Word: vessels
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...vessel naval task force, carrying more than 2,000 troops, began to assemble off the British coast. Its orders were to proceed to the South Atlantic and establish a blockade of the islands. The navy's aim was to peacefully evacuate the Argentine invaders and restore British sovereignty. But Defense Secretary John Nott declared on Sunday that Britain was prepared to fight to regain control of the islands. Argentina's President, General Leopoldo Fortunate Galtieri, warned that his nation would not retreat and that, if attacked, would "present battle with all the means at its disposal...
...come to grief only ten yds. from shore, like a careless Sunday yachtsman caught by an ebbing tide. The Swedes scoffed at the Soviets' reported claim that the sub's navigation gear had failed: after all, it had certainly been working well enough to guide the vessel up the channel in the first place. Declared General Lennart Ljung, the Supreme Commander of the Swedish Armed Forces: "I don't think it happened because the gyrocompass broke down. They have many other ways of navigating...
...events leading to the release of the sub were a mixture of high drama and low slapstick. For six days, Commander Pyotr Gushin refused to leave his stranded vessel to talk to the Swedes. Not until Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko allowed Gushin to cooperate did the commander relent. The skipper and his navigation officer emerged, asked for and were allowed permission to shower, and then settled down to claim during a seven-hour interrogation that they had hit the reef because their compass had failed...
...deck. The 50-man Soviet crew quickly decided it could stand no more. Red flares signaling distress whooshed up from the conning tower, and the radio put out the call "Mayday, Mayday." Under the sea's battering, the submarine developed a 17° list to starboard. The vessel's large electrical storage batteries threatened to leak acid that could fill the hull with poisonous chlorine...
...grew louder with the Swedish announcement that their investigators had become certain that uranium 238 was aboard the sub, leading to the accusation that it probably carried nuclear weapons. To the Swedish charge, the Soviets replied only that the vessel carried the "necessary weapons and ammunition...