Is ‘The Hunt for Red October’ based on a true story?

The Hunt for Red October hit bookshelves way back in 1984 and propelled author Tom Clancy to international fame. Hollywood snapped up the film rights and cast Sean Connery in the role of a Soviet naval captain defecting to the United States in the 1990 film of the same name.

But did you know that Clancy based his best-selling book on a real event? He took inspiration from the incredibly audacious 1975 mutiny of Soviet Captain Third Rank Valery Sablin.

On the surface, Sablin was a man no one expected to turn traitor. A capable and committed naval officer, he was serving as Political Commissar on the Storozhevoy (Sentry), a Burevestnik-class missile frigate. However, Sablin was an avowed communist who believed that the Soviet Union of the 1970s had moved too far from the early days of the revolution. He saw the elites in the Politburo as corrupt and maintained that Brezhnev (the communist dictator running Russia) was the most corrupt of them all. Sablin wanted to stage a mutiny to start what he termed a “Second Russian Revolution,” which would take out Brezhnev and allow Sablin to lead the Soviet Union himself as a new Lenin.

Sablin’s run

Sablin was not in command of the Sentry, so he knew that to take control of the frigate, he would first have to incapacitate the Captain. This he did on the night of November 9 by locking his commanding officer in the forward Sonar compartment. Sablin then proceeded to give the sailors a rousing speech which got them on his side. His ultimate objective was to sail to Leningrad (modern St. Petersburg) and broadcast his message of revolution on state radio.

The Soviet government knew they could never allow this to happen, so launched a massive search for the Sentry involving 13 naval vessels and over 60 warplanes.

Sablin managed to evade his pursuers repeatedly, even using a fog bank to prevent enemy ships from tracking his movements. Soviet Yak-28 aircraft managed to locate the Sentry, and a running battle developed until the ship was so damaged by strafing runs and repeated bombings that the steering system was blown away. The Sentry limped toward Sweden, where many suspected Sablin was attempting to seek asylum. Only 20 miles from Swedish territorial waters, the pursuit ships caught up and took the Sentry back.

After a quick show trial, Sablin was executed by firing squad on August 3, 1976.

Sablin’s rise and fall just goes to prove that truth really is stranger than fiction.