British Salmoa Times

Mr. Arata Kurose, left,  former First Sergeant in the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force Special Forces Group Unknown Entity Targets Kanagawa Institute of Subatomic Research By Hiroshi Yamamoto This article originally appeared in The Kokumin Chronicle and is reprinted with permission. The city of Tokyo is reeling from one of the most serious incidents in modern Japanese history since the 1998 Tokyo Bay Cargo Disaster. What began as a confusing series of simultaneous emergencies now appears to be hardening into a coordinated, multi-pronged attack on the nation’s capital, authorities confirmed early this morning. Chief Cabinet Secretary Sato Akihiko, who addressed the press in the early hours, acknowledged that investigators are no longer treating the events as a coincidence. The sheer synchronicity of the container ship fire, the city-wide gas alarm triggers, and the high-security breach at the Kanagawa Institute of Subatomic Research (KISR) points to a level of planning and execution ...

By Hiroshi Yamamoto This article originally appeared in The Kokumin Chronicle and is reprinted with permission. The chaotic events that overwhelmed Tokyo Metropolitan Police and emergency services last night have sent shockwaves through communities across the capital and through every level of government, both local and national. In light of the seriousness of the incidents, Chief Cabinet Secretary Sato Akihiko held a late-night press conference in the briefing room of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, where he sought to address the unprecedented disruption and reassure the public. Shortly before seven-thirty last night, the container ship MV Orinoco Mistress issued an SOS after a fire broke out in one of its bays transporting electric vehicles. The ship, registered in Panama, had been waiting to unload its cargo at the Aomi Container Terminal when the incident began. Almost simultaneously, gas-leak alarms were triggered in several Tokyo districts - including the T...

By Richard Hardenburg British Samoa Times - Norport, British Salmoa The lecture delivered by Professor Dmitry Alekseevich Romanovsky on November 9—the final academic event of the day—officially lifted the curtain on the Arctic theater, setting the Severnaya Zemlya Expedition in motion. It would now be up to this sophisticated troupe to deliver a disciplined performance rather than follies, worthy of the enormous expectations placed upon them. A review of the lectures and seminars conducted in various classrooms throughout the day revealed the expedition’s precise technical composition. Experts in disciplines such as marine biology, chemistry, climate and atmospheric science, oceanography, glaciology, and epidemiology were well represented. More tellingly, I noted the presence of ROV operators, submersible crews, and specialists in nuclear and analytical chemistry among the expedition’s body. Captain Leonov As expeditioners began to leave the theater following the lecture, an announceme...

By Richard Hardenburg British Samoa Times - Norport, British Salmoa Senior Lieutenant Ludmilla Smirnov, our expedition coordinator, had promised that November 9 would be a day packed with lectures. As expeditioners moved between scientific and historical talks, the S.S. Severnyy Polyus underwent its final preparations for the Arctic excursion. The final lecture of the day was delivered by Professor Dmitry Alekseevich Romanovsky. This is how he appeared in the Times table: Lecture Title: The Nile Half-Seen and Dyatlov Primary Field: Ancient Cultures and Anthropology Key Breakthrough: Ancient Language Algorithms Global Impact: His anthropological studies are cited worldwide Professor Romanovsky is a legendary figure - admired across the former Soviet Union and in modern Russia alike. Though now in his early eighties, he continues to deliver electrifying, unforgettable lectures. In 1979, the international academic community nominated him for a prestigious prize recognizing his profo...

By Richard Hardenburg British Samoa Times Correspondent – Norport, British Samoa Polyarny Twenty-four hours in the frigid Arctic Ocean nearly killed them, but it was a Soviet Navy PBY Catalina that finally hauled all forty surviving sailors of the K-88 from the water. Yet only hours after their arrival in Polyarny, Murmansk, headquarters of the Soviet Union’s Northern Fleet during the Second Great War, every man was arrested. They stood accused under the ominous Military Article 58, pertaining to Counter-Revolutionary Crimes, Failure to Act, and Sabotage Through Negligence, for the catastrophic failure to execute Operational Order No. 041/op, a directive issued directly by Vice Admiral A. Golovko himself. The chilling events that follow are the result of a compilation of eyewitness accounts, declassified court-martial documents, and extensive research by Professor Mikhail S. Zhukov, published in his definitive work, The Wreck of the K-88 “Grom”: A Study in Barents Sea Geomagnetic Anoma...

  Eighty Years of Secrecy in the Arctic Depths By Richard Hardenburg British Salmoa Times Correspondent, aboard USCGC Healy, Arctic Ocean For decades, the Northern Fleet sought the ill-fated K-88, lost in the final days of October 1943. Their search intensified after the Second Great War as the new balance of power demanded a clearer understanding of what had vanished beneath the Arctic ice. According to recently declassified Navy documents, the Arctic was carved into an immense search matrix—one that extended even into Canadian and American coastal waters. Whether the Soviet, and later Russian, Navy actually surveyed those extraterritorial zones remains unknown. If they did, the records are likely secured deep within naval archives. The documents reveal the creation of two specialized search battalions. The 42nd Separate Scientific-Research Radiological-Chemical Battalion conducted chemical analyses with advanced instrumentation, hunting for anomalies in radionuclide concentrati...

The Courier By Richard Hardenburg British Salmoa Times Correspondent, aboard USCGC Healy , Arctic Ocean It has been eighty-two years since the loss of Submarine K-88 Grom and its commander, Captain Pyotr Alekseyevich Volkov — the Wolf . For many, this remains living time. Yet no surviving witnesses of the Anomaly remain to recount the final hours of the boat and her crew. From declassified Soviet documents, we know that in late October 1943, Grom prowled the icy Arctic waters — a lone predator in a theater where the Red Army faltered and the Northern Fleet eked out small, costly victories. The war had drained men and material alike; morale along the front lines was fragile. Yet in the frozen north, the Northern Fleet still struck. And Grom — daring, relentless, unsinkable — had become a symbol. We are fighting back , the propaganda claimed. For once, it was true. The mission described in Combat Order No. 036/op was unremarkable by wartime standards: lay mines, attack enemy tra...

By Richard Hardenburg British Salmoa Times Correspondent, Northern Fleet Library, Severomorsk In the reading rooms of Severomorsk, beneath the unblinking gaze of uniformed clerks, I sifted through the slow decay of war— paper yellowed by frost and decades. Page after page of declassified reports slid beneath my fingertips. One name surfaced with the inevitability of a tide: Captain Pyotr Alekseyevich Volkov, Third Rank, commander of Submarine K-88 Grom . The documents were fragments — a personnel file, a reprimand, a medical note, a hastily typed line in a mission log. Yet, like scattered bones, they assembled themselves into a man. Volkov came from a lineage carved out of hardship. His father fished the treacherous White Sea. His grandfather was a burlak on the Volga — one of those human engines who bent their backs until vertebrae surrendered, dragging barges for men who never learned their names. The family inheritance was measured in tears, sweat, and blood. Volkov carried it nort...