Remembering a maritime disaster

On May 2nd, 1982, during the Falklands War, the Argentinian cruiser ARA General Belgrano (formerly the US navy Brooklyn-class light cruiser USS Phoenix) was sunk by the British Churchill-class nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror off the disputed Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.

It was an historic occasion in many ways, not least because of the Belgrano's history. As the USS Phoenix she was at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, to witness the US entry into World War II. An Ensign aboard Phoenix recorded his memories of that day, which may be found here and are worth reading. She is shown below steaming out of Pearl Harbor that day, passing burning battleships.




She served throughout that conflict, amazingly emerging without major damage, and earned nine battle stars (her World War II history may be read here). The picture below was taken on February 28th, 1944, showing General Douglas MacArthur and Vice-Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid on Phoenix's flag bridge during the pre-invasion bombardment of Los Negros Island, part of the Admiralty Islands, which are today a province of Papua New Guinea.




After World War II, USS Phoenix was placed in reserve before being sold to Argentina along with her sister ship, USS Boise, in 1951. She was initially christened ARA Diecisiete de Octubre in the Argentine Navy, and later renamed ARA General Belgrano. She was updated with more modern radar and Sea Cat missiles during the late 1960's. She is shown below in Argentine service.




In 1982 the military junta then ruling Argentina mounted an invasion of the British-owned Falkland Islands. Britain responded by sending a task force to retake the islands. As an initial step, three nuclear-powered submarines were sent to the area to patrol and find out what Argentinian forces were doing. A maritime exclusion zone was established around the Falklands, with all nations warned that ships inside it risked being sunk without warning. Argentina was specifically warned that her warships risked being sunk at any encounter, whether within or outside the exclusion zone.

The story of Belgrano's sinking is well-known, so I won't repeat it in detail. Those wanting to read about it will find a detailed account here. Suffice it to say that HMS Conqueror fired three unguided Mk. VIII torpedoes (a design which first entered service in 1925). Two of them struck Belgrano, which sank in less than an hour. The pictures below were taken from a lifeboat by one of her survivors.






321 crew members and 2 civilians died in the attack, or subsequently perished while waiting for rescue. Belgrano's survivors had a torrid time in the freezing South Atlantic Ocean. As one source relates of their ordeal:

The weather was very overcast, dusk was already falling, and one hour after the sinking it was dark. The water was cold enough to kill swimmers in a few short minutes, while the heavy seas made handling the rafts difficult. Those in the rafts were constantly wet, and suffered badly from exposure and frostbite: the temperature was below freezing, and the wind blew a steady 45 MPH. There was little drinking water, and no rations. Burn victims were incapable of caring for themselves, and were tended to by the others, while many men became very nauseous from the endless roller-coaster ride of a small raft bobbing in mountainous waves. The men tried to huddle together for warmth, but they constantly had to shift from side to side in the raft, to keep it from turning over as it crested each wave. Sleep was nearly impossible, and would have proven deadly: men had to keep their extremities moving, or they would rapidly freeze to death. The next morning the skies were clearer and search planes were sighted. But the survivors were unable to signal the passing aircraft, as they were poorly trained on the WWII-era 'Bengal Lights', and the instructions were written in English. A second long night closed in, and not until the early morning of the second day, some 30 hours after the sinking, did rescue ships arrive. The search pilots had spotted first one, and then a second raft, but were at the extreme range of their fuel supply and had been unable to stay in the area. One by one the liferafts were gathered up; those that were overcrowded faired the best, while some contained only bodies: in rafts with few occupants, there was not enough body heat to keep the men alive. Other rafts were never found at all. 770 survivors were recovered by ARA and Chilean vessels, the last after enduring over 40 hours of 30-foot waves and the freezing-cold. It is a near-miracle that anyone survived at all. The calmness and discipline displayed by the crew, the protective clothing, and the fact that the crew had been fed shortly before the attack kept the death toll from being much higher.

As far as is officially known, Belgrano was the first ship sunk in combat by a nuclear submarine of any nation.

I hope you'll join me in saying a prayer for those who died aboard her, as well as all who died in that senseless war, sparked by a military junta desperate to divert national dissatisfaction with their rule onto an external enemy, and which eventually led to their overthrow. It wasn't a worthwhile cause for so many to die.

Peter