Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday that the United States has sunk an Iranian warship in a torpedo attack from a submarine in the Indian Ocean, the first such action by a U.S. submersible since World War II.
“Yesterday, in the Indian Ocean a U.S. submarine sank an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters. We sank it with a torpedo. It was a silent death, the first sinking of an enemy ship with a torpedo since World War II,” Hegseth told a press conference.
U.S. sinks torpedo Iranian ship
This Iranian warship thought it was safe in international waters. It wasn’t.
The @DeptofWar is fighting to win. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/4bGMubuSQu
– The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 4, 2026
The sinking of the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena occurred off Sri Lankan waters and the Pentagon showed a video of the attack and the powerful detonation that sank the vessel.
“This is the first time since 1945 that a U.S. Navy fast attack submarine has sunk an enemy using a single Mark 48 torpedo to send this warship to the bottom of the sea,” U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine said at the same press conference.
The Sri Lankan Navy confirmed today that it has recovered several bodies after the sinking of the Iranian frigate with about 180 crew members. The number of bodies recovered has not been confirmed at this time.
“I want to remind everyone that this is an incredible demonstration of America’s global reach to hunt down, find and destroy an out-of-area deployed target, something only the United States can do on this scale,” Caine insisted.
He said that, in the next 24 to 48 hours, the U.S. military command “will continue to attack Iran’s infrastructure and naval capabilities”.
Hegseth assured that his country is winning the war “resoundingly” and added that they will soon start using precision gravity bombs, of which they have an “almost unlimited” arsenal.
The best known case of a torpedo sinking after 1945 was that of the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano, which was sunk in May 1982 during the Falklands War by the British nuclear-powered submarine HMS Conqueror, using Mk8 torpedoes. The action caused the death of 323 Argentine sailors.
Earlier, in 1971, during the third India-Pakistan war, the submarine PNS Hangor sank the Indian frigate INS Khukri with a torpedo.
Although without official confirmation, another more recent case was that of the South Korean corvette ROKS Chenoan, which disappeared in the Yellow Sea in March 2010.
South Korean authorities believe the Chenoan was sunk by the action of a North Korean mini-submarine, although Pyonyang has never confirmed this.
The sinking of the Iranian warship comes amid escalating international tensions over the war launched by Israel and the United States last Saturday, which has so far resulted in the death of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, part of his military leadership and hundreds of others.
Tehran has responded to the bombings with air strikes against Israel and countries in the region that have U.S. military bases such as Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
At least six U.S. military personnel have been killed in Iranian attacks since the operation began.
U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed that the offensive against Iran will continue until its entire missile program, navy and nuclear capabilities are destroyed and warned that they have not yet launched the “big wave” of strikes, which – he said – could come “very soon”.
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With information from EFE
