These days, a floating crane called the Chesapeake 1000 (nicknamed “Chessie”) has been tasked with the grueling task of salvaging shattered steel from last week’s deadly bridge collapse in Baltimore.
I have taken on many jobs over the decades. But Crane’s most notable activity, until last week, was helping the CIA recover part of a sunken Soviet submarine.
What is the origin story?
In the early 1970s, this crane barge was called the Sun 800 because of the tonnage it could lift. This helped build a special ship in 1974 to lift parts of the submarine. Specifically, the ship’s heavy equipment was hoisted by a crane, which was essential for Cold War-era heists.
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The device included mechanical claws, large amounts of steel tubing, and a heavy-duty hydraulic system. The Soviet submarine was about three miles below the surface of the Pacific Ocean.
The CIA wrote on its website that the ship is “capable of conducting entire recovery operations underwater, out of sight of other ships, aircraft, and reconnaissance satellites.” The special ship was called the Hughes Gromar Explorer, after billionaire businessman Howard Hughes.
To save time, shipyards in the Philadelphia area built the heavy parts of the ship on land. A floating crane was needed to lift the assembled parts onto the new ship.
“The Sun 800 was built specifically to support the construction of the Hughes Glomar Explorer,” said Gene Schorsch, then head of hull design for Sun Shipbuilding and Drydock.
A Chesapeake 1000 crane is used to assist in debris removal efforts after the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Maryland on March 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Brian Witte, File)
What was the CIA’s mission?
This secret mission was called “Project Azorian.”
A 1975 news article reported on this mission. But Washington did not confirm the basic facts until 2010, when the CIA released a partially redacted report that was missing many important details.
“This is considered one of the most expensive intelligence operations in history,” said M. Todd Bennett, a history professor at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, and author of a 2022 book about the mission. talk. “Not only that, but this is certainly one of the most original or bold intelligence operations in American history.”
Submarine K-129 disappeared northeast of Hawaii in 1968. The United States discovered the submarine after the Soviet Union abandoned the search.
“It’s one thing to discover it, it’s another thing,” Bennett said. “But having the means to devise a way to recover that hardware is truly amazing. It’s been likened to an underwater moonshot, and rightly so.”
The submarine was a potential source of information on everything from details of Soviet nuclear weapons capabilities to military codes.
By 1970, the CIA had developed a plan and devised a cover story for the ship, a commercial deep-sea mining vessel owned by Hughes.
The agency’s hope was to recover a 132-foot section of the 1,750-ton submarine.
“While maintaining position in the ocean currents, the ship had to lower (the claws) by adding 60-foot support steel pipes one at a time,” the CIA wrote.
Another piece of machinery assembled for this ship was a special platform. This was used to stabilize the claw system in ocean currents and achieve goals.
“We need the ship to be able to roll and pitch without affecting the pipes,” Schorsch says.
During the mission, the claws grabbed parts of the submarine. However, it broke about a third of the way through, and part of the submarine’s hull fell off.
Former CIA Director William Colby later wrote that the most valuable aspect of the submarine was lost, Bennett said.
However, the salvage included the remains of six Soviet sailors, who were officially buried at sea.
Have they tried again?
A second mission was planned. But in 1975, journalists led by New York Times contributor Seymour Hersh and columnist Jack Anderson broke the story.
Some manuals may have been recovered, according to news reports, and parts of the ship’s hull helped the United States refine estimates of Soviet naval capabilities, Bennett said.
Bennett said Anderson’s sources told him the Azorian program was too expensive and wasted resources from other intelligence programs.
This submarine was also diesel-powered and several generations behind Soviet nuclear-powered submarines.
“Anderson’s sources and Anderson claimed it was actually a museum piece, an artifact,” Bennett said.
The US media has been heavily criticized for its coverage of the project, which Bennett said has had a “chilling effect” as news outlets are reluctant to release intelligence secrets.
Was the operation successful?
He said the mission itself was partially successful.
“Sadly, the ship itself no longer exists. It was scrapped many years ago,” Mr Bennett said. “But it was important hardware. And this was a really important mission in the history of U.S. intelligence. Part of the reason is that it was the first large-scale Because it was part of an underwater operation.”
Meanwhile, the crane used to build the Hughes Glomer Explorer is now well-touted as one of the largest cranes of its kind on the East Coast.
Engineering News Record, a magazine covering the construction industry, wrote in 2017 that Donjon Marine purchased the Sun 800 in 1993. The salvage company increased its capacity to 1,000 tons and renamed it Chesapeake 1000 to reflect its content. You can carry it.
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Since then, it has been useful in the construction of bridges and buildings. But few projects are as urgent as the one in Baltimore. Officials are rushing to clear shipping lanes at one of the East Coast’s busiest ports and build a new Francis Scott Key Bridge.
“When you get out there and see it up close, you realize how difficult a task this is,” Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said Friday after the Chesapeake 1000 arrived at the collapsed bridge. . “It shows us how difficult the task is before us.”
