SINK THE BELGRANO!

Late on the afternoon of May 2, 1982, the British nuclear-powered fleet submarine HMS Conqueror was running submerged in the South Atlantic Ocean some 230 miles almost due west of Cape Horn. Though designed and built to engage Soviet warships should the Cold War turn hot, that day the sub was stalking prey of a decidedly different kind—a 44-year-old American-built light cruiser that had survived the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Commissioned into the U.S. Navy in 1938 as Phoenix, the warship had been struck and sold in 1951, renamed ARA General Belgrano and was the pride of the Argentine navy. Unfortunately for Belgrano and its crew, the cruiser would not survive the coming encounter with Conqueror.

   were present in the frigid South Atlantic that austral autumn of 1982 thanks to Argentina’s April 2 invasion of the Falkland Islands, a British dependency some 300 miles from the Argentine coast. The nearly 1,000-man invasion force quickly overwhelmed the 100 or so Royal Marines, Royal Navy sailors and local militiamen defending the islands. That same day the British Cabinet ordered the formation of a naval task force to retake the islands. On April 3 Argentine marines captured South Georgia Island, another British dependency more than 800 miles southeast of the Falklands, after a brief firefight with a Royal Marines platoon. Meanwhile, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 502, demanding an immediate cessation of hostilities and the complete withdrawal of Argentine forces from the islands. Also on April 3 British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher announced