Sharks Sighted

The Soviet navy's six newest cruisers of the "improved Kirov class" (9,500 tons, twelve 7.1-in. rifles in triple-turret batteries) are fast, heavy ships, not as powerful as their U.S. opposites (cruisers of the Brooklyn class) but not taken lightly by U.S. Navy men. Swedish naval intelligence revealed that last month, two of these sleek new Soviet sharks (probably the Chapaev and the Chkalov) slipped out of the Baltic through the Oresund strait between Denmark and Sweden. It was the first time since the late 1930s that heavy Soviet naval vessels had been out in the Atlantic.

Speculation: 1) the cruisers were going to the Korean war; 2) they were being transferred to the Black Sea; 3) they were going to Abadan, Iran, to outglare the British cruiser there. Good guess: they were on a shakedown cruise to Murmansk.

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