The Belgrano controversy
Dr Eric Grove
The sinking on 2 May 1982 of the Argentinian cruiser General Belgrano by the British submarine HMS Conqueror during the Falklands War sparked off a long-running and rather needless political controversy whose major casualty was a senior British civil servant.
Two task forces
Much of the confusion arose from the fact, disguised at the time, that two task forces had been sent to the south Atlantic, not one. The 'visible' task force was TF 317, made up of the carriers, frigates, destroyers, supply ships and landing ships, plus the troops they carried.
TF 317 was subdivided into a number of groups. Rear Admiral Sandy Woodward was merely the commander of the carriers and their escorts, designated Task Group 317.8, although he had operational control of the entire TF 317 on the way to the Falklands.
The submarines comprised an entirely separate task force: the 'invisible' TF 324. Woodward would have liked for them to have been part of his command, but this went against standard doctrine evolved against the Soviets in the Cold War. It had been generally agreed that submarines were best managed separately from surface forces and on their own. Each submarine was allocated a 'box' of water in which to operate, and everything that it detected in its box was considered potentially hostile.
Command of the two task forces came together in the person of Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse, Commander-in-Chief Fleet at Northwood, near London. However, the task forces each operated on quite separate rules of engagement.
Menaces
As the British carrier and amphibious task groups approached the Falklands on their mission to regain the islands from the invading Argentinians, Woodward became very concerned about the threats he was facing. Three forces of enemy ships menaced him: an aircraft carrier battle group in the north, some Exocet missile-armed frigates in the centre and, in the south, an old but powerfully gun-armed cruiser, the General Belgrano, accompanied by two Exocet-armed destroyers.
Woodward had himself demonstrated the power of intelligently handled missile-armed surface forces in exercises with an American carrier group just a short while before. He had to assume that what he could do to the Americans the Argentinians could do to him.
He had already been authorised to take action against any Argentinian forces he thought were threatening him. However, he did not command the nuclear-powered submarines that were his primary screen against the Argentinian navy.
The sinking of the Belgrano
Woodward, a submariner, was already unhappy about not having operational control of the submarines. This chagrin was intensified when he learned that the only asset in touch with the forces threatening him was the submarine Conqueror trailing the Belgrano group.
He made his desperation known to Northwood by sending an order telling Conqueror to attack the Belgrano group. However, Conqueror as a TF324 asset was as yet unauthorised to attack Argentinian forces – other than their carrier – outside the 200-mile total exclusion zone. Northwood told Conqueror not to attack while Fieldhouse and the Chief of Defence Staff, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Terence Lewin, went to Chequers to get TF 324's rules of engagement changed.
Until now, the British, operating under strict rules of self-defence, had considered that a general authorisation for their submarines to attack Argentinian warships was not in accordance with international law. Now the two admirals told Prime Minister Thatcher that Woodward, the carrier task group commander, was desperate. Did she want to overrule the man on the spot?
Thatcher, who always deferred to the military professionals, felt that she had no alternative: she authorised the change in TF 324's rules of engagement. After some delay, during which Conqueror – then 36 nautical miles (58 kilometres) outside the total exclusion zone – tried to make sense of the conflicting signals, the cruiser was torpedoed and the Argentinian surface navy took refuge behind Argentina's 12-mile limit.
Mistakes and dark motives
As news of the Belgrano's fate arrived in London, Defence Secretary John Nott hurriedly announced the sinking to the House of Commons. However, his speech, composed hastily on the way to Parliament, contained some significant mistakes, not least that the cruiser group was sailing towards Woodward's ships when it was attacked. To the lay public, who did not understand that ships can change course at a moment's notice, this seemed important.
Worse, the government's custom of backing all ministerial statements, even if they were erroneous, meant that this error acquired political significance. When pressed by opposition Labour back-bencher Tam Dalyell – who, wrongly, saw dark motives in the sinking, chiefly the scuppering of a peace plan being brokered by the Peruvians – the government began an elaborate cover-up.
Official secrets, public interest
Clive Ponting, a senior Ministry of Defence civil servant, was increasingly frustrated both by Whitehall's misuse of secrecy and by the way the Navy was using the Falklands experience to try to roll back the 1981 defence review, In July 1984, he gave Dalyell documents to show how he and the Foreign Affairs Select Committee that was enquiring into the affair were being misled.
The following month, Ponting was charged under the Official Secrets Act. However, when the case came to trial, his public interest defence was upheld by the jury, despite the best efforts of the judge. Ponting was acquitted, although his civil service career came to an end.
Deliberately engineered
The way in which the Thatcher government used the 'Falklands factor' to win the 1983 election had already confirmed the politicisation of the Belgrano issue and helped keep it in the public eye. Opponents maintained that the sinking had been deliberately engineered to provoke the successful campaign.
This view, which owed much more to hindsight than to contemporary reality, had popular appeal to those revolted by what they perceived as the many negative features of the radical Thatcher administration. Much was made of the fate of Conqueror's lost log, which would not, in fact, have shed much light on the salient issues.
Redoubtable
Also during the 1983 election campaign, the prime minister was confronted on the BBC television programme Nationwide by the redoubtable Diana Gould of Cheltenham who questioned Thatcher's role in the sinking. The prime minister's response, while in some ways correct – the Belgrano group was indeed 'not sailing away', whatever its heading at the time of Conqueror's attack – was less than convincing.
Some of those privy to the facts were left wondering. Did Mrs Thatcher's reaction have something to do with the fact that she was still slightly embarrassed at the way she had been manipulated by the two admirals? Certainly Lord Lewin, as he later became, always praised Thatcher's willingness to take military advice.
Command and control
The sinking of the Belgrano was a necessary part of the successful maritime campaign to repossess the Falklands after its unprovoked seizure by Argentina. The elimination of the latter's fleet inside territorial waters was a precondition for British victory.
Those really responsible for the deaths of the Argentinian sailors on board the old cruiser were the military junta led by General Galtieri. In 1994, Buenos Aires concurred with the Thatcher administration that the Belgrano sinking had been a 'legal act of war', and the Argentinian governments since have not had change of heart on this matter.
The real issues about the sinking were technical ones of command and control. The fact that the affair was blown up out of all recognition in London is more a comment on the dynamics of the contemporary British political system and the weaknesses of Mrs Thatcher's closed approach to government than on the politico-strategic and operational realities of what happened in the south Atlantic.
Dr Eric Grove is a senior lecturer in politics and international studies at the University of Hull, where he is also director of the Centre for Security Studies. He is the author of a number of books, including Vanguard to Trident, The Future of Sea Power, Fleet to Fleet Encounters, The Price of Disobedience and The Royal Navy 1815-2000 (forthcoming).
Find out more
Websites
The Falklands War: What happened
www.guardian.co.uk/flash/0,5860,659004,00.html
'Interactive guide' to the war on the Guardian website. Includes
maps and a chronology.
The sub war
www.britains-smallwars.com/Falklands/sub.html
Part of the Falklands War 1982 Index website. Lots of detailed
information on various aspects of the war, including the activities of
the submarines and the sinking of the Belgrano.
UK sued over Belgrano sinking
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/812146.stm
Story on the BBC News website from June 2000, reporting on how relatives
of the 323 Argentine sailors who died in the sinking of the Belgrano were
preparing to sue the UK for damages. They argued that the cruiser was
outside the theatre of operations, and therefore the attack violated
wartime conventions set down in The Hague in 1907. The case failed the
following month.
The Belgrano precedent: War in the
service of politics?
www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2002/msg00616.html
Article by Paul Rogers of the University of Bradford. Argues that
the nature of the military action before and after the Belgrano sinking
indicates strongly that the Thatcher government was single-minded in
its commitment to a military solution to the crisis. Draws parallels
between this and the situation just prior to the invasion of Iraq in
2002.
When Britain went to war
www.channel4.com/history/microsites/F/falklands/
Channel 4 website that looks at the personal histories of the main
players in Falklands War, the political landscape and, especially, the
media's handling of war.
Going critical: HMS Coventry
www.channel4.com/science/microsites/G/going_critical/
hms_coventry/index.html
Channel 4 website that looks at the sinking of HMS Coventry during
the Falklands War, which resulted in the deaths of 19 British sailors.
Gotcha
www.sterlingtimes.co.uk/gotcha1.htm
The famous 'Gotcha' headline from the Sun newspaper,
gloating over the sinking of the Belgrano.
Books
The Battle for the Falklands by Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins
(Pan, 1997)
An overview of the Falklands conflict – both politically and militarily.
Includes a brief overview of the Falklands' history and the specific problems
leading to the outbreak of the conflict.
Get this book
The
Falklands War, 1982 by Martin Middlebrook (Penguin, revised
ed 2001)
Contains material on the Exocet attacks on British ships, the loss of HMS Coventry,
the Sir Galahad tragedy and the controversial sinking of the General
Belgrano. Paced like the war itself, leading to a tense and stirring climax,
this book remains a definitive work on the conflict.
Get this book
Lewin of Greenwich: The authorised biography by Richard Hill
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000)
This book charts, from his humble beginnings to his pivotal role as Chief of
Defence Staff during the Falklands war, Lord Lewin's rise through the ranks
of the officer corps, his commands at sea and his mastery of the corridors
of Whitehall.
Get this book
On the Spot: The sinking of the 'Belgrano' by Diana Gould (C
Woolf, 1984). Out of print; may be available from libraries or second-hand
bookshops.
Book written by the woman who tackled Margaret Thatcher about the legality
of sinking the ship on television in 1983.
One Hundred Days: The memoirs of the Falklands battle group commander by
Admiral Sandy Woodward with Patrick Robinson (HarperCollins, 2003)
'A portrayal of the world of modern naval warfare, in which, despite the use
of sophisticated equipment and communications, the margins for human error
and courage were as wide as they were in the days of Nelson.'
Get this book
The Right to Know: The inside story of the 'Belgrano' affair by
Clive Ponting (Sphere, 1985). Out of print; may be available from libraries
or second-hand bookshops.
The memoir of the civil servant who became a whistle blower.
