49 pages • 1 hour read
Tom ClancyThe Hunt for Red October
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1984A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 8-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 8 Summary, “The Eighth Day – Friday, 10 December”
The President of the United States meets with the Soviet ambassador, Alexei Arbatov; he tells him the US knows the Soviet Navy sent a large number of submarines into the Atlantic, and he wants to know why. Arbatov says he must talk to his superiors before he confirms anything. He returns later that day and admits that a Soviet submarine is missing. The president offers the U.S. Navy’s help in the search.
While running his program to analyze the caterpillar drive on a Cray-2 supercomputer at the Pentagon, Skip runs into an old friend. During this visit, he learns about the movement of the Soviet Navy. Putting two and two together, he confronts Greer while delivering the results of his analysis. He believes Ramius is trying to defect, and he knows how they can remove the crew from the submarine and make the Soviets believe Red October was destroyed.
The USS Pogy is an American submarine surveilling three Soviet submarines. One of these, E. S. Politovskiy, has a reactor accident and attempts to surface, but the core melts a hole in the hull, and the submarine sinks. Unbeknownst to the Pogy crew, one man survives.
Chapter 9 Summary, “The Ninth Day – Saturday, 11 December”
Tyler explains his plan to General Harris and then the Joint Chiefs. On the Red October, the doctor reports another set of radioactive badges tested positive for exposure. Ramius orders another inspection of the reactor. While the older officers are convinced the problem is bad badges, a younger officer, Svyadov, is frightened of the possibility of a leak. Word spreads among the enlisted men, who attempt to spend as little time as possible near the reactor room.
A Soviet YAK-36 Forger flies from the Kiev aircraft carrier to approach an American E-3A Sentry radar surveillance aircraft. However, as he approaches the aircraft, he discovers that three American F-15 Eagle fighters surround him. An American speaking Russian warns him over the radio that he reached his fuel threshold and should return to the Kiev. The pilot reluctantly does so.
A group of officials meet in a bunker in Moscow to discuss Red October. They learn that in addition to the political officer, Putin, another political officer is on board as an enlisted man. He is a cook. This man has orders to set off a safety package on a solid fuel rocket so that it will either attempt to fire and cause a hole in the hull or generate enough thermal energy to melt a hole in the hull and sink the Red October.
Ambassador Arbatov returns to the White House and is told that the missing submarine had a reactor accident and sank. As they talk, the president receives a call telling him a man was rescued from the downed submarine and is being transported to the hospital at Norfolk.
Chapter 10 Summary, “The 10th Day – Sunday, 12 December”
As the Soviets move closer to the US coast, a B-52 flies over a Soviet ship, the Nikolayev, using a commercial air route that allows the plane to hide until the pilot is right over the ship. The B-52 jams the ship’s radar and surveys its radar and missile systems. At the same time, two F-14 Tomcats fly near the Kirov and the Nikolayev and approach two Soviet YAK-36 Forgers. The Tomcats speed up to Mach 1 and fly over the Forgers. One of the Forger pilots thinks the sonic boom that follows the Tomcats is an attack and fires four missiles. The Tomcats must evade the missiles with maneuvers, flares, and balloons. One of the Tomcats is hit in the rudder fin, damaging the plane and injuring the navigator. The Forgers are called back to the Kirov while the Tomcats limp back to the Kennedy.
Chapters 8-10 Analysis
The dangers of sailing on a nuclear submarine are revealed on the eighth day when a Soviet submarine, E. S. Politovskiy, experiences a reactor meltdown as a result of pushing the engines too hard in order to follow instructions from Moscow. This event is devastating, resulting in the deaths of everyone on board. It also adds tension to the plot as it reveals what might happen on Red October if the reactor trouble she is having continues to grow. This explains the tension among the men on the Red October who are not in on Ramius’s plan and don’t know that the reactor issues are being faked. This is likely also why Ramius chose a reactor issue to play his game on his men: It is believable, dangerous, and something that the men will not question should he tell them they must abandon ship. At the same time, Ramius uses the biases his men have against the Americans to his advantage by suggesting sabotage and later placing the blame of the sabotage on Americans. The sailors are so biased they don’t even question how an American could have gotten close enough to a Soviet submarine on its first voyage to sabotage it. This is further evidence of the significance of the novel’s Cold War setting.
Lies become an interesting part of the plot as the Soviet ambassador deceives the US President about why the Soviet Naval Fleet is coming quickly toward American shorelines. The lie is that a submarine is missing; therefore, the accident on E. S. Politovskiy proves to be a perfect pawn to distract the Soviets. However, it also allows the US to move ships closer to the Soviet ships under the guise of helping find the missing submarine. In reality, the American ships are moving into defensive positions in case the Soviets find Red October before they do. The Americans want the Red October not only to provide asylum to the Soviet crew but also because of the unprecedented access to the technology on board. Using the submarine, they can learn more about how the Soviet submarines work in order to make it easier to fight them. The use of lies at this point in the novel also sets up a time later when the Americans will tell a lie or two in order to put the Soviets off Red October’s trail.
As everyone is out searching for Red October, the Soviets meet to discuss the need to destroy Red October before the Americans can get to her. They reveal that there is another political officer—a Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU) officer—on board disguised as a cook. This information, along with information about his orders, foreshadows more danger for the crew of Red October.
Again, the setting of the Cold War and the tensions that exist between the US and the Soviet Union come into play when a Soviet plane flies over the American ships, and then two American planes are shot at when passing over some Soviet ships. A navigator is seriously injured in the incident, but the American planes make it back to their ships without further incident. There is so much tension and hatred between the two countries that a Soviet pilot fired because he mistook a sonic boom for missiles. The possibility of war between the two countries could be set off as simply as a hair trigger. However, the fight does not escalate, thanks in part to the quick actions of the American pilots and the courage of one Soviet ship’s captain. Yet, the possibility of war remains, adding tension to the plot.
Skip finishes his analysis for Ryan and, in the process, discovers what’s going on in the Atlantic. Tyler was once a highly decorated naval officer; therefore, he knows a great deal about naval warfare. Upon hearing these things, he comes to the same conclusion as Ryan and offers Greer an idea that could allow them to take custody of the Red October without the Soviets knowing. This idea is not fully revealed in these chapters, but they do foreshadow the moment when the plan is put into action.
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