the ship was one of the project 567K Leninsky Komsomol class,[2] a multi-purpose tweendecker freighter with steam turbine engines.

The SS Metallurg Anosov was one of the four Leninsky Komsomol-class cargo ships specially equipped for troop and weapon transportation.

The engines produced 13000/14300 horsepower at 1000 rpm, allowing the ship to achieve a ballasted speed of 20 kn (37 km/h; 23 mph).

Hold number 4 was converted for troop transportation by the dock workers, allowing for up to 1,600 soldiers to be bunked aboard.

The vessel also took on fuel, food, fresh water, and other marine supplies before moving to Nikolayev for the loading of its main cargo, a set of missiles.

The ship was initially loaded in Nikolayev port with missiles of an unknown type and also a special containers for rocket fuel were latched onto the main deck.

The general then handed a secret package, marked "To be opened four days after the passage of the Strait of Gibraltar" to the master of the ship Babienko.

[3] During transit through the Bosphorus, a barge without any illumination or signal lights appeared beside the Metallurg Anosov at night.

Russian officials theorized that the Turks would have used a collision as pretext to storm the vessel, exposing the secret shipment.

[7] The rocket fuel "heptyl" was carried in special containers which were not present in the holds of the most common commercial vessels.

Four days after passing through the Gibraltar Strait the captain opened the secret package in the presence of the pompolit and the commander, Colonel Sergei Verenik.

[3]On 25 October, the Soviet government issued a statement of protest following the United States' blockade of Cuba as an illegal action under maritime law.

Captains of Soviet vessels received an order to not obey commands from US ships forbidding them from entering Cuban waters.

It would later be revealed that the First Vice Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Mikoyan had flown to Cuba on 2 November 1962, prompting the move.

The VP-44 patrol squadron achieved international recognition of sorts when an aircraft photographed the deck while flying close surveillance over the Metallurg Anasov.

The squadron verified that eight large oblong objects, which appeared to be missiles, were located on its deck and the ship was allowed to proceed.

The Utica Observer-Dispatch newspaper reported on 11 November 1962: When the destroyer Barry inspected the freighter Anosov at dawn yesterday the Soviet skipper refused repeated requests to completely uncover missiles lashed to the deck.

[8]The Metallurg Anosov arrived at its destination port in the Black Sea after 20 November and was likely unloaded before 1 December 1962.

After December 1962, the Metallurg Anosov performed voyages to Cuba and Angola under the command of Captain Babienko.

During the Six-Day War in June 1967 Israel occupied the Sinai Peninsula, and as such the Suez Canal was closed for shipping between 1967 and 1975.

According to another certificate of equatorial crossing, the Metallurg Anosov again circumnavigated the globe when she sailed from Odessa to Cuba.

After leaving port in Cuba in late 1969 or early January 1970, the ship passed through the Panama Canal and steamed to Japan.

The Metallurg Anosov skirted the epicenter of a cyclone with a strength of 8 points on the Beaufort scale, when she came back from Cuba in 1971.

During the next voyage from the USSR, the ship arrived at Cuba in the second part of September, and sailed from Havana on 7 October 1973 to Canada.

The ship was loaded with grain in Canada, before sailing to Odessa in the second part of November 1973, and finally on to Novorossiysk port.