Associated Press

In this image from television, the wreckage of the Kursk nuclear submarine lies in a dry dock at Roslyakovo, Russia yesterday. Forcing their way through the disfigured carcass of the Kursk nuclear submarine, yesterday while the navy continued the delicate effort to retrieve its powerful cruise missiles, investigators recovered four more sailors' bodies and a note written by one of them.

Wednesday October 31, 2001

MOSCOW - Forcing their way through the disfigured carcass of the Kursk nuclear submarine, investigators yesterday recovered seven more bodies and a farewell note written by a doomed sailor in the final moments of his life.

Search teams have pulled 52 bodies from the wreck since it was lifted from the seabed and brought to a dry dock in a northern Russian port last week. Twelve other bodies were pulled from the Kursk by divers last fall, bringing the total retrieved to 64.

The Kursk's entire 118-person crew died when powerful explosions sent the submarine plunging to the Barents Sea floor during military exercises on Aug. 12, 2000.

Divers have found notes written by some of the sailors indicating they remained alive for hours. Another such note was found Tuesday in a bottle.

Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov said the note was written by chief warrant officer Oleg Borisov, whose body was among those recovered last fall from the submarine's stern sections.

It was a farewell message for his family and contained no information about the disaster, Ustinov said in remarks broadcast by Russian television. He did not reveal its contents.

Ustinov, who is in charge of the investigation of the Kursk accident, said forensic experts were working to retrieve several more bodies they had spotted.

The Russian navy initially expected to find no more than 40 bodies, believing most of the sailors' remains were obliterated by the two blasts in the fore sections.

Now it appears some of the sailors had time between blasts to escape to the stern, said Russia's naval commander, Adm. Vladimir Kuroyedov.

Since early Monday, the navy has safely removed eight of the Kursk's 22 Granit cruise missiles, Kuroyedov said Tuesday. He said all eight were from the port side.

Officials have said the retrieval of some starboard missiles could be more difficult because one of the containers encasing them was filled with water.

Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov said Monday that investigators were moving closer to finding the reasons behind the explosion that sank the Kursk.

Officials agree that the first explosion probably came from a practice torpedo in one of the nose tubes. But they disagree on what caused the torpedo to explode. Most outside experts suspect an internal malfunction, but Russian officials have not ruled out a collision with a World War II mine or a Western submarine. The torpedo section was left on the seabed out of fears it could break off and destabilize the lifting.