Sink the Belgrano

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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] Thirteen Days - Diplomacy and Disaster, the Countdown to the Great War (2003), Pimlico, ISBN 0-7126-6826-8 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 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 The sinking of the General Belgrano remains controversial, mostly in Argentina and on the British left. The Argentine Navy and the captain of the Belgrano, however, have maintained that the sinking was legal. Focus on the Belgrano’s end, however, has obscured the service that USS Phoenix performed in the Pacific during World War II. She was the last of the survivors of Pearl Harbor to be lost to enemy action, even if the “enemy” turned out to be the Royal Navy.

Dalyell had resigned from the shadow Cabinet over the reconquest of the Falklands and was as voluble opponent of Thatcher’s. He had spoken in Parliament against the action and was therefore an obvious destination for the “jewels”. Dalyell realised they were political dynamite. 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.

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The Sun newspaper greeted the sinking of the Belgrano with surely the most infamously memorable headline of its controversial life – GOTCHA – although the text claimed the sinking of another Argentine ship. Thatcher had told the House of Commons the Belgrano was steaming towards the 200-mile exclusion zone imposed by Britain around the Falklands when she was torpedoed, with the loss of 323 of the ship’s company. In November 2018 he gave a speech in which he warned fellow Scottish National Party members that a No-deal Brexit would be used as context in which to disband or constrain the Scottish Parliament. [20] The play is about British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's decision to torpedo the Argentinian ship General Belgrano, as it was purportedly retreating during the 1982 Falklands War between the United Kingdom and Argentina. [ citation needed]

Troubled history of Official Secrets Act". BBC. 18 November 1998 . Retrieved 8 June 2015. It was hailed as a victory for the jury system. The judge had indicated that the jury should convict him. 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] Brown, Cynthia Stokes (2012). Big History: From the Big Bang to the Present. The New Press. p.xiii. ISBN 978-1595588456. 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.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. The events of Ponting's charge and trial were dramatized by Richard Monks on BBC Radio Four in May 2022. [14] Academic career [ edit ] Addison, Paul (28 June 1990). "Paul Addison · Garbo & Co · LRB 28 June 1990". London Review of Books. 12 (12).

While other warships circled each other off the Falkland Islands, a British submarine stalked the Argentine light cruiser Berkoff, Steven (2000). Steven Berkoff: Plays One (Reviseded.). Faber and Faber. p.145. ISBN 0-571-20721-9.The Argentines were forced to use their airpower to oppose the British fleet, but the more than 400 nautical miles from their air bases on the Argentine mainland to the Falkland Islands limited their aircraft’s operational endurance. The extreme range constrained the aircrafts’ loitering time to a few minutes to locate and conduct air strikes against the British naval task force. The retreat of Argentina’s naval forces also inevitably resulted in terminating the resupplying of its forces on the Falkland Islands by sea, contributing to severe logistics support problems. A Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations (1991), Penguin, ISBN 0-14-017660-8 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. According to the British Council, Sink the Belgrano is among Berkoff's "lesser-known works". [2] Characters [ edit ] 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".