Were the British right to sink the Cruiser Belgrano?
Ooh, now there’s a hot question! I believe the British were right in their (successful) attempt to remove the Argentine Navy from the battle, but to do so with such massive loss of life was most unfortunate. The arguments of the exact movements and location (in or out of the exclusion zone) are irrelevant – wherever she was, the Belgrano battle group posed a threat and had to be dealt with in some decisive manner. It would have been militarily beneficial to have sunk the carrier 25 de Mayo (they would have lost the use of Skyhawks that were used later in the war from land bases) but we never knew her exact location. Of course, the Argentine command knew of the presence of British SSN patrols around the islands, so to have been there at all with a less than first-rate ASW capability was extremely risky. Perhaps they overestimated the abilities of their submarine(s).
