Of Reflected Starlight

Thursday, June 28, 2018

The View From 'Baku'

USS Peterson (DD-969) seen from the deck of Soviet carrier 'Baku'

I came across this photo a while back, and couldn't believe my good fortune.

It's 1988 in the Aegean Sea, and USS Peterson (DD-969) has just commenced a surveillance mission against the Soviet Kiev-class carrier 'Baku'. For the next week the crew of 'Peterson' will observe 'Baku's flight operations--including flights of Yak-38 'Forger' fighters--matching the carrier's every maneuver as he (Russian ships are always referred to by the male pronoun) and his consorts proceed down through the Aegean and into the central Mediterranean Sea, eventually reaching the Soviet anchorage off Hamamet, Tunisia. 'Peterson' and her crew will receive praise for their job of recording every action of 'Baku' and this will go down in Cold War history as a near-perfect surveillance operation on the first open-ocean voyage of a Soviet "heavy".

This photo is taken from 'Baku's flight deck, where a Kamov KA-28 helo is spinning-up for launch. It serves to show just how close 'Peterson' maintained station on her "target", and illustrates in turn a piece of personal history for me. Because I was leader of 'Peterson's "SNOOPI" team, and I and my photographers and recorders are there, in this picture, manning 'Proud Pete's signal bridge and midships areas as we expended hundreds of rolls of film and filled logbooks with recorded details of every moment of 'Baku's first foray into open waters.

It was an exhaustive--and exhausting--effort; spending every waking moment glued to DD-969's "big eye" binoculars, coaching photographic teams on to specific features of the huge vessel, directing log-keepers' records of Soviet fixed-wing flight operations. It was hard work, but SO rewarding.

Thus, this picture represents a major event in my naval career--seen from the point of view of our adversaries.