PM |
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Re: SUBMARINES ON SWEDISH TERRETORY IN WW2
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Yuri IL'IN | 03/20/2002 12:29AM |
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Re: SUBMARINES ON SWEDISH TERRETORY IN WW2
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Yuri IL\'IN | 03/20/2002 01:00PM |
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Re: SUBMARINES ON SWEDISH TERRETORY IN WW2
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Rainer Bruns | 03/20/2002 04:45AM |
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Re: SUBMARINES ON SWEDISH TERRETORY IN WW2
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walter M | 03/20/2002 07:57PM |
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Re: SUBMARINES ON SWEDISH TERRETORY IN WW2
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Yuri IL\\\'IN | 03/21/2002 04:14AM |
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Re: SUBMARINES ON SWEDISH TERRETORY IN WW2
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Yuri IL\\\\\\\'IN | 03/21/2002 07:40AM |