LETTERS In peril on the sea
Sir: Edward Pearce clearly knows nothing about warfare at sea (Letters, 12 October). If his arguments for describing the sinking of the Belgrano as a 'war crime' are accepted, then the sinking of the Bismarck in 1942 was a war crime. It was never said that enemy ships outside the Total Exclu- sion Zone would not be sunk. Any such restriction on our side would have been folly. The Argentines had already laun- ched two attacks against the British fleet from outside the Total Exclusion Zone (that both attacks proved abortive is irrelevant). If the Argentine navy had not been frightened by the sinking of the Belgrano, their fleet would almost certain- ly have come out and there would have been the most terrible sea battle of modern times, from which there might have been 110 survivors on either side. For those of us who had dear ones at sea in the South Atlantic at the time, that is all that matters.
Patrick Dalzel-Job
Nead-An-Eoin, by Plockton, Ross-shire
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