In the UK, some commentators have suggested that the action may have been motivated by political considerations, such as undermining peace talks or bolstering Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's popularity among the British public.

[12][13] Commander Héctor Bonzo [pt], captain of the , later commented about the first notification received from the Argentine Navy's General Staff about the war action to be taken in the Falkland Islands, stating: "We were asked for total and absolute secrecy regarding this decision since the surprise factor would be a priority in this maneuver.

[22] After patrolling the area for a few days and carrying out live-fire exercises off the island's southern coast,[22] the General Belgrano docked at Ushuaia Naval Base at 18:30[Notes 4] on April 22, to refuel and exchange a batch of defective ammunition.

[25] The cruiser left Ushuaia at 08:30 a.m. on April 24,[22][26] having received a communication that afternoon transmitting the reorganization of “FT 79” and new orders; two destroyers and a tanker had been assigned to “GT 79.3”,[13] which, with the Belgrano as its flagship, was tasked with operating in the area between the meridians of Isla de los Estados and Burdwood Bank.

[28] During the afternoon of April 29, two communications were received, one ordering the GT 79.3 to head east towards the area south of the Falkland Islands on May 1, and the other authorizing the use of weapons against targets identified as enemy, subject to operational discretion.

[13] That day, the Argentine government issued Communiqué 40, broadening the scope of the declaration to include all British ships in the South Atlantic that were heading for the theater of operations or perceived as posing a threat to national security.

[13][33][34] The mission of GT 79.3 involved utilizing the French-made MBDA Exocet anti-ship missiles carried by the destroyers to engage enemy ships, with the General Belgrano prepared to target any damaged vessels using its six-inch gun turrets.

[44][45] In addition to its normal crew, the submarine carried a group of personnel from the Special Boat Service (SBS),[31][44] who landed on the north coast of the island on April 19, in preparation for Operation Paraquet.

[32] Assessing the possibility of the Argentines' intention to carry out a pincer maneuver around the islands, with the aircraft carrier attacking from the north and the cruiser from the south,[9] Woodward ordered his forces to take up more defensive positions.

[41] The War Cabinet led by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher decided to relax the rules of engagement for TF 324,[9][41] authorizing nuclear submarines to attack any Argentine warship that posed a danger to British forces, whether or not it was inside the TEZ.

[53] At 16:01, while the gunners on watch on the General Belgrano were testing equipment and moving turret II in search of possible targets on the horizon, the ship experienced a significant explosion, followed by a power outage and loss of lighting,[13] and the cruiser immediately began to heel to port.

[13][53] At 4.10 p.m., the ship was already heeled over at a 10º list and the inclination was increasing at a rate of 1º per minute, with the cruiser starting to submerge at the stern as water entered through the breach caused by the first torpedo explosion,[13] which could not be pumped out due to the power failure.

[1][13] The Piedra Buena and the Hipólito Bouchard did not detect the situation on the General Belgrano due to a power failure caused by the first torpedo explosion, which disabled radio communication, and poor visibility conditions that obscured the cruiser's lights.

[13][63][64] As Conqueror executed evasive maneuvers and distanced itself from the site of the attack, the two destroyers initially moved towards the mainland,[Notes 11] delaying their realization of the incident involving the General Belgrano.

[63] At around 3 p.m., some twenty-two hours after the sinking, the work of rescuing the survivors finally began, made more difficult by the state of the sea and winds of more than 60 km/h (37 mph) caused by the storm that continued to batter the region.

Critics argue that the ship posed no threat to the British fleet and that its sinking was unnecessary, citing its location outside the Total Exclusion Zone (TEZ) and its movement away from the Falkland Islands at the time of the attack.

[43] On the British side, Rear Admiral Sandy Woodward, operational commander of TF 317, justified the action by arguing that they could not allow an Argentine warship to remain near the exclusion zone and potentially launch an attack from that position.

[6] In his book, One Hundred Days: The Memoirs of the Falklands Battle Group Commander, Woodward states that he perceived the General Belgrano, as part of the southern arm of a pincer maneuver around the islands targeting the British task force, as a threat that needed to be neutralized.

"[citation needed] British historian Lawrence Freedman argued in the second volume of his work, Official History of the Falklands, that the military and political leaders were not informed of the General Belgrano's change of course before the ship was attacked.

Freedman claims that this information was sent by HMS Conqueror to Strategic Command in Northwood four hours before the attack but asserts that it was not passed on to Rear Admiral Sandy Woodward or Margaret Thatcher's government.

[48][46][32] HMS Conqueror's decision to hoist the Jolly Roger (a black flag featuring a white skull and two crossed torpedoes) upon returning to its base at Faslane drew criticism in the Argentinian media.

The decision to launch a large-scale military operation after the Argentine invasion of the islands was risky, but victory in the conflict had a significant impact on British public opinion and played a key role in Thatcher's re-election.

[41] The government faced pressure from an inquiry conducted by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee[46] and from Labour MP Tam Dalyell, who suspected ulterior motives behind the sinking of the cruiser, including the undermining of peace talks and the escalation of the conflict.

[41] In July 1984, Clive Ponting, a British Ministry of Defense official, provided Tam Dalyell with documents detailing the incident, which suggested that the government had withheld relevant information from parliament.

[41] In May 1983, Thatcher appeared live on a program on the British television channel BBC One, where Diana Gould, a geography teacher from Gloucestershire, persistently questioned her about the sinking of the General Belgrano.

She also claimed that the government should have been aware of the peace plan proposed by Peruvian President Fernando Belaúnde Terry, which had been presented fourteen hours before the attack, and that the escalation of the conflict could have been avoided.

"[95] In 1993, the sinking of the ARA General Belgrano was denounced by the relatives of the victims to the Comisión Investigadora de las Violaciones a los Derechos Humanos, under the Ministry of Defense of the Argentine Republic, as an unnecessary war crime.

[85] In March 2003, explorer Curt Newport led a National Geographic Society maritime expedition to the South Atlantic to locate the General Belgrano using sonar and deploy a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV), the Magellan, to document the wreck.

[85] Every year, on May 2, various religious ceremonies and events are held in Argentina to honor the memory of the 323 men who lost their lives following the sinking of the General Belgrano, attended by survivors and relatives of the victims.

[46][105] In addition to helping found the association,[106] Commander Héctor Bonzo wrote his memories of the sinking in the book 1093 Tripulantes del Crucero ARA General Belgrano, published in 1991.