ON THIS DAY

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May 2, 1982

Falklands War: Argentine cruiser General Belgrano sunk

ARA General Belgrano was an Argentine Navy light cruiser in service from 1951 until 1982. Originally commissioned by the U.S. Navy as USS Phoenix, she saw action in the Pacific theatre of World War II before being sold to Argentina.

She was sunk on 2 May 1982 during the Falklands War by the Royal Navy submarine Conqueror with the loss of 323 lives. Losses from General Belgrano totalled just under half of Argentine military deaths in the war.

She is the only ship to have been sunk during military operations by a nuclear-powered submarine and the second sunk in action by any type of submarine since World War II (the first being the Indian frigate INS Khukri, which was sunk by the Pakistani submarine PNS Hangor during the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War).

BTW:

On 4 May, the British tabloid newspaper The Sun ran the controversial headline "Gotcha" in reference to the sinking of General Belgrano.

Kelvin MacKenzie, the newspaper's editor, was reported to have used an impromptu exclamation by The Sun's features editor, Wendy Henry, as the inspiration for the headline. The accompanying text reported that General Belgrano had only been hit and damaged and not sunk, while a "gunboat" (actually the armed tug ARA Alférez Sobral) had sunk, when in fact the reverse was the case.

After early editions went to press, further reports suggested a major loss of life, and Mackenzie toned down the headline to read "Did 1,200 Argies drown?" in later editions.

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