Sink the Belgrano

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Elton, Rodney (20 March 1985). "Official Secrets Legislation". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). HL Deb vol 461 c613 . Retrieved 1 December 2017. the highly classified chronology prepared by Mr. Ponting now known as 'the crown jewels' Gott, Richard (9 November 2008). "Review: Three books about Churchill". The Observer– via www.theguardian.com. Shortly after his resignation, The Observer began to serialise Ponting's book The Right to Know: The Inside Story of the Belgrano Affair. The Conservative government reacted by amending the secrets legislation and by introducing the Official Secrets Act 1989. Before the trial, a jury could take the view that if an action could be seen to be in the public interest, the right of the individual to take that action might be justified. As a result of the 1989 modification, that defence was removed. After the enactment, it was taken that "'public interest' is what the government of the day says it is".

In 1951, it had been sold to Argentina and renamed the ARA General Belgrano. It would not see out 1982 and survive the Falklands War. HMS Conqueror fired three torpedoes at ARA General Belgrano on the evening of May 2. HMS Conqueror had used World War II-era MK8 torpedoes as opposed to the more modern Mark 24 Tigerfish homing torpedoes as the submariners decided that the MK8 was more reliable—ironically, WWII-era torpedoes for WWII-era targets. Two of the torpedoes hit ARA General Belgrano and the third allegedly hit an escorting destroyer but did not explode. The torpedoes tore two holes in the ARA General Belgrano, sinking it in just a few minutes and killing more than 300 Argentine sailors out of slightly more than 1,000 total onboard. Coventry, Cameron (2019). "CJ Coventry, Clive Ponting's Churchill, Before/Now, 1(1) (2019)". Before/Now. 1 (1): 78–79. doi: 10.17613/4dj5-f938. The papers were soon traced to Ponting, who was interviewed by two MoD police officers, who told him they were not sure an offence had been committed. They suggested he quietly resign.Apart from conducting the initial landings, the Argentine Navy was largely quiet at the beginning of the Falklands War. On April 26, however, it was decided to dispatch the General Belgrano and two escort destroyers on patrol south of the islands. Although the political purpose of this patrol was understandable, its military logic is unclear. General Belgrano did have certain advantages against modern naval vessels. Her 6″ guns would have made very short work of any British ships unfortunate enough to wander within twelve or so miles. General Belgrano’s armor, while considerably lighter than a battleship, might still have been sufficient to provide considerable protection from the surface-to-surface missiles of the day. However, while General Belgrano’s initial probe was in the direction of the British task force, it is extremely unlikely that any British surface ship would have wandered into her patrol area. Having virtually no anti-air or anti-submarine capability, her ability to decisively affect the battle was extremely low. On May 2, General Belgrano and her group began repositioning toward the Argentine mainland, perhaps in preparation for another sortie to be coordinated with the Argentine Air Force. The Belgrano had been sunk outside the 200-mile maritime exclusion zone that Britain had imposed around the Falklands and, according to reports, had actually been heading for port.

There had been a Peruvian peace proposal 14 hours earlier, which Britain would later accept (although Argentina rejected it) and in a live television interview on BBC1’s Nationwide the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, denied that she had received it. The Belgrano was a threat to British ships, she said, justifying the action. According to the British Council, Sink the Belgrano is among Berkoff's "lesser-known works". [2] Characters [ edit ] Dalyell, Tam (13 June 1985). "Defence Estimates 1985". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). HC Deb vol 80 c1057 . Retrieved 1 December 2017. Ponting... compiled the 'crown jewels'The events of Ponting's charge and trial were dramatized by Richard Monks on BBC Radio Four in May 2022. [14] Academic career [ edit ] This single submarine action by HMS Conqueror, the first and only torpedo sinking of an enemy combat ship by a nuclear submarine, managed to deter and deny the Argentine Navy from threatening the British naval task force. HMS Conqueror’s performance demonstrated the value of nuclear-powered hunter-killer submarines. With the capability to travel at high underwater speeds with a long underwater endurance and large operational radius, nuclear hunter-killer submarines continue to be a prized strategic asset today. Following his resignation from the Civil Service, Ponting served as a reader in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Wales, Swansea, until his retirement in 2004. He was one of the pioneers of Big History. [15] A New Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations (2007), Penguin, ISBN 0-14-303898-2 Penguin's description of the book

Progress and Barbarism: The World in the Twentieth Century (1998), Chatto & Windus, ISBN 1-85619-610-0; published in the US as The Twentieth Century: A World History (1999), Henry Holt & Co., ISBN 978-0-8050-6088-1

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Steven Berkoff". Contemporary Writers. British Council. Archived from the original on 17 July 2009 . Retrieved 30 September 2008. The controversy over the sinking did not end with the war (although officially it wasn’t one, as there had been no declaration of it). While other warships circled each other off the Falkland Islands, a British submarine stalked the Argentine light cruiser Thirteen Days - Diplomacy and Disaster, the Countdown to the Great War (2003), Pimlico, ISBN 0-7126-6826-8 The USS Phoenix was the fifth of the Brooklyn class—a group of light cruisers designed to comply with the restrictions imposed by the London Naval Treaty of 1930. The major navies of the world, prohibited from competing in battleships, had turned their attention to cruisers, which turned out to be both expensive and destabilizing. In an effort to limit competition in heavy cruisers, the new treaty established limits on the number of 8″ gunned cruisers allowed each of the signatories. Britain, which needed light cruisers to patrol the empire, hoped that naval architects would design new cruisers around the 6″ gun, and scale down the size of the ships appropriately.

When later asked about the sinking of Belgrano, Wre ford-Brown responded with typical British understate ment: “The Royal Navy spent 13 years preparing me for such an occasion. It would have been regarded as extremely dreary if I had fouled it up.” a b Rosenbaun, Martin (18 March 2011). "Clive Ponting case: Where is the investigators' report?". BBC News. After the loss of Belgrano the Argentine navy withdrew all units to its nation’s coastal waters, where they remained for the duration of the war, leaving the fight against the Royal Navy to land-based air force and naval aviators. By June 14 the war was over, the British having retaken Stanley and ejected the Argentines from the islands.Mr Nott said the past week had been a successful one for British armed forces, but that the overriding aim was a peaceful and lasting settlement. Sink the Belgrano! is a 1986 satirical play in verse written by English playwright Steven Berkoff. It premiered at the Half Moon Theatre on 2 September 1986. [1] The Right to Know: The Inside Story of the Belgrano Affair (1985), Sphere Books, ISBN 0-7221-6944-2