nkawtg said:
During the Falkland war British submarines were outside port waiting for the 25 de Mayo, but the Argentinians feared the loss of their Carrier so it stayed in port. My dad served for 7 years in total on-board of this boat in his naval carreer as NFO, and to his relief it did not anticipate in the war. It would definately be sunk by British forces.
The 25 de Mayo did make it to sea and had a strike group of Skyhawks armed and ready to launch when the winds died. They could have launched without ordnance, but not with it so they retired to safety.
Timeline as follows:
May 1, 1982:
British forces commenced combat operations in vicinity of Flaklands/Malvinas with initial bombardment of targets in islands.
May 2, 1982:
British Fleet and Argentine Naval Forces within striking range of each other with Argentine Task Force 40 positioned northwest and British Task Force northeast of the Malvinas Islands / Falkland Islands. Third Escuadrilla A-4Q Skyhawks on 25 de Mayo aircraft carrier were at maximum alert and readied to launch a strike against the British Fleet with hopes of hitting a British carrier. When the distance was rightn the winds were not and the A-4Q Skyhawks were unable to launch because there was not enough wind down the flight deck for the bomb-laden Skyhawks to get airborne. This mission was postponed several times because of the wind down the deck problem and in hopes of getting favorable wind. The wind situation never improved and the British Task Force eventually steamed out of the range of the Skyhawks. While steaming away from the British task force, The General Belgrano was being tailed by a British sub. HMS Conqueror fired three conventional "straight running" Mk 8 mod 4 torpedoes, each with an 800 lb (363 kg) Torpex warhead, two of which hit the General Belgrano. Damage control efforts fail to save the Former USS Phoenix, a Pearl Harbor survivor and she is lost with 323 hands. Though the ship was heading away from the Falkland islands, it had been moving towards the British Task Force all the previous day, and had only turned around because an airstrike on the taskforce was cancelled because there was not enough wind to launch planes from the aircraft carrier operating to the north of the Falklands. The ship had in fact been ordered back towards the coast to wait for more favorable conditions for an attack.
May 5, 1982:
Decision was made to return to port. The Third Escuadrilla flew nine air defense missions armed with AIM-9B air-to-air missiles. British bogies had been detected by Argentine Navy Destroyer radar but no contact took place with the Sea Harriers.
May 9, 1982:
All eight A-4Q Skyhawks and 12 pilots of the Third Escuadrilla flew to the Argentine Navy Río Grande Base in Tierra del Fuego State and operated from there for duration of conflict.