28 years ago today a warship built in New Jersey, commissioned into the US Navy in 1938 and which survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor unscathed was sunk by the Royal Navy in the South Atlantic.
The USS Phoenix was a light cruiser that served with distinction throughtout the Pacific campaign in World War 2.
In 1951 she was sold to Argentina went through several name changes before, in 1956, aquiring her final identity - ARA General Belgrano.
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The Belgrano is the only warship to have been sunk following an attack by a nuclear submarine (HMS Conqueror), she was lost with well over 300 of her crew and was, of course, the subject of extensive debate and controversy after the event
My view, for what it is worth, is that although Belgrano was, by 1982, a museum piece and was a limited military threat the decision to sink her was absolutely right.
The attack demonstrated to the world (and especially to the Americans) just how determined Britain was to reclaim the Falkland Islands and to defend our servicemen in the Task Force.
Much of the controversy was really spurious - debate about the postion of Belgrano and her escorts in relation to the infamous exclusion zone and which direction she was sailing in raged for years.
It really wasn't until the mid 1990's when Argentina conceded that the sinking was a legitimate act of war that the debate was "put to bed".
In many ways the sinking of ARA General Belgrano was the defining act in the last of Britain's colonial wars.
It is perhaps appropriate to have a moment of reflection & remembrance for her dead and all of the other casualties of the Falklands War.
