Everything about The Hunt For Red October totally explained
The Hunt for Red October is a
novel by
Tom Clancy. The story follows the intertwined adventures of
Soviet submarine captain Marko Aleksandrovich Ramius and
CIA analyst
Jack (John Patrick) Ryan.
The novel was originally published by the
U.S. Naval Institute Press—the first fictional work they ever published and still their most successful.
Basis for plot
The Hunt for Red October was inspired by two real incidents. In
1961,
Soviet Navy submarine captain
Jonas Pleškys, a
Lithuanian, sailed his vessel from
Klaipėda to
Gotland in
Sweden, not the planned destination of
Tallinn. The Soviet authorities sentenced him in his absence to death by firing squad, but the
CIA hid him, first in
Guatemala and later in the
United States.
On
November 8,
1975, the
Soviet Navy frigate Storozhevoy mutinied. At the time, the Western powers believed it was an attempt to defect from
Latvia to the
Swedish island of
Gotland. The mutiny was led by the ship's
Political Officer, Captain
Valery Sablin. The mutiny was unsuccessful, and Sablin was captured,
court-martialed, and executed.
Plot
Marko Ramius, a
Lithuanian who has risen to high levels of trust in the
Soviet Navy, intends to defect to the
United States with his officers and the experimental
nuclear submarine Red October, a
Typhoon class submarine equipped with a revolutionary stealth propulsion system. The propulsion system is described as a
pumpjet system nicknamed "Caterpillar Drive", making
sonar detection extremely difficult. The result is the ultimate strategic weapon platform being able to sneak its way into American home waters and is immediately apparent to Ryan and the admirals in the
Joint Chiefs of Staff that he briefs.
It is also not lost upon Ramius, whose defection is spurred by several other factors as well. In particular he's deeply affected by the death of his wife due to a doctor's incompetence. Because the doctor was the son of a
Politburo member, he was above reproach. His wife's untimely death, in conjunction with a long-standing dissatisfaction with the callousness of the Soviet establishment towards its sailors and the fear of the destabilizing effect of the
Red October in world affairs, ultimately exhausts Ramius' tolerance for the Soviet system's failings.
In the beginning of the novel, Ramius kills
Political Officer Ivan Putin to ensure he won't interfere with the defection. In a letter to Admiral Yuri Padorin (whom Ramius refers to as Uncle Yuri), Ramius states that he's going to sail into
New York Harbor. This has the same effect as
Hernán Cortés burning his ships in the new world: he destroys the possibility of retreat and leaves no option but to press on and win or die. The entire
Soviet Northern Fleet (with the specific exception of missile submarines, to avoid confusion) is deployed to sink the
Red October, approaching under the cover story of a search and rescue mission well within 400 km (about 250 miles) of the American coast, an excellent place to start a war of aggression if the explanations can't be trusted.
Jack Ryan, a naval historian turned CIA analyst, deduces Ramius' plans. The U.S. high command agrees warily, while also planning for contingencies in case the Soviet Fleet has other intentions than their stated cover. As tensions rise between the U.S. and Soviet fleets, and the crew of a U.S. attack submarine stumble across the secret to detecting the
Red October, Ryan must contact the Red October's rebellious captain to prevent the loss of a decisive technological advantage. Through a combination of circumstances, Ryan becomes responsible for seeing the sub - and Ramius - to safety from the pursuing Soviet fleet. The US, in order to make the Soviets believe that the
Red October has been destroyed, rescues its crew after Ramius declares a shipboard emergency; he and the officers heroically stay aboard to scuttle the submarine. Shortly thereafter, a decommissioned US ballistic missile submarine, the
Ethan Allen, is blown up underwater. These two events fool the Soviets into thinking that the Red October has been lost. However, a
GRU agent masquerading as a ship's cook attempts to destroy the
Red October from within by firing a missile engine, hoping to incinerate the ship. During the confrontation with the agent, one of Ramius' top officers is killed, while Ramius and a British officer who boarded the vessel with Ryan are wounded. The agent is eventually killed by Ryan in the sub's missile compartment.
Meanwhile Captain Tupolev, the captain of a Soviet
Alfa class attack submarine and a former student of Ramius, while trailing what he thinks to be an
Ohio class submarine, realizes that it's the
October, and pursues it. The two US submarines escorting the
Red October are unable to fire due to
rules of engagement, and as a result the
October is torpedoed but survives. After a tension-filled standoff, leading to the
Red October sinking Tupolev's submarine by ramming it broadside, the Americans guide
Red October safely into the eight-ten dry dock in Norfolk, VA.
The final piece of the deception involves the recovery of a pressure meter on the deep ocean floor by a US Navy deep exploration/salvage sub through sleight-of-manipulator, in the presence of a Russian military attache. This proves the wreck of the
Ethan Allen is the
Red October, as far as the Soviets are concerned. Now they only have to find the attack sub that disappeared at the same time...
Influence on later Clancy books
The Hunt for Red October was the start of a loosely connected series by Tom Clancy which shared a rough continuity and many of the characters in the novel.
Jack Ryan in particular went on to be the central character of many of Clancy's later novels, though some of Clancy's novels were explicitly unrelated (such as
Red Storm Rising).
The ultimate fate of the
Red October is explained in the Clancy novel
The Cardinal of the Kremlin, where it's revealed that the vessel was
reverse engineered and stripped of all technology. The
Red October was then sunk in a deep ocean trench to avoid discovery.
Adaptations
Film
The novel was made into a commercially-successful movie in
1990, starring:
There were several differences between the novel and the film, including the Red October traveling up the Chesapeake Bay and near Tom Clancy's Calvert County home on the water and the prominence of the
Royal Navy, including the HMS
Invincible. The order of many events also has been changed.
Games
The novel also served as the basis for several computer and video games, as well as a board game.
Reception
The Hunt for Red October sold very well and launched Clancy's successful career as a novelist.
President Ronald Reagan helped to fuel the success of
The Hunt for Red October when he announced that he enjoyed the book at a televised press conference, calling it "unputdown-able".
(External Link
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