Chronological view
…
Step 12 of 14 · Saturday 27 October 1962
Black Saturday
A U-2 is shot down over eastern Cuba and Major Rudolf Anderson is killed. US destroyers drop practice depth charges on submarine B-59, whose officers argue over firing a nuclear torpedo until Vasily Arkhipov refuses. A second Khrushchev letter asks for US missiles to leave Turkey.
- B-59 surfaces among US ships near the USS Randolph group.
- The tanker Grozny stops at the line.
- Robert Kennedy secretly tells Ambassador Dobrynin the Jupiter missiles in Turkey will go.
- United States
- Soviet Union
- Submarine
- R-12 range, ~1,900 km
- R-14 range, ~4,000 km
- Quarantine line, 500 nmi
On the map
United States
- USS Randolph · Hunter-killer group
- USS Beale · Dropped signalling depth charges
- USS Essex · Anti-submarine group on the quarantine line
- USS Newport News · Quarantine force flagship
- USS Enterprise · Covering Guantánamo and the Windward Passage
Soviet Union
- Aleksandrovsk · Docked at La Isabela
- Grozny · Stopped at the line
- B-59 · Forced to surface
Ship positions are approximate and show the situation of the day, not exact tracks.