ARA General Belgrano (C-4)
ARA General Belgrano underway
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| History | |
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.png){kind=small} Argentina
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| Name: | 17 de Octubre |
| Namesake: | 17 October 1945, the day popular demonstrations forced the release of Juan Perón |
| Acquired: | 1951 |
| Renamed: | ARA General Belgrano |
| Namesake: | Manuel Belgrano |
| Fate: | Torpedoed and sank 2 May 1982 by HMS Conqueror |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Brooklyn-class 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 (60.2 km/h; 37.4 mph) |
| Complement: | 1,138 officers and men |
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| Armor: |
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| Aircraft carried: | 2 helicopters (One Aérospatiale Alouette III was on board when sunk) |
ARA General Belgrano was an Argentine Navy light cruiser in service from 1951 until 1982.
Previously named USS Phoenix, she saw action in the Pacific theatre of World War II before being sold by the United States Navy to Argentina. 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 1896.
After almost 31 years of service, she was sunk on 2 May 1982 during the Falklands War (Spanish: Guerra de Malvinas, Guerra de las Malvinas or Guerra del Atlántico Sur) by the Royal Navy submarine Conqueror with the loss of 323 lives. Losses from General Belgrano totalled just over half of Argentine military deaths in the war.
She is the only ship ever 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 by the Pakistani Submarine PNS Hangor during the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War.
The warship was built as USS Phoenix, the sixth of the Brooklyn-class light cruiser class, in Camden, 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 undamaged, and went on to earn nine battle stars for World War II service. At the end of the war, she was placed in reserve at Philadelphia on 28 February 1946, decommissioned on 3rd July that year and remained laid up at Philadelphia.
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