Una Taradezz

Although Argentina remained neutral in both world wars, the country's navy was a force to be reckoned with. In 1940, Argentina's navy was ranked the eighth most powerful in the world (after the European powers, Japan, and the United States) and the largest in Latin America. A ten-year building program costing $60 million had produced a force of 14,500 sailors and over a thousand officers. The fleet in 1940 included two First World War-era (but modernized) American-built Rivadavia class battleships, three modern cruisers, a dozen British-built destroyers, and three submarines in addition to minelayers, minesweepers, coastal defense ships, and gunboats. A naval air force was also in operation.[5]

In the postwar period, Naval Aviation and Marine Corps units were put under direct Navy's command. With Brazil, Argentina is one of but two South American countries to have operated two aircraft carriers effectively: the ARA Independencia and ARA Veinticinco de Mayo.

The Argentine Navy have been traditionally greatly involved in fishery inspection helping the Coast Guard : most notably in 1966 a destroyer fired and holed a Russian trawler which had refused to be escorted to Mar del Plata, in the 1970s there were four more incidents with Soviet and Bulgarian ships [6] and continued in recent years.[7][8][9]

The Navy also took part in all military coups through the 20th century. During the last dictatorship, Navy personnel were involved in the Dirty War in the late 1970s in which thousands of people were kidnapped, tortured and killed by the forces of the Military Junta. The Naval Mechanics School, known as ESMA, was a notorious centre used for torture. Amongst their more well-known victims were the Swedish teenage Dagmar Hagelin and French nuns, Alice Domon and Léonie Duquet (In October 2007 the Argentine navy formally handed possession of the School to human rights groups which will now be turned into a memorial museum). During this regimen, the Navy was also the main supporter of a military solution for the country's two long standing disputes: The Beagle Conflict with Chile and the Falklands Islands ( Spanish: Islas Malvinas ) with the United Kingdom.

[edit]Falklands War

Main article: Falklands War

See also: Argentine naval forces in the Falklands War, 1982 invasion of the Falkland Islands, and Invasion of South Georgia

During the 1982 Falklands conflict termed by the Argentines Guerra de las Malvinas / Guerra del Atlántico Sur the Main Argentine Naval Fleet consisted of modernised World War II era ships (one GUPPY-type submarine, one British-built Colossus-class carrier, a cruiser, and four destroyers ) supported with new ones (2 Type 42 class destroyers, 3 French built corvettes and one German built Type 209 submarines). This fleet was supported by several ELMA tankers and transports as