ARA General Belgrano

1982

South Atlantic, HMS Conqueror's torpedoes, 323 dead Location: South Atlantic, outside the Falklands Total Exclusion Zone · Coordinates: 55.40°S 61.20°W · Casualties: 323 · Survivors: 770 · Depth: 4,000 m · Cause: submarine torpedo — Torpedoed by the British submarine HMS Conqueror at 16:01 on 2 May 1982 during the Falklands War. Two Mk 8 torpedoes struck her port side; the forward 15 metres were blown off. She sank in under an hour in freezing South Atlantic water. · Fate: abyssal · war grave · not located · Type: light cruiser (ex-USS Phoenix) · Tonnage: 10,800 tons · Crew: 1093 · Flag: Argentina · Launched: 1938 Argentine light cruiser, formerly USS Phoenix, a Pearl Harbor survivor. Torpedoed by HMS Conqueror on 2 May 1982 during the Falklands War, 35 nautical miles outside the British Total Exclusion Zone. Two Mark 8 torpedoes struck her port side and she sank in under an hour in freezing water. 323 dead, over half the Argentine military casualties of the entire war. The legality of the attack became the defining controversy of the Thatcher government's conduct of the war. The Vessel The ARA General Belgrano (C-4) was an Argentine Navy light cruiser, originally commissioned into the United States Navy as USS Phoenix (CL-46), a Brooklyn-class light cruiser, on 3 October 1938. She was 186 metres long, 10,800 tons standard displacement, and armed with fifteen 6-inch guns in five triple turrets. Her American service included the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 (she was at her mooring when the attack began but sustained no damage and sortied within hours), subsequent Pacific War combat operations, and decommissioning in 1946. The Argentine Navy acquired her from the United States in 1951 for approximately $7.8 million. She was recommissioned as ARA 17 de Octubre (commemorating the date of the 1945 Peronist mass demonstration that had returned Juan Perón to power) and served as the Argentine Navy's principal flagship through the 1950s. Following the 1955 military coup that overthrew Perón, she was renamed ARA General Belgrano in 1956 after Manuel Belgrano, the Argentine revolutionary general and flag-designer. By 1982 she was, at age 44, the oldest light cruiser in first-line service in any navy in the world. Her modernisation had been limited: she had been fitted with modern electronics and a Sea Cat missile system in the 1960s, but her main battery and her hull remained essentially as she had sailed in 1938. Her commanding officer in April 1982 was Captain Héctor Bonzo, 48, a career Argentine naval officer. The Disaster On 2 May 1982 Task Force 79.3 was operating approximately 35 nautical miles outside the British Total Exclusion Zone, heading in a generally west-southwesterly direction away from the Falklands. Under the formal rules of engagement in effect at the start of the campaign, General Belgrano was technically outside the zone in which she could be attacked. However, on 30 April 1982 the British War Cabinet had approved revised rules of engagement that permitted British forces to attack any Argentine warship, regardless of position, that posed a threat to the British task force. At 15:57 on 2 May 1982, following direct authorisation from the British War Cabinet conveyed through the Ministry of Defence, Commander Wreford-Brown ordered HMS Conqueror to engage General Belgrano. He fired a three-torpedo spread of Mk 8 torpedoes (of a design dating from the 1920s but retained in service because of their reliability) at a range of 1,400 metres. Two torpedoes struck General Belgrano. The first torpedo struck her bow at approximately 16:01, blowing off approximately 10 metres of her forward hull. The second torpedo struck her stern at approximately 16:01:30, destroying her after machinery spaces. The third torpedo missed the Belgrano but struck the accompanying destroyer ARA Bouchard; the hit did not detonate but sprung Bouchard's hull plates, reducing her speed. General Belgrano listed to port within 30 seconds of the first torpedo strike. Her list progressed at approximately 3 degrees per