Malvinas/Falklands war - Alleged attack on HMS Invincible

[marcelo_malara]

Hi guys:

I have been discussing here in a local forum the alleged attack on May 30th 1982 to the HMS Invincible. Argentine pilots claims that the carrier received one air-launched Exocet and two 250 kg bombs. The official British casualties list gives 3 deads on her crew, two pilots lost in a mission and a seaman. That doesn´t agree with the claimed damage. But then somebody said that the carrier didn´t enter port until august, two months after the end of the war, allegedly to make repairs. What do you think? is this credible?

[mike1880]

No, not damaged - sunk:

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread166587/pg24

A replacement was secretly built in the US and everyone who knew the truth was bought off.

Sounds plausible to me...

Mike

[marcelo_malara]

No Mike, that is really nonsense, even here in Argentina is totally disregarded. No way of covering all the casualties caused by a sinking ship, or the silence of thousands sailors who saw it, or the workers that built it. Morever, building a new ship takes years...

[ostriker]

Morever, building a new ship takes years...

I knew that the US industry was powerfull, but so much!

[Bgile]

It would be impossible to hide something like that. It simply didn't happen. Every ship which received damage had stories associated with it. You just can't hide something like that over the passage of time because too many people know about it.

In any case, there were photos and all sorts of corroboration information about everything that happened.

[marcelo_malara]

Hi Bgile:

The supporters of the theory of the attack based their asumptions partly in the fact that the escort carrier HMS Dasher exploded in WWII and the British covered it well after the end of the war.
Do you believe that the carrier could be lightly damaged and was repaired at sea, I mean changing some plates of the damaged skin and repainting?

[Gary]

Hi all.

There was a similiar "conspiracy theory" in WW2.
The Italians claimed to have hit Warspite below the waterline at Calabria and further claimed that the British covered it up.

The theory was of course, false

[paul mercer]

What happened to the Argentinian sub that got hit by heliocopters and was beached in South Georgia (I think it was there) - was it repaired or is it still there?

[marcelo_malara]

I don´t know her fate. Anyway, it was a GUPPI updated WWII US Navy sub, already obsolete then.

[iankw]

I think you mean the Santa Fe which, if I remember correctly was taken out by a hand held missile launch system (something like Milan I think).

Ian

[marcelo_malara]

Yes, the Santa Fe. It was taken by helicopter-launched missiles AFAIK, may be Milan.

[SWORDFISH]

This is my first message on this site.

HMS Invincible was not hit during the South Atlantic Campaign.

The last Exocet-armed Etendard raid on the 30th May did no damage, the exocet was destroyed by 4.5-inch gun fire from HMS Avenger, while HMS Exeter launched their Dart missles, downing two Sky Hawks, both ships having launched their chaff rockets earlier to divert the Exocet. Both ships were unscathed from the bombing attack by the two surviving A-4 attackers. These pilots returned to base and were convinced that they had attacked Invincible successfully. In fact Invincible was many miles away.

[RF]

The Santa Fe was captured by the RN and taken to Plymouth as a prize of war.

I am not aware of any serious attack on either of the two RN regular carriers, the official record at the time was that they were completely undamaged.

The Atlantic Conveyor was of course sunk by Skyhawks, but this was a converted container cargo ship used for carrying helicopters, not a regular carrier.

[SWORDFISH]

HMS Antrim's Wessex HAS 3 (Humphrey), dropped two Mk 11 depth charges, the Santa Fe's ballast fuel tanks were damaged. HMS Brilliant's Lynx HAS2 arrived five minutes later and launched a Mk46 homimg torpedo which circled under the submirine, the Santa Fe could not submerge, as the torpedo would then intercept. A few minutes later, a Wasp from HMS Endurance joined in the fight and fired two AS-12 air to surface misiles . The first missile hit the conning tower, the second fell 30 yards away. The Wasp returned to the Endurance to rearm, it then returned and an AS-12 was launched, exploded close to the submirine's hull, causing a ballast tank to rupture and a serious leak into the boat. The Santa Fe managed to tie up at the jetty in Grytviken harbour, but by this time it was disabled and later it was scuttled.

The Santa Fe was formerly the USS Catfish (SS-339)

[RF]

The Santa Fe managed to tie up at the jetty in Grytviken harbour, but by this time it was disabled and later it was scuttled.

I was under the impression that it was refloated and towed to Plymouth.