The order was precise. At a range of approximately 1,200 yards, the British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror fired three Mark 8 torpedoes. The time was 3:57 PM local time, May 2, 1982. The target was the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano, sailing outside the British-declared Total Exclusion Zone.
The torpedoes were not modern wire-guided weapons. They were straight-running relics from World War II, chosen for their larger warhead. Two struck. The sound inside the Belgrano was not a single explosion, but a massive, metallic concussion followed by the immediate scream of rupturing systems. Lights failed. The ship listed violently to port. Within twenty minutes, the order to abandon ship was given. The sea temperature was near freezing.
Debate would later swirl around the rules of engagement, the cruiser's course, the political necessity. None of that mattered in the water. Life rafts were scarce. Men clung to debris or floated in their life jackets, succumbing to hypothermia. Out of a crew of 1,093, 323 were lost. The attack was a clinical demonstration of submarine warfare's brutal efficiency. It also effectively ended the surface threat from the Argentine navy. The war continued, but from that moment, it was fought in the air and on the land. The sea, for the most part, fell silent.