ARA General Belgrano underway |
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| Career (Argentina) | |
|---|---|
| Name: | ARA 17 de Octubre |
| Namesake: | 17 October 1945, the day demonstrations forced the release of Juan Perón |
| Acquired: | 1951 |
| Renamed: | ARA General Belgrano |
| Namesake: | Manuel Belgrano |
| Fate: | Sunk in 1982 by HMS Conqueror |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Brooklyn-class |
| Type: | light cruiser |
| Displacement: | 9,575 tons (empty) 12,242 (full load) |
| Length: | 608.3 ft (185.4 m) |
| Beam: | 61.8 ft (18.8 m) |
| Draft: | 19.5 ft (5.9 m) |
| Speed: | 32.5 knots (60 km/h) |
| Complement: | 1,138 officers and men |
| Armament: |
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| Armor: |
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| Aircraft carried: | 2 helicopters (One Aérospatiale Alouette III was on board when sunk) |
The ARA General Belgrano was an Argentine Navy light cruiser in service from 1951 until 1982. Formerly the USS Phoenix (CL-46), she saw action in the Pacific theater of World War II before being sold to Argentina. After almost 31 years of service, she was sunk during the Falklands War (Spanish: Guerra de las Malvinas) by the Royal Navy submarine HMS Conqueror with the loss of 323 lives. Losses from the Belgrano totalled just over half of Argentine deaths in the Falklands War.
She is the only ship ever to have been sunk in anger by a nuclear-powered submarine[1] and the second sunk in action by any type of submarine since World War II, the first being the Indian frigate INS Khukri by the Pakistani Hangor during the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War.
The vessel was the second to have been named after the Argentine Founding Father Manuel Belgrano (1770–1820). The first vessel was a 7,069-ton armoured cruiser completed in 1899.
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The warship was built as USS Phoenix (CL-46), the sixth of the Brooklyn-class light cruisers, in New Jersey by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation starting in 1935, and launched in March 1938. She survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, and was decommissioned from the US Navy (USN) after World War II in July 1946. Phoenix earned nine battle stars for World War II service.
The former USS Phoenix was sold to Argentina in October 1951 with another of her class (Boise (CL-47), which was renamed ARA Nueve de Julio (C-5)), for US$7.8 million. (Nueve de Julio was scrapped in 1978). She was renamed 17 de Octubre after the People's Loyalty day, an important milestone for the political party of the then president Juan Perón. Ironically, she was one of the main units which joined the coup in which Perón was subsequently overthrown in 1955, and the ship was renamed General Belgrano (C-4) after General Manuel Belgrano, who had fought for Argentine independence from 1811 to 1819 and founded the Escuela de Náutica (School of Navigation) in 1799. The cruiser accidentally rammed her sister Nueve de Julio on exercises in 1956, which resulted in damage to both cruisers.[2] The Belgrano was outfitted with the Sea Cat anti-aircraft missile system between 1967 and 1968.[3]
After the 1982 invasion of the Falkland Islands, the Argentine military junta began to reinforce the islands in late April when it was realised that the British Task Force was heading south. As part of these movements, the Argentine Navy fleet was ordered to take positions around the islands. The General Belgrano had left Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego on 26 April 1982, with two destroyers, the ARA Piedra Buena (D-29) and the Bouchard (D-26) (both also ex-USN vessels), as Task Group 79.3.
By 29 April the ships were patrolling the Burdwood Bank, south of the islands. On 30 April the Belgrano was detected by the British nuclear-powered hunter-killer submarine HMS Conqueror. The submarine approached over the following day. Although the group was outside the British-declared Total Exclusion Zone of 370 km (200 nautical miles) radius from the islands, the British decided that it was a threat. After consultation at Cabinet level, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher agreed that Commander Chris Wreford-Brown should attack the Belgrano.[4]
According to the Argentine government, Belgrano's position was .[5]
At 15:57 on 2 May, Conqueror fired three 21 inch Mk 8 mod 4 torpedoes[6] (conventional, non-guided, torpedoes), each with an 805-pound (363 kg) Torpex warhead. While the Conqueror was also equipped with the newer Mark 24 Tigerfish homing torpedo, there were doubts about its reliability.[7] Two of the three torpedoes hit the General Belgrano.
One of the torpedoes struck 10 to 15 metres (33 to 49 ft) aft of the bow, outside the area protected by either the ship's side armour or the internal anti-torpedo bulge. This blew off the ship's bow, but the internal bulkheads held and the forward powder magazine for the 40 mm gun did not detonate. None of the ship's company were in that part of the ship at the time of the explosion.
The second torpedo struck about three-quarters of the way along the ship, just outside the rear limit of the side armour plating. The torpedo punched through the side of the ship before exploding in the aft machine room. The explosion tore upward through two messes and a relaxation area called "the Soda Fountain" before finally ripping a 20-metre-long hole in the main deck. Later reports put the number of deaths in the area around the explosion at 275 men. There was no fire after the explosion, but the ship rapidly filled with smoke. The explosion also damaged the Belgrano's electrical power system, preventing her from putting out a radio distress call. Though the forward bulkheads held, water was rushing in through the hole created by the second torpedo and could not be pumped out because of the electrical power failure.
The ship began to list to port and to sink towards the bow. Twenty minutes after the attack, at 16:24, Captain Bonzo ordered the crew to abandon ship. Inflatable life rafts were deployed, and the evacuation began without panic.
The two escort ships were unaware of what was happening to the Belgrano, as they were out of touch with her in the gloom and had not seen the distress rockets or lamp signals. Adding to the confusion, the crew of the ARA Bouchard felt an impact that was possibly the third torpedo striking at the end of its run (an examination of the ship later showed an impact mark consistent with a torpedo). The two ships continued on their course westward and began dropping depth charges. By the time the ships realized that something had happened to the Belgrano, it was already dark and the weather had worsened, scattering the life rafts.
Argentine and Chilean ships rescued 770 men in all from 3 to 5 May. In total, 323 were killed in the attack:[8] 321 members of the crew and 2 civilians who were on board at the time.[9]
There was some controversy surrounding the sinking of the ARA General Belgrano. The sinking also became a cause célèbre for anti-war campaigners (such as Labour MP Tam Dalyell). Part of the reason for the controversy was that early reports claimed or suggested that approximately 1,000 Argentine sailors had been killed in the sinking.
In later years, some sources asserted that the information on the position of the ARA General Belgrano came from a Soviet spy satellite that had been tapped by the Norwegian intelligence service station at Fauske, Norway and then handed over to the British; Conqueror had been shadowing the Belgrano for some days, so this extra information would have been unnecessary.[10]
The sinking occurred 14 hours after President of Peru Fernando Belaúnde proposed a comprehensive peace plan and called for regional unity, although Thatcher and diplomats in London did not see this document until after the sinking of the Belgrano.[11] Diplomatic efforts to that point had failed completely. After the sinking Argentina rejected the plan but the UK indicated its acceptance on 5 May. The news was subsequently dominated by military action and it is not well known that the British continued to offer ceasefire terms until 1 June.[12]
The Belgrano was sunk outside the 200-nautical-mile (370 km) total exclusion zone around the Falklands. Exclusion zones are historically declared for the benefit of neutral vessels; during war, under international law, the heading and location of a belligerent naval vessel has no bearing on its status. In addition, the captain of the Belgrano, Héctor Bonzo, has testified that the attack was legitimate (as did the Argentine government in 1994).[13][14][15][16][17]
Though the ship was outside the 200-mile (370 km) exclusion zone, both sides understood that this was no longer the limit of British action—on 23 April a message was passed via the Swiss Embassy in Buenos Aires to the Argentine government, it read:
In announcing the establishment of a Maritime Exclusion Zone around the Falkland Islands, Her Majesty's Government made it clear that this measure was without prejudice to the right of the United Kingdom to take whatever additional measures may be needed in the exercise of its right of self-defence under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. In this connection Her Majesty's Government now wishes to make clear that any approach on the part of Argentine warships, including submarines, naval auxiliaries or military aircraft, which could amount to a threat to interfere with the mission of British Forces in the South Atlantic will encounter the appropriate response. All Argentine aircraft, including civil aircraft engaged in surveillance of these British forces, will be regarded as hostile and are liable to be dealt with accordingly.[18]
Interviews conducted by Martin Middlebrook for his book, The Fight For The Malvinas, indicated that Argentine Naval officers understood the intent of the message was to indicate that any ships operating near the exclusion zone could be attacked. Argentine Rear Admiral Allara, who was in charge of the task force that the Belgrano was part of, said "After that message of 23 April, the entire South Atlantic was an operational theatre for both sides. We, as professionals, said it was just too bad that we lost the Belgrano".[18]
The modified rules of engagement permitted the engagement of Belgrano outside the exclusion zone before the sinking.[19]
According to the British historian Sir Lawrence Freedman, in a book written in 2005, neither Thatcher nor the Cabinet was aware of the Belgrano's change of course before the cruiser was attacked, as information from HMS Conqueror was not passed on to the Ministry of Defence or Rear Admiral Sandy Woodward (commander of the RN task force).[20] In his book, One Hundred Days, Admiral Woodward makes it clear that he regarded the Belgrano as part of the southern part of a pincer movement aimed at the task force, and had to be sunk quickly. He wrote:
The speed and direction of an enemy ship can be irrelevant, because both can change quickly. What counts is his position, his capability and what I believe to be his intention.[21]
Some details of the action were later leaked to a British Member of Parliament, Tam Dalyell, by the senior civil servant Clive Ponting, resulting in the unsuccessful prosecution of the latter under the Official Secrets Act 1911.
In May 1983, Prime Minister Thatcher appeared on Nationwide, a live television show on BBC1, where Diana Gould (1926–2011)[22][23] questioned her about the sinking, claiming that the ship was already west of the Falklands and heading towards the Argentinian mainland to the west. Gould also claimed that the Peruvian peace proposal must have reached London in the 14 hours between its publication and the sinking of the Belgrano, and the escalation of the war could have thus been prevented. In the following, emotional exchange, Thatcher answered that the vessel was a threat to British ships and lives and denied that the peace proposal had reached her.[24] After the show, Thatcher's husband Denis lashed out at the producer of the show in the entertainment suite, saying that his wife had been "stitched up by bloody BBC poofs and Trots."[25] Thatcher herself commented during the interview "I think it could only be in Britain that a prime minister was accused of sinking an enemy ship that was a danger to our navy, when my main motive was to protect the boys in our navy."
Admiral Enrique Molina Pico, head of the Argentine Navy in the 1990s, wrote in a letter to La Nación, published in the 2 May 2005 edition,[26] that the Belgrano was part of an operation that posed a real threat to the British task force, that it was holding off for tactical reasons, and that being outside of the exclusion zone was unimportant as it was a warship on tactical mission. This is the official position of the Argentine Navy.[27]
The Sun's headline "Gotcha" is probably the most notable (and notorious) headline in a British newspaper about the incident. Kelvin MacKenzie, editor of the popular tabloid, is reported to have used an impromptu exclamation by The Sun's Features Editor, Wendy Henry, as the inspiration for the headline. After early editions went to press further reports suggested a major loss of life and Mackenzie toned down the headline in later editions to read "Did 1,200 Argies drown?" Despite its notoriety, few readers in the UK saw the headline at first hand as it was only used on copies of the first northern editions; southern editions and later editions in the north carried the toned-down headline.[28]
The area where the Belgrano sank is classified as a War Grave under Argentine Congress Law 25.546.[29] In 1994, the Argentine government conceded that the sinking of the Belgrano was "a legal act of war".[13] In 1999, Sir Michael Boyce, First Sea Lord of the Royal Navy, visited the Puerto Belgrano naval base and paid tribute to those who died.[30] In 2003 a search team aboard the Seacor Lenga,[31] crewed by Argentine and British veterans, was sponsored by National Geographic to find the sunken cruiser but failed to locate the ship.[29][32] Belgrano's captain, Héctor Bonzo, died on 22 April 2009, aged 76. He had spent his last years working for an association called Amigos del Crucero General Belgrano (Friends of the Cruiser General Belgrano) whose purpose was to help those affected by the sinking.[33] Captain Bonzo also wrote his memories about the sinking in the book 1093 Tripulantes del Crucero ARA General Belgrano, published in 1991.
In late 2011, David Thorp, a former military intelligence officer who led the signals intercept team aboard the HMS Intrepid, released the book The Silent Listener detailing the role of intelligence in the Falklands War. The book revealed that despite claims that the Belgrano was sailing away from the Falklands at the time of the attack, it had actually been ordered to proceed into the Exclusion Zone, with the definite intention of attacking British ships.[34][35] A report prepared by Thorp for Thatcher several months after the incident proved the claims that the Belgrano was moving away from the Falklands were false, but was not released because the Prime Minister did not want to compromise British signals intelligence capabilities[36]
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