In early 1982 I was a junior officer on board the Royal Navy nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror when it torpedoed and sank the Argentinean cruiser the General Belgrano. Hit by two torpedoes on the afternoon of May 2nd, the ship sank within an hour, leaving approximately 290 crew members dead and a further 30 dying of burns and exposure as they took to their liferafts in the icy waters of the south Atlantic.
In January this year, I stumbled across a message on a website, in which an American gentleman, Lew Holt, asked if anyone knew of people who had served on HMS Conqueror. I responded that I had, and asked what I could do for him.
Lew explained that his older brother, Bill, had served in the second World War on the light cruiser USS Phoenix - later sold to Argentina and renamed the General Belgrano. The Phoenix had survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, but Bill had died of tuberculosis shortly before the end of the war. Half a century later, Lew decided to compile a book about his brother and to research the history of the ship on which he had served and which was eventually sent to the depths of the south Atlantic.
As our correspondence developed, Lew mentioned he was in touch with a former Belgrano crew member, Captain Nestor Cenci, known as "Coco". On January 19th this year I wrote to him. I told him that, while recognising that men on both sides had "done their duty", I nevertheless greatly regretted the heavy loss of life and hoped he would feel able to write back and "shake hands", so to speak, via e-mail.
Just one day later, he did so. He told me it was hard for him even to think of the sinking and he preferred not to discuss it at this stage. As the ship's supply officer, he had been third in charge of the Belgrano during the Falklands War. He had retired from the Argentinean Navy in 1988 with the rank of captain, but had been unable to find work.
For the following few months, we exchanged e-mails. We did not talk about the Falklands or the Belgrano, but about family, where we lived, and other mundane matters. Our cyber-friendship grew and I told Coco I hoped I would be able to visit Argentina one day and meet him. A few months later, that aspiration became a reality when, one chilly morning in mid-September, I arrived at Buenos Aires international airport.
Coco was waiting for me. At 61, he looked a little older than his years, and stooped slightly. I dropped my bag, saluted him and walked towards him. We embraced like old friends. He drove me to his home in a suburb of Buenos Aires and introduced me to his wife, Martha. An enormous breakfast waited on the table and, between us, in my halting Spanish and his slightly better English, we were able to communicate.
For some days, I stayed with Coco and his family and, on occasions, usually over lunch, when the wine bottle was more empty than full, we would speak of the Belgrano and her sinking. Memories came flooding back.
By May 1st, 1982, Conqueror's sonar had already detected the Belgrano, and the Exocet-armed destroyers Hippolito Bouchard and Piedrabuena. The submarine shadowed the vessels and, while keeping watch on the periscope, I sighted the tops of masts on the distant horizon. Excitedly, I called out that I could see the vessels, and when I relayed the bearing, the sonar operators confirmed the ships were the Belgrano and her escorts. When I looked again they were closer and I could see their hulls and make out four vessels, apparently steaming abeam of each other and engaged in a fuel replenishment operation. It was a thrilling moment.
For more than a day, unauthorised to attack the ships as they remained outside the British-enforced total exclusion zone, we shadowed the Belgrano group. The next day, Conqueror received a signal authorising the submarine to attack the Argentinean ships.
At 3 p.m., Conqueror's crew was called to action stations and the torpedo tubes were loaded. Around 4 p.m., the order was given to fire and three torpedoes sped towards the Belgrano. The seconds ticked away and my pulse raced. This was the moment for which we had all been trained, yet a moment which, I believe, few of us ever really thought we would encounter.
Shortly after firing, we heard and felt an enormous explosion. Conqueror's commanding officer, Chris Wreford-Brown, called out from the periscope that he could see flashes of orange flame. The control room erupted in cheers as we realised the weapons had hit.
At that moment, Coco was resting in his bunk. Suddenly the lights went out, and he heard a muffled explosion. The ship seemed to rise out of the water, as if it had hit a sand bank. Fighting his way through the smoke-filled darkness, he rushed to his watch-keeping position on the bridge and, as he did so, the second torpedo tore off the Belgrano's bows. By the time he reached the bridge, the Belgrano was taking on a list, and Coco found the ship's captain, Hector Bonzo, trying to turn the stricken ship to port, to face the submarine and thus present a smaller target. But his efforts were in vain - the vessel's major systems were destroyed and she was listing heavily.
While Coco clung to the Belgrano's bridge, Conqueror was diving deep, shuddering from the force of the explosions and wondering if the cruiser's escorts were dropping depth charges. The crew was no longer cheering. We ran away from the scene of carnage so that we could raise an aerial and tell the world what we had done. Thinking we were being depth-charged and that the Argentinean destroyers were hunting us, we carried out evasive manoeuvres.
Coco left the bridge and climbed down into his liferaft. A storm was whipping up, and conditions were rapidly deteriorating. I felt myself blushing as Coco spoke, but there was no animosity in his voice. "On my liferaft, there were 33 men," he said. "The liferafts were designed to hold 12 people". He smiled. "They were very good liferafts, yes."
I asked him what it had been like in the rafts, waiting for rescue. He looked pained. "Cold," he said, shaking his head, "very cold. It was 36 hours before we were rescued. The sea was very rough, with 30-foot waves. Fortunately, the body heat from 33 men enabled us to survive. Some liferafts had only four or five people in them, and they died from exposure". I blushed again.
That night, while I lay, dry, in my bunk, Coco spent the night in mountainous seas, in bitterly cold conditions, with wounded and dying survivors around him.
Some 36 hours after being torpedoed, the Belgrano's survivors were rescued by the Argentinean ships Hippolito Bouchard, Piedrabuena and Gurruchaga, and taken to the Argentinean naval base at Puerto Belgrano.
"The press were not allowed there. When you went home with HMS Con- queror, you had the press to meet you and your families to welcome you back. When we went home, there was no one. It was as if no one wanted to see us, as if we were to feel ashamed.
"The worst moment of all came when we assembled in an aircraft hangar to work out who was alive and who wasn't. We called out the names of the crew. Sometimes there would be a response and you knew that the person was alive. But often there was no response, and you knew, with great sadness, that the person was dead."
Coco's pension, after 30 years of service, is $1,200 (about £750 sterling) per month. Although he didn't say it, I sensed he felt poorly treated by the navy, forgotten and put out to pasture. He told me Captain Bonzo had been "sent into retirement" and now spent his time trying to "help" the relatives of those who had perished on the Belgrano.
A few days into my stay, Coco said: "Barcena wants to meet you . . . The captain of the destroyer, the Hippolito Bouchard." The Bouchard had been escorting the Belgrano and it was reported after the war that the third torpedo fired by HMS Conqueror had hit the Bouchard but failed to detonate.
Captain Washington Barcena looked younger than his 61 years, wore a jacket and tie and had an air of formality. We shook hands and sat down with a glass of wine. He spoke little English, so Coco acted as interpreter. "Sethia," said Barcena, "when did you first detect our ships?"
It was an easy question to answer because the moment has remained vivid in my mind for 18 years. I told him I had first seen them while on the periscope on May 1st, but that they had been detected by HMS Conqueror before that first sighting. Without thinking, I added: "And I thought to myself, `What a great target that would make.' "
He nodded and I asked him if his ship had dropped any depth charges on the Conqueror or tried to find the submarine by operating his sonar. "No," he replied, "we never fired any weapons . . . You see, we didn't have many weapons on board and we wanted to keep them, maybe for a later engagement. And the sonar - well, it was working but it was very old and not much good."
I asked Barcena if his ship had carried Exocet missiles, and he confirmed it had, but when I asked Coco the same question, he laughed and told me the Belgrano's carpenters had fabricated Exocet launchers out of wood, to make it look as if the cruiser carried the missiles. He added that the Belgrano had not even been fitted with a sonar.
"So what did you do once you realised that the Belgrano had been sunk?" I asked Barcena. "We moved away from the area," he replied. "We were worried that the submarine might come back and try to attack us." He excused himself and shortly returned with an envelope. Inside was a photograph of the Hippolito Bouchard, and Barcena had written a moving note, saying that, while we had been enemies 18 years previously, he was happy to have met me and wished me all good things for the future.
A few days later, Coco excitedly announced he had had a call from Bonzo. He said he had tried to arrange for me to meet the captain of the Belgrano, but Bonzo had retorted: "Why would I want to meet a man who tried to kill me?" A fair enough response, I thought. Now he had called again to say he would meet me in a cafe in downtown Buenos Aires.
When we met him, Bonzo's face was grim, and I recognised him from an old photo. As he reached our table, I stood up and held out my hand. He took it and looked me in the eye. "It's an honour, sir," I said in my poor Spanish. He simply nodded and sat down next to me.
Although they had not met for many years, and although both had been retired from the armed forces for more than a decade and were of the same rank, I noticed that Coco always addressed Bonzo as "senor" - "sir". From time to time, Bonzo nodded and glanced at me, not in an unfriendly manner, but neither with palpable warmth. The two chatted, and occasionally I heard Bonzo mention my name.
The atmosphere was tense. Bonzo told me, in Spanish, that the sinking of the Belgrano had been "politically criminal". I nodded and told him I agreed. I felt he hesitated at that, as if to take another, closer look at me.
I asked Coco if it was true the Belgrano had been steaming home to Argentina and he said it was.
I told them I felt no remorse at having carried out my duty, but tremendous remorse that that duty had required me to be a party to the sinking of the Belgrano, and I think they respected and understood this sentiment.
Suddenly, Bonzo looked at me and said, in English: "So you were born in Scotland? My wife and I were there, many years ago. It is a lovely country," and he smiled. The ice had finally been broken and his smile was genuine. Neither Coco nor I had realised he could speak English and, by doing so, I felt he was extending an olive branch.
We talked for an hour or so, and neither the Conqueror nor the Belgrano was mentioned again. There seemed no need to do so. A retired Argentinean naval captain and a retired junior lieutenant were chatting and drinking coffee in a cafe in Buenos Aires. One had had his ship torpedoed with the loss of 323 members of his crew. The other had been ship control officer of the watch of the submarine that fired the weapons. But at that moment, it was as if the singularity of the human spirit had bridged the gulf between victor and vanquished.
Bonzo then put his hand in his pocket, turned to me, and spoke slowly. "This", he said, taking something from his pocket, "is for you. And I want to make it clear that it is only for you, for no one else, do you understand?" He then handed me a small ceramic brooch and told me that it was one of a series that had been specially struck for the Belgrano survivors. of the Belgrano. I was truly touched.
Eighteen years ago, I should would never have believed that one day I would count among my friends a man whom I had helped to send into the frigid waters of the South Atlantic and whose comrades I had helped to send to their deaths. But today I can.