1982, The Malvinas War
22 May, Choiseul Sound
Argentine Naval Prefecture Vs Royal Navy
Z-28 Patrol Boat Vs Sea Harrier Fighter
David Vs Goliath
On 22 May 1982, at 08:25, the GC-83, a small Z-28 patrol launch of the Argentine Naval Prefecture, the PNA Río Iguazú, commanded by Deputy Prefect Eduardo Adolfo Olmedo with 14 men under his orders, was sailing through Choiseul Sound and was about to reach Darwin. She was carrying two 105/14 mm Otto Melara Mk-56 howitzers and 15 Argentine Army artillerymen as artillery reinforcement for Lieutenant Chanampa, when she was intercepted and attacked by two Sea Harrier aircraft. The Argentine vessel was destroyed — but not before knocking one Sea Harrier out of action and damaging another.
When Argentina recovered the Malvinas Islands on 2 April 1982, that very same day, after expelling the English usurping authorities, it began the immediate military withdrawal back to the mainland. Argentina decided to deploy only a limited unit for policing duties until the United Nations resolved the dispute. Thus, two patrol launches from the Argentine Naval Prefecture were sent to the islands for coastguard, policing and SAR duties, in compliance with UN Security Council Resolution 502, while Great Britain was violating that same resolution by sending a massive naval invasion force from 5 April onwards.
The GC-83 Río Iguazú was assigned to the mission together with the GC-82 Islas Malvinas. The two small security vessels of the Argentine Naval Prefecture were placed under the Malvinas Naval Command and were tasked with everything from reconnaissance to logistical supply for the different garrisons scattered across the islands, patrol work, radar sweeps, pilotage for ships entering Puerto Argentino so they could be guided clear of mined areas, communications interception, and search-and-rescue missions.
While carrying out one of those missions — supplying a garrison — on 22 May, the vessel undertook what, unbeknown to her crew, would be her final run. The coastguard launch left Puerto Argentino. Her task was to transport 15 men from Battery A of the Argentine Army’s 4th Airborne Artillery Group, along with the two Otto Melara howitzers already mentioned. Since those pieces could be dismantled for mountain use, they were taken apart and stowed below deck on the small vessel, so as not to endanger her stability. She was bound for Goose Green, where it was already expected that the enemy would make its move before attempting to assault Puerto Argentino, the main objective.
At 08:25, over Choiseul Bay on Gran Malvinas Island (East Falkland), the patrol launch was intercepted by two Sea Harrier FRS.1 fighter-bombers of the Royal Navy. The crew of the Río Iguazú mistook them for RAF Harrier GR.3s. They were caught off guard. The Sea Harriers came in low, proper low, and opened fire with their 30 mm ADEN cannon, mortally damaging the vessel, killing Corporal Benítez and seriously wounding Assistant Baccaro and Corporal Bengoechea, all gunners on the ship’s M2HB .50 calibre machine gun, with which they had been returning enemy fire.
The British rounds also struck the rudder, destroyed the electrical panel, and opened a breach in the hull, which led to flooding in the engine room. With the electrical panel out of action, the bilge pumps could no longer be used effectively, and the ship was done for. Deputy Prefect Olmedo therefore made the decision to beach the Río Iguazú on the coast, so that, once stabilised, the crew could better concentrate the fire of their weapons and, at the same time, protect the men ashore until they could be rescued.
Even so, while that was being attempted, Second Corporal Julio Omar Benítez, who was operating one of the machine guns, had already been killed by a shot to the chest, leaving that weapon out of action. The other machine gun, manned by Third Assistant Juan José Baccaro, was also put out of service, while Baccaro and Second Corporal Carlos Bengoechea were both seriously wounded, along with Principal Officer Gabino González.
Olmedo presented the stern of the GC-83, where the two machine-gun mounts were located, to face the second attacking pass of the Sea Harriers now bearing down on them. But with all the vessel’s gunners either dead or wounded, it was Second Corporal José Raúl Ibáñez, an engine-room man, who at that moment was trying to bail out a breach that had already become unstoppable. Water was coming in with such pressure that the jet was smashing against the engine-room ceiling. When he came up on deck to report the situation, he was met with the grim sight of Baccaro and Bengoechea dragging themselves across the deck, and Benítez dead at the foot of the machine gun.
Although Ibáñez had no specific training as a machine-gunner, he did know how to use the weapon. He saw that the Sea Harriers were already diving once again towards the vessel and immediately took Benítez’s place at the Browning .50 calibre machine gun. He aimed and began firing at the attacking aircraft, shouting:
“¡Viva la Patria!” — Long live the Fatherland!
His courage and marksmanship allowed him to hit one of the Sea Harriers that was approaching from astern, firing at point-blank range. The aircraft withdrew inland, trailing a thick plume of smoke behind it. The other aircraft managed to veer away and left the area, following its badly wounded mate.
Minutes later, the vessel ran aground. The crew disembarked and took shelter on land, tending to the wounded, and by nightfall they were evacuated. Later, the howitzers and ammunition, which had remained inside the vessel in a section that had been flooded, were recovered by an improvised diving mission carried out by Chanampa’s men. They were then transported to Darwin by helicopter. In this way, the mission assigned to the Río Iguazú was completed after all, and those guns went on to take part in the fierce fighting that later broke out at Darwin-Goose Green.
And what happened to the English aircraft and its pilot? The CIC at Puerto Argentino, using its AN/TPS-43 radar, had detected three aircraft and was able to monitor two of them breaking off for the attack. Later, it tracked the withdrawal of the three aircraft until one of them began descending and disappeared a few kilometres from the target, while the other two continued flying until they were lost beyond the radar horizon. Naturally, the British did not acknowledge any loss at the time.
According to the British, the Sea Harriers involved were XZ496, flown by Lieutenant Hale, to whom they attributed the attack, and XZ460, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Frederiksen, who provided top cover. Not only do they deny that any aircraft was damaged, they also make no reference whatsoever to the third aircraft detected by the CIC at Puerto Argentino.
In Argentina, it is taken as fact that a Sea Harrier was shot down — almost certainly ZA192, flown by Lieutenant Commander Gordon Batt, who was killed. Batt had been one of those who attacked and sank the Argentine fishing vessel Narwal while it was carrying out intelligence work, and for that he was decorated posthumously with the DFC. The British, however, claim that the loss of this aircraft and pilot occurred, with no rational explanation to this day, one day later — on 23 May — when, after allegedly taking off alone, something impossible since British fighters operated in pairs or threes, the aircraft mysteriously exploded without reporting any fault or alarm and fell into the sea without leaving a trace.
The wounded Argentines were transported by Air Force helicopters to Puerto Argentino for treatment. The rest of the crew, including the Army personnel who had not suffered casualties, were taken to the settlement at Darwin, where they remained for two days until they could be returned to Puerto Argentino, where their presence was later deemed unnecessary for the fighting.
On 24 May, the remains of Second Corporal Julio Omar Benítez were buried with military honours at Darwin, in the presence of his Prefecture comrades who had not yet been evacuated, as well as senior personnel and troops from the Army and Air Force of the local garrison.
When the fighting at Darwin-Goose Green ended, Royal Navy experts inspected the GC-83 and determined that she could be recovered. But bad luck for them: on 13 June 1982, a Royal Navy Lynx helicopter, XZ691 of 815 Squadron, assigned to the Leander-class frigate HMS Penelope, mistook her for a vessel on an incursion and fired a Sea Skua missile, which struck the launch’s bridge and rendered her completely useless.
While the GC-82 was captured when Puerto Argentino fell the following day, the GC-83 remained abandoned for many years at the spot where she had been beached, until, on an undetermined date, she was freed, towed to a deeper area of the bay, and sunk. Not like what was done with the submarine ARA Santa Fe in South Georgia, which they tried to take to the United Kingdom as a war trophy, only for the operation to fail and the submarine to sink hundreds of kilometres off the South Georgia coast — when she could perfectly well have been sunk a couple of kilometres offshore, where she posed no danger whatsoever to navigation.
Second Corporal Julio Omar Benítez was promoted posthumously to the rank of First Corporal and was awarded the medal “The Argentine Nation to the Fallen in Combat.”
Second Corporal José Raúl Ibáñez, a Corrientes man from the town of Libertador, in the district of Esquina, received the highest decoration in existence: “The Argentine Nation for Heroic Valour in Combat.” In 1984 he married. He has one daughter, Rocío Belén, and two sons, Hernán and Gustavo Joaquín. He continued serving the Fatherland, proudly wearing the uniform of the Argentine Naval Prefecture, until reaching the highest rank in his career branch, and now enjoys his recent retirement.
The Argentine wounded were awarded the medal “The Argentine Nation to the Wounded in Combat.”
All of Benítez’s comrades, the crewmen of the Río Iguazú, also received the distinctions “Operations in Malvinas” and “Prefecture in Malvinas,” which to this day they wear with pride for having fulfilled their duty and their oath to defend the Fatherland — just like San Martín’s grenadiers, Brown’s sailors, Güemes’s gauchos, Mansilla’s artillerymen, Roca’s horsemen, the engineers of Manchala, the infantrymen of the 29th Regiment of Formosa, and the soldiers and policemen of La Tablada.
As the Liberator, General Don José de San Martín, rightly said:
“Argentines are not empanadas to be eaten with no more effort than opening one’s mouth.”
FIRST CORPORAL JULIO OMAR BENÍTEZ — SALUTE!
LONG LIVE THE FATHERLAND!
Images: We see the heroic PNA Second Corporal José Raúl Ibáñez of the coastguard GC-83 Río Iguazú, later as First Corporal; in another image, in the Malvinas, still a Second Corporal, holding the M2HB with which he would be responsible for the downing of Sea Harrier ZA192; and later, as a Senior Non-Commissioned Officer, acting as standard-bearer for the Argentine Naval Prefecture at an official ceremony. There are also images of the Río Iguazú and her crew during operations in the Malvinas; Sea Harriers in action; the Islas Malvinas captured by the British and moored alongside HMS Cardiff; a Z-28 class patrol launch in its traditional peacetime livery; the Río Iguazú out of action in Choiseul Sound; and the man from Entre Ríos, born in Basavilbaso, PNA Second Corporal Julio Omar Benítez, 1962–1982, who joined the Argentine Naval Prefecture in 1979 and gave his life for the Fatherland on that 22 May 1982.
