Operation Uka Uka (ITB)
On 12 June 1982, members of the Argentine Navy installed an Exocet missile in Puerto Argentino, brought in by a C-130 Hercules aircraft of the Argentine Air Force, to be launched from land.
It was an Argentine invention that put a British warship out of action in the final days of the Falklands War.
This “ingenuity under pressure” (as it was described at an international military history congress in Europe) led two civilian Navy technicians and a naval engineer to develop a previously unthinkable land-based Exocet missile launcher. It was successfully used during one of the fiercest battles of the conflict with Britain, on 12 June 1982, at Mount Two Sisters.
They called it the ITB: Instalación de Tiro Berreta (makeshift firing installation).
“Because it was ugly, improvised… a makeshift job,” recalled Antonio Shugt and Luis Torelli, who devised it in just three days, alongside Navy Captain Julio Pérez.
Antonio and Luis were 22 and 24 years old when Captain Pérez, their superior in the Missile Division at Puerto Belgrano Naval Arsenal, assigned them a mission that seemed impossible: to launch an MM38 Exocet anti-ship missile from land to counter the British bombardment of Puerto Argentino’s defences.
“Yes, it can be done,” they replied.
“It’s urgent!” the captain warned them.
Luis had been a civilian employee of the Navy for six years and had worked as an electronics technician in the Missile Division for three. Alongside Pérez and Shugt, he had visited France when Argentina purchased the Exocet missiles, giving him valuable knowledge of the system.
In total secrecy, they locked themselves in the workshop at the beginning of May, sketching ideas, drawing up plans, laying cables...
“There was nothing like it in the Navy or anywhere else,” Luis explained. “The missile alone is useless; it needs a launch system, which consists of a set of equipment that gives the missile launch orders, target data, firing conditions, flight situation... We had to build something like that, but it had to be portable, mobile, and transportable.”
“The captain wanted to design an entirely new circuit, but we didn’t have time. So we thought it more practical to use what already existed: a ship’s fire control system, which is a large room full of equipment that takes a year to install. We used one from an old destroyer. It had to be dismantled and downsized,” said Antonio.
By the third day, they emerged from the workshop with a plan: keep the most vital components and manufacture the rest more simply.
It was a gamble — and it worked. They tested the system with a missile simulator on the destroyer Seguí. A tent was erected on the deck to shield them from enemy satellites, but even with the system and missile, they still needed a launch ramp.
“Someone came up with the idea of putting it on a trailer. So they took the ramps from the ship and mounted them on a cart. The electronics were powered by a portable system from old Marine Infantry arc spotlights. The launcher and a separate control and command unit were interconnected,” Luis recounted.
It was built at top speed, with the entire workshop working two shifts around the clock: 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., and 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. The General Workshops took care of the mechanical parts. And it was ready.
It was all extremely urgent. At 4 p.m. the system was tested, and by 6 p.m. it was loaded onto a Hercules aircraft at Base Espora for deployment to the Malvinas.
Captain Pérez travelled to the islands. He was to operate the ITB with Lieutenant Commanders Edgardo Rodríguez and Mario Abadal. Luis and Antonio, being civilians, were not deployed.
The ITB reached the Falklands on 31 May, after several radar-evading flights.
Each of the two trailers weighed 5,000 kg. Moving them around the islands was extremely difficult. They could only be transported via the road to the airport, as they would sink in the tundra.
A site was designated 300 metres from the sea, facing the airport at Puerto Argentino, in the southern part of the archipelago (see map). The components were dispersed, with the launcher positioned separately to avoid detection. They would begin setup around 6 p.m. when darkness fell. It took two hours to install the ITB, and they remained in position until 3 or 4 a.m. In daylight, the system was dismantled to avoid satellite detection. For 12 days they repeated this cycle, waiting for the ideal moment.
Using an Army radar operated by retired officer Carlos Ríes Centeno —who had travelled as a documentarian— ship movements were tracked. It was an anti-personnel radar, requiring data conversion to be useful to the Exocet’s systems. Combined with input from another surveillance radar, they identified the route taken by British ships each night.
One early morning, Captain Pérez and his team attempted the first launch, but a connection issue prevented the missile from firing.
“The only British component in the ITB failed: a worthless diode. Luckily, the Marine Infantry’s Anti-Air Artillery had the exact one we needed,” Captain Pérez recounted.
A second attempt the next day failed due to a human error in radar data calculations.
By the third or fourth night, British ships had stopped passing. The radars showed nothing nearby.
“It was almost dawn when one of the lieutenants suggested doing something they used to do during training — dancing around a tree like natives to summon rain. ‘Shall we try a spin?’ he asked. Imagine two lieutenants and a captain doing that. If anyone had seen us…” Pérez laughed.
But at one point, Pérez said: “Now, while no one’s watching.” And in the dark, they danced twice around the trailer, chanting like indigenous warriors. Believe it or not, half an hour later, they were informed that a British warship had appeared in the area.
They readied the system and fired. Third time lucky — the Exocet hit its target.
The Attack
12 June 1982. British artillery was bombarding the Argentine defences at Puerto Argentino, and that same early morning, Argentina fired an Exocet missile from land at a warship — a global first. Argentine ingenuity, devised by two civilian technicians from Punta Alta in Puerto Belgrano, was now playing its part in the heat of battle on the islands.
At 3:30 a.m., HMS Glamorgan, supporting the British advance on Mount Two Sisters from offshore, had already fired nearly four tonnes of explosives. The Royal Marines welcomed the support. But as the destroyer shifted to a new position, it entered the ITB radar’s range.
“Our radar only reached 30,000 metres,” Captain Pérez explained. “We had very little time to input the data and fire. But we managed it!”
A flash in the early morning, followed by a snaking trail and the sound of a turbine disappearing into the dark horizon.
That brilliant light approaching caught the attention of everyone on the Glamorgan’s bridge. It was also seen from the coast.
It was 3:36 a.m., and it took no time for Glamorgan’s radar operators to realise they were under Exocet attack. Their evasive manoeuvres came too late — the missile struck the stern.
“3:37 — Boom! The ship jolted as if hitting a dock. We lost all power. It was chaos,” said a crew member.
The MM38 Exocet, launched via the ITB, had hit its mark.
Gaceta Marinera
