Belgrano sinking: the high seas tension that marked the spectacular rescue

"Viva the Patria, Viva el Belgrano".

It was the cry of hope uttered by a hundred shipwrecked 37 years ago, with the rest that they had left. Seeing that their potential rescuers were approaching, the frozen bodies made a last effort to survive. They had managed to overcome the storm of the Atlantic Ocean unleashed since the night before, after their cruise
ARA General Belgrano sank to the bottom of the sea. They drifted for more than a day away from the currents of water and stormy skies inside their rubber rafts. who, despite their damage, kept them afloat, though not all alive.

The previous day

On Saturday, May 1, 1982, almost a month after the Argentine Armed Forces landed in the

Falkland Islands

Peace reigned for a moment on the waters. To the north, they were guarded by the aircraft carrier ARA Veinticinco de Mayo and from the south by Task Group 79.3, which formed the ARA General Belgrano cruise ship and the ARA Piedrabuena and ARA Bouchard destroyers. Their crews were ready to enter the 200-mile exclusion zone imposed by the British government on that territory. But they have never been able to enter it.

Before sunset, the order of battle had already been given to the fleet authorities, who had detected a possible underwater attack of the enemy. For this reason, the respective commanders of the destroyers, Horacio Grbadi and Washington Bárcena, went by helicopter to the cruise to meet their couple and the leader of the group,
Héctor Bonzo and his second commander, Pedro Galazi. This afternoon, they sealed a pact.

"We came to the conclusion that if we could not detect the submarines or be able to attack them for lack of resources, we had to separate ourselves first to prevent all of us being killed, and then we had to see how the situation would evolve to decide how to act, "said Grbadi, the captain who oversaw the lives of his 284 crew members, in an interview with
THE NATION.

For Bárcena, the "total calm" felt that day in the environment due to the lack of wind was beginning to disappear. Once back on his ship, he had to engage the crew for the next mission. As he remembers his 81-year-old man in the evening, he convened a "voluntary" meeting with the 333 crew members, most of whom had been on board for a little over a year . In the exercise of his duties and guided by his conviction, he transmitted the instructions relating to the planned plan of attack. He was surprised and delighted to see that everyone was present.

"We raised the flag of the war.It was made of a soft silk cloth embroidered with gold threads.All the guardsmen went up to the signaling bridge to sing the war. A cappella anthem against the raging wind, "said Eugenio Facchin, the leader of the time. of Bouchard. He still remembers with intensity the faces exposed to the cold and the voices of each of his comrades while a Marine – now deceased – and the artillery chief were making a kind of salvo with the 1125 pistols used by the officers in case of sagging. "The next day, we dropped the flag in tatters, half was gone, because the wind had torn," he laments.

This captain, who was also responsible for "arming" – as we call it in military jargon human resources of the ship – admits: "This secret operation worked very well with us., At the Except for a few people like the chief of operations, the chief engineer, the second commander and the commander, we were on the high seas when we learned that we were going to operate in the Falkland Islands to recover. "Then he thought:" This caused us a very special feeling, like all Argentines, we had this thing in suspense, and especially as army officers, we had this desire to see the whole country ".

The day of the collapse

On May 2, the life of the 1093 crew of the ARA General Belgrano cruise has changed forever. 300 bodies did not return, 23 others were saved lifeless and 770 shipwrecked survivors.

After midnight and early morning, the two destroyers' mission to advance into the southeastern sector of the islands to attack the British fleet had been halted. Unfavorable weather conditions and yesterday's lack of wind prevented the launch of the A4Q aircraft by aircraft carriers. For those who had to make the decisions, time was running out. They knew that they had been discovered and that they should start to protect themselves. They had to change their area to protect themselves.

The destroyers, who formed the naval arch that escorted the Belgrano and its 1093 people on board, followed it into the retreat to change the direction of navigation to the west. When returning to the Argentine coast, they kept the underwater protection of the starboard side cruise – the right side – through which the threat could likely arrive. The Piedrabuena sailed directly to the front and the Bouchard by the plating, at about 45 and 5000 meters. Both, with their four modern Exocet MM38 missiles capable of reaching 40 or 50 kilometers between maritime platforms, maintained their bearings synchronized and in constant contact until the enemy fought.

"The submarine HMS Conqueror, in a very clever maneuver, is positioned south of us, has waited for us and fired three torpedoes at the Belgrano, pointing to the stern, center and bow", explains Rafael Rey Alvarez, chief navigator. of Bouchard.

"It was four o'clock in the afternoon of a day with drizzle, clouds and a lot of wind when the first thing we felt was a detonation, it was as if a cimbronazo was moving the ship, "details the impact of one of the torpedoes when it exploded. near, about 100 meters, with more than 300 kilos of explosives. He also acknowledges his fate: "When he touched us, we sank immediately because it was a smaller ship than the Belgrano, but it only generated two directions in living work, namely the submerged part of the ship. "

At that time, the blackout occurred, the "battlefield" was hit, all the watertight doors were closed and the evacuation continued. . For Facchin, the situation was "very tense" because everyone was in a position of attack. For a moment of abstraction, he came to think of his wife, because he did not want to leave a "wonderful woman" alone with the two children. Then he thought of his parents, Italian immigrants who had lost a large part of their family during the war and who had gone to Argentina "to escape the bombs". With grace and without guilt, at that time, he also dreamed of the bike that he loved so much and that he had not yet bought. Still, I had one more reason to come back. "These were the three things I thought about for three minutes, enough time for me to be united to them and to myself, and I did not think of anything else that was wrong. to operate the ship in my turn, "he admits.

This was the vessel's most immediate objective: to leave the submarine's marksmanship, because if they returned to give it to him, they would not be able to come to the rescue of anyone. In this regard: "When we felt the explosion, I put everyone to work, I went to the bridge of command and I sent the order to put the maximum speed in the machinery sector so that they produce steam for the turbines and that the ship reaches nearly 35 knots. "

In this area, water had also begun to penetrate below the waterline. Machinists had to cover the cracks with cement and support the partitions to seal the hull. "Every member of the crew knew what he had to do, we complied with the doctrine and the checklist that established what was to be done at all times, and we kept the plan of # 39; operations in order for the commanders, "proudly admits the captain.

Like him, Rey Alvarez remembers: "When we wanted to report the situation of our destroyer to Bonzo, who was responsible for the working group, no communication circuit has worked." After a while, we realized that the Belgrano had stopped and then we started to badume that he had been attacked. "

The cruise at the bottom

Oscar Vásquez, an 18-year-old second corporal from the sea, was already fighting for his life as the cruise went downhill and began digesting the snack that had just ended.

He was almost asleep that afternoon, but "The Monkey" – his cabin mate – woke him up for the changing of the guard at 4 pm. During the transfer of tasks, certain positions of the ship were left unattended and the British naval fleet, by its vast experience of the war, knew it well. Then the submarine launched.

Vasquez just closed the door of the tower one of the bow and sat down in front of the guns when he felt coming. The ship fled, stopped. The light was cut off and there was an unknown death hitherto.

When everyone reacted, they fled to the back of the ship because the first 15 meters of the bow had disappeared. Vasquez traveled nearly 200 meters from the bow to the stern, where was his sacred raft, in accordance with the evacuation plan that they had practiced many times on board. This time, the disaster was real.

Before jumping on the raft, he looked up and promised not to die in the water, he was hanging on to life. But his badigned raft was already flat. An officer who had entered before struck her with a knife. There was no time to put the patches, so they could not overload it.

He was ordered to board a rubber boat. As soon as the tide came up and he was near, he threw himself. The blow almost paralyzed him. He stood up and, as best he could, received the missing engine and naphtha tank. He saw a man swim in the water. He helped him up and gave him a blanket. There were already ten people on board and no one else was coming. They were at the limit. Another started kicking next to them, but he gave up.

"Thank God, he was saved," he says, relieved and in dialogue with LA NACION Vasquez, the current national warlord. A year ago, the two men ended up in San Juan after decades and agreed that it was "better to save ten than die eleven". But "The Monkey" was not saved because for some reason he decided to bring the picnic supplies to his cabin when the torpedo touched this cruising area.

Another floated in the water. It was Alberto Deluchi Levene, who in a matter of seconds, one of the three Belgrano surgeons, became a potential patient of gravity. Unable to locate a nearby raft, he felt the need to jump into the water. He knew the risk he was running at 37 years old.

"There were several ways to abandon the ship, ideally on the dry, but because of the circumstances of the moment, I decided to throw myself into the sea," says the ship's lieutenant who, in high sea, managed to operate two acute appendicitis and a head injury. "As the boat sank in one hour, we could not see anyone at the chiropractor, we could only use the kits that the drivers had to take care of for those burned on the deck and rafts," adds -t it.

Deluchi Levene sailed up to the time limit in which he prevented his body from freezing due to the very low temperature of the water. He came to approach a raft. "It cost me to go up because the edge was covered with oil." Once inside, I wrapped myself in a blanket that I wore, the sensation of icing ice caused hypothermia, it caused me such pain that I had the ## 147 ## "Feel like having a thousand needles on the skin," she said.

He shared the raft, with a capacity of 20 people and already half sunk, with ten sailors, a corporal and a junior officer younger than him. Being tight helped them to feel warm. They managed to join two other rafts with ropes and this also allowed them to survive the rest of the hours that lasted the nightmare.

The night of the sinking

Vasquez was still in the gomón, who was shaking hard and hitting his occupants. "We decided not to tremble, we decided to settle on another raft to warm up, in the middle of the storm, with a lot of wind and waves, we jumped inside. One fell to the water, it would be lost, "he remembers with joy, because that did not happen.

"We joined two other rafts, but as they hit each other and were able to break, we let ourselves go and continued to drift," says Vasquez. "We did everything, we urinated, we vomited, but it was impossible to warm us up, because the raft was full of water, we prayed, we cried, we laughed, we made jokes all together, some people have fallen, especially those who had children, "says who later had his pregnant wife in Buenos Aires.

The next day

On Monday, May 3, it was clear, cold, but pleasant and calm the sea. The rafts were distant one from the other because of the current and 100 kilometers southeast of the shipwreck site.

"They were spotted by a plane that flew over the area until they ran out of fuel, which put them in harm's way. who came to save us, "Deluchi Levene said. "Bouchard came first, but soon after he left, he abandoned us without knowing why," he says. After the rescue, he understood that the ship had a machine problem and that it was impossible for men whose muscles were completely numb to cross the sea more than five meters in height.

After a while, while it was still daylight, the warning reached ARA Francisco de Gurruchaga, a smaller boat, whose tack was weaker. "They threw us a line to keep us tied to the boat as they drove through the high waves, when the tide fell, they caught us one by one, they took us by the arms and they have put on board "water," adds the doctor.

The worst was not over. "From the point of view of service, the worst thing was to see the corpses next to us." A boy from our raft, who was asleep, came alive in the battle room, but that shocked him and could not revive him. We had a death in our raft, "has a deep and irreparable penalty on the losses that have lived inside the lifeboat.

It was dark Vasquez was shipwrecked for 33 hours when he saw a mast with a giant reflector illuminating it. He did not know if the ship was Argentine or English until he understood what they were talking about and there was no longer any doubt that the agony was coming to an end. Then, he thought it was "Christmas" to revisit together, and closer than he thought, torch lights coming from all the rafts around.

The return to the continent

The Gurruchaga was a service ship and not a combat ship. It was this warning that, at the approach of 380 shipwrecked, was one of the most important rescues in naval history. He operated until they were no longer fit, then he went to Ushuaia, not without having first achieved the objective proposed by his commander, Alvaro Vasquez : alive or dead, they would recover the bodies from "until the last raft".

The next days

On May 5, after two days of rescue, Puerto Belgrano hospital in Ushuaia was filled with wounded, convalescents and survivors. They allowed them to talk over the phone to reconnect with their families, who were already aware of what had happened. Then they were sent to Captain Espora's air base in Bahía Blanca. The military race was badigned to the city of residence. Colimbas received a license until their departure.

Others were still in office. Captain Bouchard and his crew were on duty on the night of May 16 when they discovered that three points were heading toward the mainland. They deduced that it was three rubber dinghies with wooden floors, depending on the type of engine and the wake formed. On detection, they anchor and cover the fight to prevent them from landing on the ground.

"We were the only ship to be able to return the enemy fleet after picking up the Belgrano castaways to repair us and without the Piedrabuena, we went to attack," explains Facchin, who immediately announces another mystery.

"The next night we detected a helicopter, we do not know where it came from, and we warned: We do not know if an aircraft carrier has approached the coast or s & # 39; 39 he landed, but we know that he ended up burning on the Chilean side, near Aguas, Claras in Punta Arena, "reveals the discovery that took place between the news of that time. "They may have lit the fire to burn the evidence of the weapons they were carrying," he said of a possible spy ship, which, to his knowledge, thwarted the British attack plan known as Operation Mikado.

During those days, others began the return home. Vasquez arrived in Buenos Aires without money. His journey by train and collective was a feat. "I went down to Liniers and the pigs thought I was crazy, because they did not believe me when I told them I was coming out of the war, but they did not believe me. have let go without paying Castelar, "says the extimonel, who wears the tattoo of the cruiser on his right forearm. .

Several years later

Although the two double-flag destroyers had a common origin, their destiny was different. These 120-meter ships, with a capacity of about 280 crew members, built in the United States during the First World War in 1944, had already served their purpose. The turbulence of the ocean and advances in technology have made them obsolete. But also the incidents that occurred on board.

Bouchard had some. The rear boiler had raised the temperature and caused a fire, which did not happen to a serious one, except for the collateral effects it produced in the high cabins. The walls and floor above have begun to receive an excessive amount of heat that has melted all at hand, just like the soles of shoes that their occupants could no longer use. Victim of the torpedo explosion, he had to change 16 square meters of hull sheets once returned to the port. At the time, he was sent to scrap.

On the other hand, Piedrabuena, who had left Puerto Belgrano in April 1982 with 285 people and returned a month later with 555, had another destination. Whatever their commander at the time, the destroyer had a "sad end like a white ship".

In 1984, it was decommissioned because it could not be repaired. Meanwhile, new destroyers have arrived from Germany. "Since it was not profitable to move it to sell it, it was stuck in an untapped harbor," says Grbadi, "so he was towed on the high seas in the year 88. He remained empty, without the useful elements that served to another unit … a Meko clbad fleet fired an Exocet missile and sank it. "

Today, 37 years old

"At some point, yes, you will certainly know the truth.
declbadify the documents of England to understand what happened, but I do not know if it will be when we will be alive, "predicts Facchin, currently a researcher and author of books on the issues of war." If a country does not want certain information to be known, it does not. it is declbadified. This only happens when a country has nothing to lose. It depends on a political decision. "

"The worst we can discover are the reasons that led us to the war, which are sometimes very meager, and to know that our neighbors were not as loyal as they should have been. to be, but it's something that happens, "explains Facchin. . He concludes: "What we have done is with total professionalism, I am satisfied I have never escaped the fight".

The survivor Deluchi Levene believes that the sinking experience has marked him forever. "All those who live the cruise live an experience of obedience to the service, no one denies to be there, of camaraderie and collaboration for the rescue of our comrades, that's been many years and there is no had reproaches. "

He is convinced that having fought for the Falklands was a just cause, even though it was not necessary to defend them with weapons. He says, "He who is a soldier does not need to know the thoughts of the general, but he must fulfill a mission for which he has prepared himself." Superiority must be sure that the military will fulfill this mission even in unforeseen circumstances. and with a lack of resources ".

Commander Bárcena was trained to watch, attack, save and survive in war situations. His intense military career taught him to keep his spirit unshakable in the face of the most extreme human situations. Few people, and only those who, as an army, have the privilege of defending their homeland, have managed to experience the maximum vocation of service, despite suffering, sacrifice and uprooting.

He was able to maintain lucidity and wisdom in the midst of the chaos and despair that seized souls in the rafts. Sixty-four have boarded the Bouchard and, despite the excess capacity, have returned to the mainland to supplement the separated families and focus on achieving new goals. In his case, the one soon graduated as a doctor of political science at the University of Kennedy. He always acknowledged that his work was possible thanks to the "values ​​the crew maintained in extreme conditions, because no one had complained or asked to leave the boat, even in case of injury."

With affection, he still remembers who his "butler" was, the one who kept the order and the cleanliness of his cabin. At the time of the conflict, the NCO approached him to make a very special request: to leave the routine tasks to go to battle. Bárcena agreed and gave him permission. Then, in the absence of his steward and his services, he quickly realized how important each member of the crew was to making everything work normally.

Like the rest of his unforgettable, courageous and exemplary colleagues, he was not afraid of losing his life. I regretted the emptiness I could leave to their loved ones if I did not see them again; this emptiness that makes one cry, which cuts off the breath and speech. How it feels now when he remembers the people he loved most, with whom he was in good times and times of conflict, and they are no longer with him. But he also feels comforted and satisfied to have accomplished his duty. It makes him happy. As he is happy to receive visitors in his corner, far from the city, where he enjoyed playing golf with his neighbors in recent years. There, in a simple house far from the ocean, Bárcena keeps in her infinite memories of the war and her five children and her thirteen grandchildren, to whom she can still today tell her story with integrity, sincerity and humility.

He was one of those who came back. He was not a hero. None of the testimonials feel like that. They believe that the true heroes are those who have returned mutilated, those who still have sequelae, the doctors who never abandoned their patients while they were surrounded by the enemy. Heroes are also those who stayed at the bottom of the sea or in the southern islands. Those who remain still meet from time to time and take part in vigils to commemorate the dead who are not forgotten.

Among the fighters who, in the defense of the Malvinas and in the honor of the country, have risked everything, there is a great coincidence: everyone would choose his military profession again. Although they are convinced, from their own experience, war is never the solution to conflicts.