ARA General Belgrano

ARA General Belgrano

ARA General Belgrano underway
History
United States
Name	USS Phoenix (CL-46)
Acquired	3 October 1938
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 (C-4)
Namesake	Manuel Belgrano
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	15 × 6 in (150 mm) 8 × 5"/25 caliber gun (127 mm) AA 40 mm and 20 mm anti-aircraft guns 2 British Sea Cat missile AA systems (added 1968)
Armor	Main belt: 5.5 in (140 mm) Deck: 2 in (50 mm) Barbettes: 6 in (152 mm) Turret roofs: 2 in (50 mm) Turret sides: 6.5 in (170 mm) Conning tower: 5 in (127 mm)
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).