HMS Conqueror sank the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano during the Falklands War in 1982.
The British nuclear-powered hunter-killer submarine torpedoed General Belgrano on 2 May 1982, during the conflict over the Falkland Islands. Conqueror fired three Mark 8 torpedoes, and two struck the cruiser. The sinking killed 323 people and became one of the war’s most controversial events.
General Belgrano was outside the British-declared maritime exclusion zone when attacked, but the British government argued that the ship posed a threat to British forces. The incident remains central to historical discussions of the war and the rules governing attacks at sea.
Conqueror was a Churchill-class submarine. It was commissioned in 1971 and became the only nuclear-powered submarine to sink a warship in wartime, a distinction separate from submarines that sank merchant ships or used mines.