ARA Veintcinco de Mayo (V-2) formerly HMS Venerable (R63) ARA Veinticinco de Mayo (V-2) was an aircraft carrier in the Argentine Navy from 1969 to 1997. The English translation of the name is Twenty-fifth of May, which is the date of Argentinas May Revolution in 1810. The ship previously served in the Royal Navy as HMS Venerable and the Royal Netherlands Navy as HNLMS Karel Doorman. She was deployed south during the Beagle Crisis in 1978 and in the first weeks of the Falklands War, where her aircraft were deployed against the Royal Navy task force, but spent the bulk of the war in port. During the Falklands War (Spanish: Guerra de las Malvinas/Guerra del Atlántico Sur), Veinticinco de Mayo was used in support of the initial Argentine landings on the Falklands and then in defence of the occupation she was deployed in a task force north of the Falkland Islands, with ARA General Belgrano to the south. The British had assigned HMS Spartan, a nuclear-powered submarine, to track down Veinticinco de Mayo and sink her if necessary. Rear Admiral Sandy Woodward, commanding the British Task Force from HMS Hermes stated in his book One Hundred Days, that had Spartan located the carrier, he would have Recommended in the strongest possible terms to the Commander-in-Chief Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse that we take them both out this night. After hostilities broke out on 1 May 1982, the Argentine carrier attempted to launch a wave of A-4Q Skyhawk jets against the Royal Navy Task Force after her S-2 Trackers detected the British fleet. What would have been the first battle between aircraft carriers since World War II did not take place, as poor winds prevented the heavily-loaded jets from being launched. After the British nuclear-powered submarine HMS Conqueror sank General Belgrano, Veinticinco de Mayo returned to port for safety. Spartan never tracked down the carrier. Her A-4Q Skyhawks flew the rest of the war from the naval airbase in Río Grande, Tierra del Fuego, and had some success against the Royal Navy, sinking HMS Ardent. Three Skyhawks were shot down by Sea Harriers. In 1983, Veinticinco de Mayo was modified to carry the new Dassault Super Étendard jets but soon after problems in her engines largely confined her to port; she was deemed more or less unseaworthy and was was scrapped in 2000
Posted on: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 00:31:41 +0000
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