123 crew on Belgrano picked up

Argentina said today that only 123 of the 1,042 crew were picked up from the cruiser General Belgrano, sunk by a Royal Navy submarine on Sunday evening.

According to claims from Buenos Aires, the survivors were rescued 36 miles outside the blockade zone thrown up around the Falklands. Seven hundred of the crew were said to have taken to life-rafts.

A large proportion of the 1,042 crew of the General Belgrano would have been aged 20 or below, defence experts said today. Some could have been 17.