On the morning of Tuesday May 4 An exploration flight had been ordered over Puerto Argentino to check if it was safe to enter three Hercules planes that would take off from Comodoro Rivadavia.
A Lockheed Neptune aircraft was used, manned by ten men, commanded by the Lieutenant Commander Ernesto Proni Leston. Built at the end of World War II, they were ships used for anti-submarine search. It was one of the few that still flew, with instruments that were more than thirty years old. Although in the rest of the world They were already museum piecesthere were two of them in the theater of operations.
The Neptune took off at 4:50 in the morning with the order to position itself southwest of Puerto Argentino.
That day discouraged anyone who wanted to fly. Showers, fog, strong winds and thick cloud cover that reduced visibility invited us to stay on the ground. However, it was ideal for fighter aircraft as they were less likely to be detected by the enemy.
For the British, It was not a productive day. Before dawn a Vulcan plane had dropped one thousand pound bombs to destroy the runway at Puerto Argentino. But the projectile that fell closest was about sixty meters from the west head and only managed to startle the garrison of the 25th Infantry Regiment.
From the aircraft carrier Hermes they were dispatched three Sea Harriers to attack the Pucará airfield in Darwin. Two were shot down by the third section of Battery B of GADA 601 and a third threw a bomb and escaped from the scene.
When May 1 the Air Force deployed 57 missionsVice Admiral John Sandy Woodward, commander of the British Task Force, chose prudence: he gave the order to that the fleet be located in a place further from the reach of Argentine planes.
The ships had been arranged in a usual formation as if to defend themselves from an air attack. The aircraft carriers Hermes and Invincible were protected by the destroyers Sheffield, Coventry and Glasgow. Between them and the destroyers were the frigates Arrow, Yarmouth and Alacrity and the destroyer Glamorgan. Behind three smaller ships were arranged to confuse Argentine radars.
That May 4 from the Hermes, the British had no clear signs of the imminence of an attack on the fleet.
He destroyer Sheffield It had been launched in 1971. The weapons it had to defend itself against an air attack consisted of Sea Dart missiles, a 4.5-inch Vickers cannon and two 20 mm cannons. Our country had two destroyers of that type, the Hercules and the Santísima Trinidad.
The Sheffield had a crew of 288 menwho had been on board for five months. It had come from carrying out maneuvers in the Mediterranean and its captain was James Saltwhose father, captain of the submarine Triad, was declared missing in the second war. Woodward himself had been its first commander.
At five minutes past six in the morning, the Neptune, which was participating in flights in search of shipwrecked people from the General Belgrano Cruise, detected an enemy ship by radar about 90 miles away and two hours later he verified that he was sailing towards the north. At 8:45 the radar screen indicated three vessels, two medium and one large. He reported the discovery and it was decided to attack.
That morning, at the Rio Grande naval aviation base, the squadron prepared for the flightthe air refueling location was determined and the attack profile was determined.
At nine in the morning they began to get ready two Super Etendardarmed with Exocet AM 39 missiles. In 1979 our country had closed an operation with France for the acquisition of 14 of these aircraft from Dassault-Breguet to renew the Skyhawk A4Q. Exocet missiles had also been purchased.
At the end of 1981 five planes arrived and when war broke out the rest remained in a naval depot in France.
France reassured Britain about the missiles, informing it that to be fired It remained to make a tune-upwhich had been pending. They did not mention that the Navy technicians had been able to correct the problems raised in that regard.
The four Super Etendards were waiting for their moment to go into action at the Río Grande air-naval base, in the II Air-naval Hunting and Attack Squadron, whose leader was the Captain Jorge Colombo. A fifth aircraft was used for spare parts.
Plane 3-A-202 was piloted by Lieutenant Commander Augusto Bedacarratzformation guide and second commander of the squadron and the other, 3-A-203 by the Lieutenant Armando Mayoranumeral, who had already flown together and understood each other very well. They took off at nine thirty in the morning amidst many “long live the Homeland” and encouragement to the pilots.
Bedacarratz did it first; ten seconds later, Mayora. They were accompanied by a Hercules, which had to resupply them by air.
Two fighter-bombers Mirage M-5 Dagger of the Air Force would provide them protection for a stretch, while two Lear jets of Phoenix Squadron – unarmed civilian aircraft – flew to show themselves on English radars with the purpose of distracting the Harriers.
They flew low, almost level with the water to avoid being detected by enemy radars. The order was to turn off the radio and Communication between the pilots was by signs. Concentrated, minute by minute, they mentally reviewed all the details of the mission they had carefully planned on the ground.
240 kilometers west of Malvinas They filled their fuel tanks with the Hercules KC-130 under the command of Vice Commodore Eduardo Pessana who was waiting for them at the agreed place. The two machines continued their low flight. The Neptune plane, after transmitting the position of two medium-sized ships and one large ship, had turned south, simulating that it was heading to the place where the cruiser General Belgrano had been sunk and returned to the continent.
The climax was when, about 180 kilometers from the target, the planes descended almost level with the water. In that instance They flew without escort, because what prevailed was the factor of surprise.
At a distance of about 50 miles, they ascended to two thousand feet, and saw nothing, and came down again. About twenty miles later they rose again and hit a large target and a smaller one. Bedacarratz ordered the two of them to go for the big one.
The only question was whether the missile would work. The pilots armed the projectiles so that they would hit the target that appeared largest. They climbed up to broadcast with the radar and confirm the direction, with the enormous risk of being detected by the British.
25 kilometers from where the ships were, Bedacarratz gave the order to shoot. It was 11:04. Because of the noise, Mayora couldn’t hear him and He fired his missile when he saw his partner doing so.
That second and a half that it takes for the Exocet to detach and light up seemed eternal, anxious and expectant.
The pilots felt the plane shake when the missile – which is carried under the right wing – detached. It was launched at 550 knots – close to a thousand kilometers per hour – and at a height of 150 meters to prevent it from going under water.
The two machines veered violently to the right and headed back. The Hercules waited for them to resupply again, but the men responded that they had enough fuel.
On the ship, an officer on duty was scanning the horizon with his binoculars and suddenly saw something shining, approaching. He managed to scream “Torpedo!”but another officer approached and corrected: “No, Exocet.”
The speed of the projectile meant that the Sheffield detected it a few seconds before impact. It was only enough to give a single order. “Take cover!”. The missile entered in the middle, on the starboard side, right in compartment two. It entered about four meters below the deck and exploded outwards and upwards. It was at the level of deck 2 on starboard, between the galley, the auxiliary engine room and the forward turbine room. Woodward described damage from the explosion as having reached the lower structure of the bridge and the center of the ship was filling with thick black smoke.
The other missile would have been lost at sea when it ran out of fuel, although it is claimed that it had also made an impact.
Anyway, The missile paralyzed the entire ship.
A major fire broke out that affected the water pumpsand there was no way to combat it. The deck began to take on a temperature that the men felt on their feet, even with their shoes, and the paint blistered. The metal around the gap he had made, It was red hot. It was feared that the fire would reach the Santa Bárbara where the Sea Dart missiles were stored.
Black smoke, with a pungent acrid odor, filled the ship and several men died from inhaling it.
The British feared a submarine attack and depth charges were dropped from the Glasgow.
After five hours, it was resolved that the ship was irrecoverable and was taken away from the other ships. At 17:50 its captain ordered to abandon it. Six days later an attempt was made to tow it to the Georgias, but it capsized and sank. It was the first British ship sunk in combat since the end of the Second World War.
There were 20 dead – one wounded man would die days later – and 63 wounded.. The frigate Arrow rescued the survivors.
The pilots landed in Río Grande minutes after noon, without knowing if they had hit the target. They thanked the crew of the Neptune. Confirmation would come through the BBC news at nine o’clock at night when defense ministry spokesman Michael Nicholson was in charge of confirming the attack, which signaled to the British that not everything would be as simple as they had imagined.
