 |
Roberto Curilovic | |
|---|---|
 Curilovic boarding his Super Etendard | |
| Birth name | Roberto Curilovic |
| Born | January 3, 1947 Buenos Aires, Argentina |
| Allegiance |  Argentina |
| Service/ | Argentine Navy |
| Rank | Corvette Captain |
| Battles/wars | Falklands War
|
| Awards | |
| Other work | Speaker |
Captain Roberto Curilovic is a former Argentinian Navy pilot. On 25 May 1982 in the Falklands War, he sank the transport ship Atlantic Conveyor with an Exocet AM.39 anti-ship missile.
He finished his naval training at the Escuela Naval Militar (República Argentina) in 1969, flying the North American T-28 Trojan. [1]
In September 1980, he went with eight pilots and around forty technicians of the 2da Escuadrilla Aeronaval de Caza y Ataque (2nd Air Naval Fighter and Strike Squadron) to the naval base at Rochefort, Charente-Maritime in south-west France (Poitou-Charentes). They were intensively taught French for three months. The commander was Commander (Capitán de Fragata) Jorge Colombo of the Argentine Naval Aviation (CANA). The deputy commander was Lieutenant Commander (Capitán de Corbeta) Augusto Bedacarratz, who with Lieutenant Junior Grade (Teniente de Fragata) Armando Mayora would also jointly use the Exocet.
They were sent to the air naval base at Landivisiau in Finistère, north-west France where they then learnt how to fly the AMD-BA Super Étendard, being given up to 50 hours of flight training each. They were also taught about the Aérospatiale AM.39 Exocet missile. The missile was named after the biological family Exocoetidae.
In July 1981, the unit returned to the Comandante Espora air naval base (Base Aeronaval Comandante Espora) in Argentina. The Argentine Navy had ordered 14 Super Étendard aircraft, and the first five arrived in December 1981. The navy had also ordered 14 air-to-surface Exocet missiles in 1979.
On 2 April 1982, the Argentines invaded the Falkland Islands. The Argentine Navy had not yet received a visit by a French technical team to put the Exocet missiles into operational status, and there was little hope of that happening when the French immediately put a weapons embargo on Argentina. However, two weeks later, the 2nd Squadron's technicians had worked out how to connect the missiles to the aircraft. The Argentine Navy (Armada de la República Argentina) had bought two Type 42 destroyers - the ARA Hércules and the ARA Santísima Trinidad - to practise against, which both also carried the MM-38 version of the Exocet. In late April, the squadron moved from Espora to Rio Grande.
At the time of the Falklands War, his rank was Capitán de Corbeta, which is equivalent to a Royal Navy lieutenant commander or a Royal Air Force squadron leader.
The Argentines had problems with spare parts for their airborne radar aircraft, which were effectively grounded on 15 May 1982. In their place, the AN/TPS-43 three-dimensional radar and an AN/TPS-44 radar were used from the Falkland Islands. On 25 May, the Atlantic Conveyor was spotted by the radar 110 miles north-east of the Falklands. At 7:30 am, this information was passed to the naval air base at Rio Grande (now Hermes Quijada International Airport) on the Tierra del Fuego.
His plane, the Super Étendard 0753/3-A-203, was readied for a 9:00 am mission, but a KC-130H tanker was not available in time. Along with Super Étendard 0754/3-A-204, he took off (using a call sign "Tito") at 14:28 and rendezvoused with a KC-130H 160 miles (260 km) east of Puerto Deseado. After leaving the KC-130H, the two pilots headed 300 miles (480 km) to the south-east. At 150 miles from the target, both planes dropped to 10 metres above the sea surface. At a distance of 55 miles (89 km), the pilots detected the target, as expected, on their onboard radar; three targets appeared. They launched Exocets at 16:32 from 31 miles (50 km) away, which hit the ship at 16:35. The ship caught fire and sank three days later while under tow. Both planes travelled 1,620 miles (2,610 km) in the operation in 3 hours and 50 minutes. Without refuelling, the aircraft had a range of 380 miles (610 km), and at low level used 70 litres of fuel per minute. Argentina had two tanker aircraft available. Both planes returned to Puerto Deseado. Only HMS Ambuscade had picked up the planes on its radar. After the operation, the Argentines had one operational Exocet left.
Curilovic was awarded the Medal of Valour in Combat (La Nación Argentina al Valor en Combate) in 1984. He received the Naval Merit Order (Al Mérito Naval) in 1987 from the Brazilian Navy (Marinha do Brasil).
On 16 August 2011, he gave a talk at the Centro de Graduados del Liceo Naval Militar (Naval Military Lyceum Graduate Centre) entitled SuperEtendard Squadron, a nightmare for the British fleet (Spanish: Escuadrilla de SuperEtendard, una pesadilla para la flota británica). [2]
 | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (January 2015) |
Roberto Curilovic was born on January 3, 1947, in the capital, Buenos Aires. He is of Croatian descent. [3] His ancestors immigrated to Argentina from the village of Pećurkovo brdo not far from Duga Resa. His father, Roko Ćurilović, (he later changed his name to Roque Curilovic) emigrated to Argentina in 1926 and married to Isis Taricano (whose mother is a Croat from Split). They had only one child, a son Roberto. Roberto was married in 1970 to Editha Radalj, daughter of Argentine Croats, with whom he has daughters Debora and Barbara and son Robert Martin. [4]
Curilovic was later appointed Secretary of State for the Navy at the Argentine Ministry of Defense. Today he works as an expert consultant for a number of defense companies that operate in Argentina and around the world. [5]
The Falklands War was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial dependency, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. The conflict began on 2 April 1982, when Argentina invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands, followed by the invasion of South Georgia the next day. On 5 April, the British government dispatched a naval task force to engage the Argentine Navy and Air Force before making an amphibious assault on the islands. The conflict lasted 74 days and ended with an Argentine surrender on 14 June, returning the islands to British control. In total, 649 Argentine military personnel, 255 British military personnel, and three Falkland Islanders were killed during the hostilities.
HMS Invincible was the Royal Navy's lead ship of her class of three light aircraft carriers. She was launched on 3 May 1977 as the seventh ship to carry the name. She was originally designated as an anti-submarine warfare carrier, but was used as an aircraft carrier during the Falklands War, when she was deployed with HMS Hermes. She took over as flagship of the British fleet when Hermes was sold to India. Invincible was also deployed in the Yugoslav Wars and the Iraq War. In 2005, she was decommissioned, and was eventually sold for scrap in February 2011.
The Exocet is a French-built anti-ship missile whose various versions can be launched from surface vessels, submarines, helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft.
This article describes the composition and actions of the Argentine air forces in the Falklands War, which comprised units of the Air Force, Army, Navy and other services.
HMS Sheffield was a Type 42 guided missile destroyer and the second Royal Navy ship to be named after the city of Sheffield in Yorkshire. Commissioned on 16 February 1975 the Sheffield was part of the Task Force 317 sent to the Falkland Islands during the Falklands War. She was struck and heavily damaged by an Exocet air-launched anti-ship missile from an Argentine Super Étendard aircraft on 4 May 1982 and foundered while under tow on 10 May 1982.
The Argentine Navy is the navy of Argentina. It is one of the three branches of the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic, together with the Army and the Air Force.
HMS Glamorgan was a County-class destroyer of the Royal Navy with a displacement of 5,440 tonnes. The ship was built by Vickers-Armstrongs in Newcastle Upon Tyne and named after the Welsh county of Glamorgan.
The Dassault-Breguet Super Étendard is a French carrier-borne strike fighter aircraft designed by Dassault-Breguet for service with the French Navy.
Atlantic Conveyor was a British merchant navy ship, registered in Liverpool, that was requisitioned during the Falklands War.
Sea Dart, or GWS.30 was a Royal Navy surface-to-air missile system designed in the 1960s and entering service in 1973. It was fitted to the Type 42 destroyers, Type 82 destroyer and Invincible-class aircraft carriers of the Royal Navy. Originally developed by Hawker Siddeley, the missile was built by British Aerospace after 1977. It was withdrawn from service in 2012.
These are some of the key weapons of the Falklands War used by both sides.
Port Belgrano Naval Base is the largest naval base of the Argentine Navy, situated next to Punta Alta, near Bahía Blanca, about 560 km (348 mi) south of Buenos Aires. It is named after the brigantine General Belgrano which sounded the area in late 1824.
ARA Parker (P-44) is the fourth ship of the MEKO 140A16 Espora class of six corvettes built for the Argentine Navy. The ship is the second ship to bear the name of Captain Enrique Guillermo Parker, who fought in the Argentine Navy as its second-in-command during the Cisplatine War.
The Drummond class are three corvettes designed and built in France based on the A69 D'Estienne d'Orves-class avisos. The ships were commissioned in the Argentine Navy between 1978 and 1982.
Operation Mikado was the code name of a military plan by the United Kingdom to use Special Air Service troops to attack the home base of Argentina's five Super Etendard strike fighters at Río Grande, Tierra del Fuego, during the 1982 Falklands War. Brigadier Peter de la Billière was in charge of planning the operation.
The Argentine Naval Aviation is the naval aviation branch of the Argentine Navy and one of its four operational commands. Argentina, along with Brazil is one of two South American countries to have operated two aircraft carriers.
The Battle of San Carlos was a battle between aircraft and ships that lasted from 21 to 25 May 1982 during the British landings on the shores of San Carlos Water in the 1982 Falklands War. Low-flying land-based Argentine jet aircraft made repeated attacks on ships of the British Task Force.
The 2da Escuadrilla Aeronaval de Caza y Ataque (EA32) is the main strike unit of the Argentine Naval Aviation, the air branch of the Argentine Navy.
Gringo-Gaucho are a contingent set of maneuvers performed between the Argentine Naval Aviation and United States Navy's aircraft carriers. The US Navy refers to them as Southern Seas in their last edition. Gringo and Gaucho are linguistic and folkloric designations of long standing, respectively.
Frigate Captain Augusto Bedacarratz is an Argentina naval aviator who led the mission on 4 May 1982 that sank HMS Sheffield during the Falklands War using the Exocet AM.39 anti-ship missile. It was the first sinking of a Royal Navy ship in four decades.