Biography: Commodore (Malvinas War Veteran) Guillermo Dellepiane (Argentina)

Honor Brotherhood

The spectacular adventure of Guillermo Dellepiane, a pilot who attacked the English camp in the Malvinas, dropped bombs on Jeremy Moore and when he escaped he lived a movie odyssey. A man whom the British recognize and the Argentines ignore
Jorge Fernández Díaz



He was twenty-four years old, flying low over the sea, and was about to bomb a destroyer and a missile frigate.

They called him Piano because his name was Guillermo Dellepiane, and he was a second lieutenant in a force that had no heroes or heroes because he had never gone into combat. It was the first mission of his life and he had just taken off from Río Gallegos. His father had died without being able to fulfill his dream of realizing in reality what he had pretended to do throughout his entire career: air warfare.

It must be as disturbing as going into battle to dedicate one's life to an event that will not happen. Warriors of theory and training, many hunters receive, develop and retire without ever having hunted real prey. Piano's father, close to retirement, had died two years ago in an absurd accident, when a wing of the Cóndor building collapsed. Flying towards the target in an A-4B Skyhawk, the son now came to fulfill the desired scene concocted by the ghost of his father.

It was May 12, 1982 and a squadron of eight Argentine planes was advancing in radio silence towards two British ships. The first four were ahead and would shoot first. The four falcons behind, at a safe distance, would have a second chance or would come in to finish them off.

For Piano, it was an initiatory mission, the last lesson of a war professional: war itself. Until then everything had been learning and testing. Ensign is the first rank of officers, and Dellepiane had not even experienced in-flight refueling, a complex operation that in this case consisted of flying close to a Hercules, fitting the A-4B's nose lance into the fuel basket and load tanks to continue the journey. Many failed in this attempt: they became nervous and could not put the spear in. "Look if I can't, it's a shame," he said to himself. He was more worried about that embarrassment than about death. But when he had the Hercules face to face he did not fail, and he quickly joined his boss, a first lieutenant, who ordered them to go down to less than fifteen meters from the waves and advance at full speed. They flew so low that they left trails in the sea.

Evading missiles

With their souls in suspense they heard that, five minutes before reaching the target, the first four planes attacked. There was nothing visible on the horizon, but Piano quickly realized that his companions had not fared very well. Within two minutes they learned that three planes had been hit by anti-aircraft artillery and had been shot down amid mushrooms of fire and booms of water. The fourth plane was returning on its own. The sun made a black day splendid. Very black. Piano suddenly saw the enemy ships. There were actually two of them and they were shooting at them. At that moment he did not think about the country or God, he only watched that fantastic Technicolor movie with a certain disbelief. He saw her as if he were not a part of her. It was a short and amazing show but without noise, because you couldn't hear anything in the cabin. They were fractions of seconds: Piano held his breath, checking the speed and height, and at the exact moment in which he passed over one of the two ships, while receiving and evading shots of all kinds, he pressed the button and released a bomb. of a thousand pounds.

 
From the left, Ensign Vázquez (died in combat), Ensign Dellepiane (today Commodore), Vice Commodore Douburg, Lieutenant Arraráz (died in combat) and Captain Zelaya.
 
From the left, Ensign Dellepiane (now Commodore), Doubourg and Zelaya

The bombs hit the destroyer, tearing horrible, final holes in it. She was out of commission, but Piano learned that much later because at that moment the only thing he could do was get out of the mousetrap quickly, evading missiles and fleeing at full speed. When a squadron fires, the planes disperse and each one returns as best they can. The young ensign felt alone for a few minutes but suddenly he spotted his boss's ship and caught up with her. They could not speak to each other, because the air navigations were silent, but they flew together, like brothers, at a distance of two hundred meters from each other, with hell behind and the continent in front. They had fulfilled and returned with glory; It was a strange and pleasant feeling.

Until suddenly a low projectile emerging from the fog hit an aileron of the first lieutenant's plane. It was a fatal blow at infinite speed that made him flip, hit the surface of the ocean and explode into a thousand pieces. All in the blink of an eye. Piano saw it without believing it but without stopping to press the accelerator. He descended even further and practically plowed the sea with a metallic taste in his mouth. He was emotionally dependent on his boss. He had let his guard down for a moment, thinking "he's going to take me home," but now he was alone and desperate. Now he depended solely on his own expertise, or his luck.

He flew for a while that way, fleeing from the devil, and then, when he was sure that they were not following him, he notified the Hercules C-130, which the hunters call "La Chancha", and began the ascent. "La Chancha" placed the basket and without losing his pulse the young ensign pushed the lance and reloaded fuel. Then he flew the last leg almost blind: the sea had formed a thick layer of salt on the plane's windshield.

The salt air of desolation clouded Piano's eyes. The hardest thing was to enter the room of a dead comrade, gather his clothes, pack his suitcase and leave it in the lobby of the hotel where his squad was staying the night. That ritual awaited him in Río Gallegos at the end of that day in which he had finally had his baptism of fire in the South Atlantic. The gods, as the old Greek saying said, punish men by fulfilling their dreams.

In the following years he would only remember that first mission. And the last one. In the middle there were only reconnaissance flights, raids in the Fitz Roy area, terrible nerves and more falls and duels. Also the spirit of the mechanics, who always said goodbye to the fighter pilots with flags and cheers, and the return from the base to the hotel that, with success or without success, with or without deaths, they did in a jeep or a truck. Ford F100 singing songs against the English.

They had, of course, no idea how the war was going. And when they were transferred to San Julián they suffered a certain sadness: they occupied an inn and walked around that small city in a state of total alert.

They were not very superstitious, but they had cabals and in fact they did not take photos of each other because they instinctively believed that eternalizing themselves in those images meant a direct passage to misfortune.

They thought nothing, however, of that mission on the 13th: it was cloudy and cold, and Piano and his companions were ordered to leave for the islands. They said that the English had landed and that they were fighting hand to hand on land. The A-4Bs carried bombs, rockets and cannons. Piano was, as always, anxious. Although that anxiety usually ended when they tied him up in the cabin and had to go out into the ring. The nerves then disappeared, like the bullfighter who feels a knot in his stomach until he goes down to the arena and faces the bull with his cape.

But takeoff was not so easy. Some hydraulic fluid pipes broke and a twin plane had to be searched 1,500 meters away. The ensign was desperate that his squadron would leave without him, so he got into the other A-4B and began taxiing without loading the Omega system, which allowed for precise coordination and flight. Piano did not want to stay in San Julián, and since his people had already left, he called the leader of the second squadron and asked permission to join his group. They gave him the go-ahead and he took off without having the plane properly configured. He ascended and searched the clouds for direction, and in a moment found the Hercules, which was carrying twelve men and had orders not to enter the battle zone or remain within range of enemy missiles for any reason.

He refueled and followed his guide through the north of the Falkland Islands, then headed east at low altitude and towards the south under showers. And he was surprised to hear the islands' radar operator ask if there were planes in flight. The head of the formation responded with a request, to provide them with the positions of the Sea Harrier patrols.

When the verbal report arrived, the Argentine pilots felt a chill. There were four patrols in the air and a fifth north of the San Carlos Strait. The sky was infested with English planes. It was a death trap, and logic dictated returning immediately to the mainland.

But they were already five minutes from the objective and the day had cleared, and then the guide made the decision to continue. Later they would discover that they were attacking a huge bivouac set up by the English in Monte Dos Hermanas. More than two blocks with tents, containers and helicopters, a camp from where General Jeremy Moore directed the war.

Everything happened within minutes. The A-4Bs were traveling at eight hundred kilometers per hour and twenty meters apart. The pilots feared that a missile frigate would cut them off before reaching the target. They did not carry weapons to attack a ship; the bombs had fuzes for ground targets. Due to the large mobilization of helicopters in that area, the generals of Puerto Argentino had surmised that the very center of British operations could be there. And they were not wrong.

The flight charts said that the attack should be made at 12:15. And there were two minutes left. The hunters passed over San Luis Bay and the Malvinas radar operator warned them that the Harriers had detected them and were already converging on them. With one minute and twenty seconds left, the squad almost upset an English soldier who was climbing a hill. Now the planes, in the final run, flew close to the ground. Beyond the rise the camp appeared. And Jeremy Moore evacuated his tent a minute before the shells fell on him.

Dellepiane launched his three 250-kilo bombs, causing destruction, and realized that they were throwing everything they had at them. From missiles and anti-aircraft artillery to hand weapons. It was a fireworks festival. And almost all the pilots detached themselves from the reserve tanks and missile carriers and made a curve to return through the North, each one left to his intelligence.

Piano flew doing evasion and acrobatic maneuvers, and felt impacts to the fuselage. It was again an incredible and terrifying sight. At the height of Mount Kent he encountered a Sea King helicopter in mid-flight and shot it. Two projectiles came out and the barrel jammed, but a bullet hit the blades and forced the English pilot to make an emergency landing.

Immediately, on the left, he saw two fireballs passing by that were going directly towards his lieutenant's plane, so he shouted into the radio "Close to the right" and continued turning until he saw that the missiles were passing by and were lost. Later he ran into another Sea King and tried to shoot it again, but it was also in vain: the barrel would not unlock. So at the last moment he raised the Skyhawk and passed within centimeters of the helicopter's blades to prevent the pilot in the green helmet from killing him with his trigger.

It was more or less at that moment that he realized that something unexpected was happening: he was running out of fuel. A shell had pierced his tank, and he was only 2,000 pounds. He needed more than twice as much to reach the position of "La Chancha." But he was not thinking at that crucial moment about getting anywhere but about escaping the harassment of the Harriers. He then detached himself from the missile carriers and continued flying for a distance asking the Malvinas radar to tell him, without technicalities and with precision, where his executioners were. The Harriers were flying at a considerable distance, so already over the north of the San Carlos Strait he doubted whether he should eject on the island or try to reach the Hercules. His teachers, in theory lessons, had always recommended that in a similar situation he try to return. Ejecting meant missing the plane and being taken prisoner. Crossing meant facing the risk of not making it and ending up in the sea. If he fell he could not survive more than fifteen minutes in the icy waters, and there was no operational chance that any ship could rescue him in time.

His companions, on the radio, tried to give him advice and get him out of the dilemma. But his boss thundered: "Let Piano decide." And then Piano decided. He went out to sea, put himself on the Hercules' frequency and began talking to the pilot who commanded it. That day, two men ignored the orders of the high command: the pilot of "La Chancha" left his protective position, entered the danger zone and advanced at full speed to meet Piano's A-4B, and An officer from San Julián had an outburst, got on a helicopter and went two hundred miles into the sea to look for him, a completely irregular and risky flight that did not help but showed the suicidal courage of the pilot and the desperation with which he continued in earth the fate of that fuel-injured hunter who was trying to return home.

The ensign heard "Let's go look for you" and tried to remain optimistic, but the liquidometer kept telling him that he would not make it out of that last trip alive. "How far away are they?" he asked every three minutes. "How far away are they?" The radio was filled with voices: "Go ahead, asshole, with faith, with faith you will arrive." The ensign was calculating the amount of fuel, which was dramatically extinguished, and predicted that it would collapse. And his listeners redoubled their cries of encouragement: "Calm down, kid, that's enough for you!" He knew they were lying to him. When he reached 200 pounds he gave up. At any moment the engine would stall and go directly into the sea. Fish food. When he reached 150 pounds he remembered that it was equivalent, more or less, to two minutes of flying. "Don't abandon me!" -He cursed at them, because there was silence on the line-. Suddenly the pilot of the Hercules C-130 thought he saw him, but he was a companion. Piano went from euphoria to depression in fifteen seconds.

He did not pray in those instances, only flashes of memory of his father came to him. The ghost was inside that cabin, stuck in his headphones. "Give me a hand, old man," he asked him gutturally, with his vocal cords and with the ventricles of his heart.

The liquidometer then read zero, and suddenly Piano heard that he had been spotted and finally saw "La Chancha." He saw her crossing the sky, to the right and far below. He asked the pilot to get into position and dived without forcing the engines, gliding towards the rescue basket. When he had it in front of him he gave it maximum power with a drop of fuel in the tank and when he got within range he pressed the flight brake and inserted the spear. Everyone thundered with joy on the radio and hugged each other on the ground. Piano was also shouting, but he wanted to resupply quickly, regain control and return to San Julián at his own expense. They soon discovered that this was not possible. All the fuel that entered went into the tank and fell through the hole. "Stay hooked," the Hercules pilot told him. They had no alternative. They flew coupled the rest of the way, losing fuel and risking an explosion or not arriving in time.

It was another dramatic race until they saw the gulf and then the base. Then the A-4B broke away and, dripping with lethal liquid, searched for the runway. Piano tried to lower the landing gear but the nose wheel resisted. There was all the personnel from the San Julián base waiting, and he was running around, leaving trails of jet fuel and trying to get that damn wheel to come down. He finally came down, and the ensign landed, untied himself quickly, took off his helmet, jumped onto the asphalt and ran away from the enormous lake of fuel that was forming at the feet of the A-4B.

Medal for valor

There was partying until late and unbridled happiness in San Julián. Since Piano considered himself alive by a miracle, he had many drinks and they had to accompany him to his room: he fell asleep with a smile and woke up very late. It was June 14, 1982 and his colleagues informed him that Argentina had surrendered.

Thanks to a providential license, two days later he was already in Buenos Aires. The city remained mired in anger and depression. And also in indifference. Anyone who crossed paths with Piano approached him cautiously and after a while asked him to tell everything he had experienced. But Piano didn't feel like saying anything. For years he dreamed of those deadly pirouettes, those low flights, those deaths: persistent insomnia and frightening specters that pursued him like merciless Sea Harriers.

They gave him the Medal for Valor in Combat, and he remained in the Air Force, pursuing a quiet career with an impeccable record and a lot of professional training. Two years ago he was sent as an aeronautical attaché to London. The English received him as a great warrior. In the same tradition of Wellington and Napoleon, European armies still practice honor for their ancient and respectable enemies.

The pierced blades of the Sea King that Piano had shot down at Mount Kent are in the Royal Navy Museum, and the helicopter pilot who was driving that day is alive but retired. Piano got his phone and chatted affectionately with him. "I'm glad I didn't kill him," he said to himself.

The English veterans who fought in the South Atlantic have enormous respect for the Argentine aviators. And they are nostalgic for those times: "It was the last conventional war," they say. "Some against each other over a specific territory. Today everything is done at a distance, in terrains without defined borders and for blurred causes, with atomized terrorism and combatants." eternal religious. With those enemies in the end we cannot get together to have a beer."

That ensign, turned commodore, was invited one afternoon to present an award at the RAF aviation school. At night, the newly received war pilots and their officers dined in a majestic hall with very long tables. Piano occupied a privileged place, and the school director asked for silence and spoke about the Argentine pilot. She knew his war resume by heart and in his speech he showed his pride in having that night a man who had truly fought against them.

Last Thursday Guillermo Dellepiane took over as director of the Air War School in Buenos Aires. He occupies an office in the Cóndor Building, where his father died. Piano is now a short, chubby fifty-year-old. His hair fell out, he is extremely cordial and has modern thinking, and of course no one recognizes him on the street. Nobody knows that he is part of the brotherhood of honor, and that he is an indelible hero of a cursed war.

© LA NACION