 ARA General Belgrano underway, c. 1968
| |
| History | |
|---|---|
 United States | |
| Name | USS Phoenix |
| Acquired | 3 October 1938 |
| Identification | Hull number: CL-46 |
| Fate | Decommissioned 3 July 1946; Stricken 27 January 1951 |
| History | |
 Argentina | |
| Name | 17 de Octubre |
| Namesake | 17 October 1945, the day popular demonstrations forced the release of Juan Perón |
| Acquired | 9 April 1951 |
| Renamed | ARA General Belgrano |
| Namesake | Manuel Belgrano |
| Identification | Pennant number: C-4 |
| Fate | Torpedoed and sunk on 2 May 1982 |
| Badge |  |
| 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 |
| Armament |
|
| Armor |
|
| Aircraft carried | 2 helicopters (One Aérospatiale Alouette III was on board when sunk) |
ARA General Belgrano (C-4) 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. 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.
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[1] 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).
- ^ Kemp (1999), p. 68.