It was dark, in the early hours, and the sea was freezing as Her Majesty’s
Submarine Conqueror came to periscope depth. Her captain, Christopher
Wreford-Brown, had been stalking his target methodically, a hunter in
pursuit of wary prey. There she was, 1,000 yards ahead, slow-moving,
seemingly unaware of the submarine coming up on her tail. Gathered around
Commander Wreford-Brown in the darkened operations room, officers and men
waited in silence, inner tension masked by outward calm. It was 1982 and
this was the real thing.
HMS Conqueror is famous, some would say notorious, for sinking the Argentinian
cruiser General Belgrano. The nuclear-powered attack submarine, a type also
known menacingly as a hunter-killer, that year became the first of her kind
to fire in anger. The Belgrano was sent to bottom in short order, her
ancient hull rent by two torpedoes: 323 men, many of them young conscripts,
died. The Falklands war began in earnest that day, May 2 1982.
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