The last surviving ship from the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, to eventually be lost to enemy action, is also the only ship ever sunk in battle by a nuclear powered submarine.

It's a light cruiser of the Brooklyn-class. It was named USS Phoenix when it fought the Japanese for the USA. It was sold to Argentina, and renamed General Belgrano when the British submarine HMS Conqueror sunk it during the Falkland Islands War.

I remember the Falkland War. All started to distract Argentines from their domestic issues.

Aided and abetted by a wimpy UK Foreign Office who never wanted to do anything that appeared imperialist and upsetting to another nation. My father worked for the UK Ministry of Defence back then, and was PO'd beyond all recognition. He worked some odd hours during that crisis doing I know not what.

That war did provide a kick up the rear for the UK armed forces that it needed. The Navy found out it had been buying gray painted pleasure cruisers for a couple of decades, the army found out that other than the Marines and the SAS they were unfit and unprepared for combat, and the RAF had to face the reality that it no longer had a global reach.

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Release the Kraken

Jeez, LVSteve, why don’t you tell us how you really feel?

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Reg. Magnum wants/Rossi wallet

Too bad Vanguard was not still around for that war.

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S&WCA 1729

I remember that very well. Two days after the Belgrano was sunk, the HMS Sheffield was hit by an by Exocet missile and several ships stationed at Diego and Pearl received orders to make preparations to steam South and to stand by. We were somewhere out off San Diego, just having completed a port call there when we got our orders. We steamed around off of Baja California for a couple of weeks before we got orders to stand down and return to Pearl. Being in engineering, we really didn’t know what was going on, but rumors abounded about the Sheffield getting hit and later sinking. We later found out the Sheffield was a ship very similar in size and with an aluminum superstructure like ours that burned and couldn’t be put out when their firefighting capability was destroyed by the missile. Quite an eye opener that one missile could do all that damage.

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USS Brewton FF1086
SWCA#3597

Hard lessons are rarely compatible with pretty language. I suspect Margaret Thatcher's full, unbiased opinions on the matter at the time would have stripped paint at a considerable distance.

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Release the Kraken

On the bright side (well, sort of):

In the last flare-up of the Cold War, just as it looked like NATO and the Warsaw Pact might incinerate Europe with SS-20 and Pershing II, it was refreshing to watch an old-fashioned colonial war fought at the end of the world between armies where civilians by and large didn’t get in the way.

Officially about 900 military personnel and 3 civilians died on all sides. A vastly preferable ratio to pretty much any other war Europeans have fought.

The Exocet attack on the Sheffield is what sticks with me from the news coverage at the time. It seemed like U.S. Navy leadership was surprised by the damage and concerned about their ability to defend againt anti-ship missles after that.

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Vegan by proxy.

That concern was one of the reasons, but not a major one, for the reactivation of the Iowas. Apparently the lessons of the Eilat (Israeli destroyer) and the gunboats, and the Belknap collision were lost on the puzzle palace.

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S&WCA 1729

Had not heard about the Belknap collision. A bit more Wiki revealed that the JFK was a magnet for other ships and arsonists.

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Release the Kraken

I was the CMC on the Belknap after it was rebuilt in PA.
Strange with the upper half all new and below old........

Attached Images

CG 26 001.jpg (91.5 KB, 82 views)

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Only difference Fool/Mule-ears

One commentary I read had ongoing negotiations to hand of the Falklands to Argentina since the mid 60's. They tapered off rather than broke off. The Islanders themselves wanted nothing to do with Argentina and were the main protesters to a handoff.

Chile and Argentina have hated each other since the settling of each state. The southerns usually get along but the cities and Government trust each other not at all. As soon as the dust over the war was settling Chile was reaching out and became the Falklands main supplier with frequent flights to Punta Arenas rather than Bahia Blanca.

What I found surprising about Stanley was that in the main market there was no local meat for sale, neither fish nor lamb though there were plenty of fishing fleets working out of there and sheep are the main industry. It has a great harbor and not much else as far as scenery goes. I keep their temperature on my phone for giggles as the winter and summer temps usually vary less than 10 degrees F from night to day.

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Front sight and squeeze

It had our attention. My Squadron was doing work ups on the USS Saratoga at the time.

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USMC 69-93 Combat Pistol Inst.

The previous time that the Falklands "were in the news" from a naval perspective, was in late 1914 when two RN Battle Cruisers made a "slight amendment" to the number of Armored Cruisers in the German Navy's Asiatic Squadron. Turned out that approx 8" guns did not equal the 12" guns on the two RN BCs. Dave_n

You Navy guys have stones. It's one thing to have stuff blown up all around you and bullets flying by. But to do that in the middle of the ocean? Big Stones

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Dum vivo cano

The Belknap is well known to any fleet sailor that ever went through Damage Control & Firefighting School. The fortitude shown by the sailors who wouldn’t give up their ship is often cited as an example of how sailors should act in the face of insurmountable odds.

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USS Brewton FF1086
SWCA#3597

I disagree that there is anything on the bright side of that war.

Argentina has a strong historical and geographical claim on the Falkland Islands.

England had a Colony it didn’t want. It was a drain on their National Budget in addition to being difficult to defend. With most of the population being British the Government was in a difficult position of being accused of selling out to a foreign nation.

It basically was a battle of egos and national pride and served no purpose in world affairs. England is struck with a colony it doesn’t want but now can never let go of due to the British military personnel killed and wounded.

If you want a good documentary about the Falklands War, watch "Falklands Task Force South." It's by reporters who were on the Royal Navy ships and came ashore with the invasion.

The big thing with the ships getting hit was fire. The Exocet that hit HMS Sheffield didn't explode, but the burning propellant set fire to the aluminum and paint. Several of the ships lost were lost to fire.

Also, if the Argentine bombs had been properly fused, the RN would have lost several more ships.

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USAF 1981 - 2001

The Falklands war was a wake up call to all the world's navies. Missile warfare had come of age.

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No baby we aint

According to the Wikipedia article on the HMS Sheffield and it's loss, fire was a major factor in it's loss. But the thing about missile not exploding is not correct. Also, from the same article, the Type 42 class destroyers did not have aluminum superstructures, which were actually made of steel. The Brits did have some smaller ships that did have aluminum supers and maybe they were the ones people were thinking of when the legend of the aluminum superstructure on the Sheffield came about. The ones with the aluminum super were the HMS Ardent and HMS Antelope, which were also lost in that war.

And another point to ponder on to figure into the reasons why Argentina tried to do a grab for the Falklands; There seem to be some substantial hydrocarbon reserves around the Falkland Islands too.

I think that trivializes some important aspects.

There was no Argentine population on the islands which needed or could have justified a military intervention at that time. The political dispute over the territory was indeed mostly about national pride for Argentina, and the invasion at that time purely a political play that went sideways for the generals.

For Britain, it certainly was about maintaining prestige and principle, but practically, and really more importantly, it had to be about 1800 British subjects who were kidnapped by a foreign country.

We (the West in general, but particularly the US) didn’t dislike the post-Peron junta much before the invasion, because the people they disappeared, tortured, and murdered, were mostly people we didn’t particularly mind being disappeared, tortured, and murdered.

But that did not make it acceptable to allow armed force to be used to shove 1800 citizens under that junta’s rule, using “historical and geographical claims” as an excuse.

The Falklands War, or rather the British military response, certainly ranks among the more justified of 20th century conflicts.

I was on the USS Springfield, formerly the CL66, a light cruiser, and later the CLG 7 after it had been refitted as a guided missile ship along with three others in it's class. It was launched in 1943 and was part of a contract of 30 something ships of which they made 20 something before WWII was over. I was on it in 66-68. I always felt like a sitting duck. It was scrapped in the early 70's. We did go to some nice ports though.

When the war broke out I was stationed at Ft Polk. The Armor Bn in our brigade had a company that exchange with a Armor company from Great Britain, well the Brits were mad because they were stuck at Ft Polk and missing out on the war. So they did the next best thing, they would get into fights with the spanish speaking soldiers ( Puerto Ricans,Mexicans etc) tense time indeed. FYI don't get into a drinking match with them , you will loose

Interesting that it took until 2015 for MOD UK to decide the Exocet actually exploded. ( David Manley. "The Loss of HMS Sheffield – A Technical Re-assessment" RINA Warship Conference, Bath, June 2015)

My comment was based on the the books I read about the war back in the '80s and the video I mentioned - Falklands Task Force South.

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USAF 1981 - 2001

IIRC the fires on the Type 42s spread through the wiring because the insulation was not sufficiently fire proof. You would have thought that bulkhead connectors would have isolated adjoining compartments, but I can only surmise that there was enough heat transfer to ignite the wires' insulation on the other side, even though the flame had not passed through the bulkhead.

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Release the Kraken

Argentina considered them as national residents and each one that left the Islands to purchase items at the nearest off island store needed to show a Resident ID card issued by Argentina to exit and reboard the ship or plane.

While they considered them selves British or Scots, most of Argentina's residents considered themselves by their ancestors birth nationality as well whether it was Italian, Spanish, Turkish, English or other. It really is a shame that the literature describing what lead to the conflict is generally showing Englands perspective if written in English.

Was or is there hydrocarbons in the Falklands? Perhaps but to build a refinery and ship to where it can be used would be a long payback. Argentina has quite a few hydrocarbon producing fields in Patagonia and in the north. I believe it exports over what it uses but rarely more than 5% or 10%.

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Front sight and squeeze

Check out what happened to the USS STARK, FFG 31.
Remembering the Attack on USS STARK (FFG 31) – Station HYPO

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Only difference Fool/Mule-ears

I remember this incident. By failing to take defensive action and evasive course changes a incompetent Captain caused the death and injuries to his crew and severe damage to his ship. Not the Navies finest hour.

My point is about the OBA's not lasting long, the shoes the Navy had guy's wear melted and the superstructure burning.......
When this happened I transferred from the OHP(FFG7) to a steel ship with
a 5" gun! (FF1061)

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Only difference Fool/Mule-ears

Charlie, I was on the USS Franklin D Roosevelt CVA 42 we may have crossed paths with each other on our Westpac cruise '66-'67. Frank