602nd Commando Company (Argentinian Army)

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The 602nd Commando Company (Compañía de Comandos 602 or Ca Cdo(s) 602) is a special operations unit of the Argentinian Army, created on May 21, 1982 and placed under the command of Major Aldo Rico. It was based on the original 601st Commando Company under Major Mario Castagneto that was formed and sent to reinforce the Argentinian-occupied Falklands/Malvinas Islands in late April.

The company is currently divided in three assault sections: 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Its motto is "Res Non Verba" (Actions Not Words). The company is based in Cordoba. The members of this unit wear green berets with unit badges.

The companies were formed in 1975 for the counterinsurgency campaign in Tucumán Province but then disbanded, then formed temporarily as Halcón 8 under Major Mohamed Alí Seineldín for security during the FIFA World Cup held in Argentina in 1978 but then disbanded after the games.

These Argentinian Army Commandos were hurriedly collected, and the 601st and 602nd Commando Companies were formed with about 114 men altogether and sent to Puerto Argentino/Port Stanley, the capital of the Falklands/Malvinas Islands. The Army Commandos were reinforced by a 65-man special forces squadron of the National Gendarmerie in late May 1982.

The British 22nd Special Air Service Regiment (SAS) and Mountain and Arctic Warfare Cadre (M&AWC) had several clashes with the 602nd Commando Company in the Battles of Mount Kent and Top Malo House. [1]The Argentinian Green Berets were operating behind enemy lines and were ordered to capture British soldiers and shoot down enemy helicopters. The 602nd Commando Company in the form of Captain Andrés Antonio Ferrero's 3rd Assault Section suffered one badly wounded (Sergeant Raimundo Máximo Viltes) in an attempt to seize Mount Kent on the night of May 29/30, with 16 Air Troop reporting suffering two SAS badly wounded (Carl Rhodes and Richard Palmer) in fighting off this Argentinian incursion.

The 602nd Commando Company lost two men killed in another SAS ambush at Bluff Cove Peak in the morning of May 30 with Boat Troop reporting two SAS men (Ewen Pearcy and Don Masters) hit by hand-grenades. First Lieutenant Rubén Eduardo Márquez[2] and Sergeant Oscar Humberto Blas, from Captain Tomás Victor Fernández' 2nd Assault Section, were posthumously decorated for their part in this Argentinian counter-ambush.[3]

Another fierce gunbattle took place on the lower slopes of Mount Simon on morning of May 31. Captain José Arnobio Vercesi's 1st Assault Section from the 602nd Commando Company had been spotted taking refuge in an isolated sheep farm, Top Malo House, which had been bypassed by the 3rd British Commando Brigade. 19 Mountain & Artic Warfare special forces were helicoptered there and attacked the house. During a fierce 45-minute action the house was set on fire, with the British later paying tribute to the tough fight put up by the Argentinians, who suffered two killed and six wounded; there were only four unwounded prisoners. Two of the Argentinians, Lieutenant Ernesto Emilio Espinosa and Sergeant Mateo Domingo Sbert, were posthumously awarded the Heroic Valour Cross, Argentina's highest decoration for bravery. The Argentinian commandos claimed two British were killed; their comrades, they said, could be seen crying over the dead bodies. But no British were killed; what the Argentinian survivors saw were the three badly British Marines wounded being tended.[4]

The only British death in the Mount Kent area was when an SAS patrol accidentally fired upon an SBS patrol in the early hours of 2 June and SBS Sergeant Nick Hunt was killed.

From their mountaintop observation post on Wall Mountain and The Saddle, British Royal Marine Commandos in the form of the platoons of Lieutenants Andy Smith and Tony Hornby, directed naval, artillery and mortar fire on the Argentinians below on Mount Harriet and Two Sisters Mountain. Major Rico's men, in the form of Captain Andres Ferrero's 3rd Assault Section, were able to dislodge Lieutenant Tony Hornby's 10 Troop on Mount Wall on the night of June 5/6. According to Captain Ferrero:

“ At about 4 in the evening on the 5th, we moved up to First Lieutenant Carlos Alberto Arroyo's command post on Mount Harriet. Major Aldo Rico commanded the patrol. We were as glad to see Arroyo as he was to see us. Dirty, bearded and a little thinner, he gripped Rico in a bear hug. A gallant Commando, Arroyo volunteered to go with us to Mount Wall. Several conscripts came to see us. There was a lot of laughter, some of it nervous, perhaps adrenaline-driven. We had a chance to get a scrumptious and - let us be honest here - very fatty barbecue going and look at the enemy positions at Bluff Cove Rincon and tried to pinpoint the observation post on Mount Wall. A 4th Regiment patrol had been out in the area the night before. Distances were deceptive. In the thin air Mount Kent seemed close at hand. In nearly every other direction arose outcrops of limestone. Their slopes were not sheer; rather they spread themselves, rugged and inhospitable. It was a very humbling place. We watched 155mm fire falling on the British paratroopers at Bluff Cove Rincon. The weather was appalling, cold and wet with high wind. Few people are aware that we also had the ugly experience of being shelled by the 3rd Artillery Group at one point. It was human error. The plan was to take Mount Wall from the rear. Two artillery batteries were on call, because our route up the feature was very open - a perfect killing ground. By 4pm it was almost dark and the temperature had sunk. Moving past shell craters and remnants of cluster bombs to the base of Mount Wall, we lay up among boulders while First Lieutenant Lauria cleared a path through the minefields. Altogether it must have taken three hours to get there. It was a moonlit night and cold. I lay there frozen, not moving. Argentinian Artillery fire started coming down on Mount Wall at approximately 10.30pm. Crouching in silence we waited for the fire to end. Some shells fell only 150 metres from us. Then - sudden silence. It ceased and Major Rico screamed to us to go and we advanced uphill through the rocks. A fit commando, if anyone was going to get to the mountaintop first, it would be Lauria but as he swept round a boulder, he came across a straggler or so he thought. It was Major Rico. Who says ages slows you down? On the way up we passed the body of a 4th Regiment conscript. Captain Hugo Ranieri knelt down to examine the body and removed the rosary from the young soldier's neck before moving on. We found a laser target designator and several rucksacks. It was the first indication we'd had of how well they had been equipped. There was even a 42 Commando beret.[5] ”

During the night of June 8/9, a British platoon of riflemen in the form of 1 Troop (under Lieutenant Mark Townsend) from 42 COMMANDO'S 'Kilo' Company raided the defenders on Mount Harriet. During their withdrawal, Townsend and his Marines got within 400 meters of some forty Argentinian Army Commandos in ambush positions near Murrell River, but the Argentinians held their fire, fearing the bulk of the British raiders would make good their escape at the first sound of gunshot. According to Captain Hugo Roberto Ranieri, a specialist sniper armed with a Weatherby.300 Winchester Magnum:

“ We went out practically every night. The missions were all conducted at night... One time we went out with a very strong patrol to set up an ambush in the last foothills... quite close to Kent. The first night we set up the ambush, we received a warning from part of the ambush that informed us that about twenty Englishmen were heading our way. The thing is, they got within something like four-hundred meters; We could only see them with our night-vision devices... There was much tension since we could see them out in the open but we couldn't engage them so as to not let them get away, because it could very well be that they would get closer and fall into the trap. But it was not to be.[6] ”

Four Royal Marines (Sergeant Robert Leeming, Coporals Peter Fitton, Andrew Uren and Marine Keith Phillips) were killed near Murrell River, reportedly due to friendly fire, with this action taking place on the night of 9/10 June.[7][8][9][10]British intelligence officer Nick Van Der Bijl listened to the escape of the Royal Marine Commandos that had raided Two Sisters on the night of 9/10 June, via the radio and heard about the evacuation of the casualties suffered in Mortar Troop (under Lieutenant Dominic Rudd) on The Saddle at the base of Mount Kent.[11]Two nights before the final attack on Two Sisters Mountain, 45 COMMANDO suffered its first losses near Murrell River, a confusing episode involving a reinforced rifle platoon under Lieutenant Andy Shaw from 'Yankee' Company and two supporting patrols as well as some 50 Argentinian Army and National Gendarmerie Special Forces that Lieutenant Shaw had been forewarned lay ahead concealed in the rocky terrain. According to Lieutenant Shaw:

“ We were under the threat of two enemy locations and two friendly locations as well, which funnily enough were trying to bring fire at ours. There was massive confusion ... We were at the height of our game to be honest. That is why we were operating on our own, that mattered, we were that professional. But nonetheless four men lost their lives. Somebody has to atone to that.[12] ”

The Argentinian Army's version of events is that the British ran into Kill zone "Charlie 101" and crossfire from two machine-gun teams and protecting riflemen under Captains Tomás Victor Fernández and Eduardo Miguel Santo with Senior Lieutenant Jorge Manuel Vizoso-Posse, second-in-command of the 602nd Commando Company's 3rd Assault Section and although wounded, shooting dead in the back all four Royal Marines that night at point-blank range[13]for which he would win the Heroic Valour Cross[14], Argentina's highest military decoration. Senior Lieutenant Horacio Fernando Lauría and Sergeant Orlando Aguirre claimed to have destroyed a British machine-gun with rifle-grenades fired at "a punto" (horizontally) in this action with the British admitting one Royal Marine killed due to a fragmentation round.[15]Major Mario Luis Castagneto from the 601st Commando Company, claims the British Marines were forced to abandon much equipment during their getaway and that they were all gathered and presented as war trophies to Argentinian War Correspondents waiting in Port Stanley.[16]

Postwar

The Argentinian Army Commando Companies had fought well in the Falklands War, but were soon disbanded because, because the Argentinian government of Raúl Alfonsín feared the existence of such highly trained right-wing military units which might be used in a military coup.

Lieutenant-Colonel Rico, later in 1987 and 1988 led military uprisings against the Argentinian president Alfonsín.

Notes

  1. ↑ "Interestingly, Argentine military planners were aware of the redeployment of the SAS to Mount Kent and sent their own Special Forces (Commando 602) to neutralise them. New information reveals some tough fighting occurred between the British and Argentine Special Forces in which casualties were sustained on both sides; however, the failure of the Argentine forces to coordinate their efforts (communication was very difficult on Mount Kent) undermined their performance." Special Forces, Strategy and the War on Terror: Warfare By Other Means, Alastair Finlan, pp. 40-41, Routledge, 2009
  2. ↑ Merecido homenaje a ex combatiente en Coronda
  3. ↑ "Oponerse a una fracción enemiga superior en número, en ocasión en que integraba una patrulla de exploración que operaba en una zona ocupada por el enemigo. Alertar con su acción a sus camaradas y combatir hasta lograr que estos se replegaran, ofrendando su vida en esta acción." Informe Oficial del Ejército Argentino, p. 56, Ejército Argentino, 1983
  4. ↑ El combate de Top Malo House
  5. ↑ 5th Infantry Brigade in the Falklands, Nicholas van der Bijl, David Aldea, pp. 167-168, Leo Cooper, 2003
  6. ↑ Médico y capitán en las Islas Malvinas
  7. ↑ Marines shot comrades in Falklands conflict
  8. ↑ "It was during the night of 9/10 June that a returning British fighting patrol from 45 Commando Royal Marines was mistaken for the enemy and Sergeant Bob Leeming, Corporal Andy Uren, Corporal Pete Fitton, and Marine Keith Phillips were killed in the subsequent firefight which occurred just before the main assault on Two Sisters" COMMANDO Veterans Association
  9. ↑ According to British NCO Neill Randall:"The worst news of the day (June 10) is that there was a friendly-friendly contact during the night. 45 had shot up their own mortar section who had deployed to support the evening patrols. There are 4 dead & 1 very seriously injured. These things are bound to happen during the confusion of war, but it bloody well shouldn't most of this is down to poor passage of information between senior commanders. But its the grunt on the ground that faces the consequences of their inadequacies." A Falklands Diary
  10. ↑ According to Corporal Vincent Bramley: "As we were milling around a peat fire with 9 Squadron, a chopper came down from one of the mountains. Some nosy lads ran towards it and quickly brought back the report that some of the Marines had had a blue-on-blue contact that night. A returning patrol had stumbled on a mortar-based team asleep and had shot them as they lay in their sleeping bags. There were three to four dead. Whatever we felt about the Marines, we were sorry for them that day." Excursion to Hell, Vincent Bramley, p. 73, Pan Books, 1992
  11. ↑ 9 Battles To Stanley, Nick Van Der Bijl, p. 166, Leo Cooper, 1999
  12. ↑ THE MOUNTAIN WAY
  13. ↑ La Compañía 602 de Comandos
  14. ↑ Vizoso Posse, superó la guerra gracias a su fe y excepcional valor
  15. ↑ 1945-2008 - Casualty Lists of the Royal Navy Compiled by Don Kindel
  16. ↑ "Otra acción, esta vez de la 602, al mando de su propio jefe, el mayor Rico, se produjo ... delante de la posición propia. En ella chocan con una fracción del SAS-Special Air Service- y, aunque los nuestros se encuentran en inferioridad de número que los comandos ingleses, no sólo lo baten y ponen en fuga sino que les capturan material que es traido de regreso a Puerto Argentino. Recuerdo que la televisión argentina filmó ese material capturado." La Guerra de Las Malvinas (Version Argentina), p. 645, Ediciones Fernández Reguera, 1987

External links

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