US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth incorrectly said that the US military sank the first enemy ship with a torpedo since World War Two on Tuesday

Pete Hegseth has claimed the US sank the first enemy ship with a torpedo since World War Two - but that is incorrect.

The US defence secretary said that on Tuesday night an American submarine sank an "Iranian warship" in the Indian Ocean and described it as "the first sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since World War Two".

However, this is not correct. Tigerfish torpedoes fired by a British nuclear-powered submarine sank Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano in 1982 during the Falklands War.

Confirming the sinking, Hegseth declared that the Iranian navy "rests at the bottom of the Persian Gulf" and that it was "ineffective, decimated, destroyed…pick your adjective, it is no more".

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He said the Iranian warship "thought it was safe in international waters" before adding: "Instead it was sunk by a torpedo, a quiet death - the first sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since World War II. Like in that war, back when we were still the war department, we are fighting to win."

More than 87 people on board the Iranian vessel have been confirmed dead, with their bodies recovered by Sri Lankan authorities.

Commander Buddhika Sampath, a spokesperson for Sri Lanka Navy, told the Associated Press that "we found people floating on the water", adding that 32 people were rescued and taken to hospital.

Speaking to the Mirror, Professor Anthony Glees, director of the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies at the University of Buckingham, said there have been at least three other cases in modern history of submarines firing torpedoes at ships and sinking them.

He said the most notorious was "the sinking of the General Belgrano on 2 May 1982 by our nuclear powered sub, HMS Conqueror", which killed 323 people.

Prof Glees said he found it "staggering" that "the US Secretary for War, Pete Hegseth, appears not to know the first thing about this pivotal event".

A second case, he said, was an Israeli submarine torpedoing and sinking a Lebanese vessel carrying refugees in 1982, killing 25 people. The third case he cited was on December 9, 1971, when the Pakistani submarine PNS Hangor torpedoed and sank the Indian frigate INS Khukri during the Indo-Pakistani War.

He continued: "I'd expect him to show a bit more respect for those who were killed. He said 'a quiet death' took 148 Iranian mariners to the bottom of the Indian Ocean. I doubt if those who went down were quiet about it.

"In all my work researching warfare, I've never come across a single member of our armed forces revelling in the deaths of our adversaries, quite the reverse. All regretted the loss of the lives of fellow combatants. Hegseth's bloodlust is vile, and does US forces no credit."