In the collective memory of the 1982 Malvinas War, the battles fought on the islands naturally predominate. However, the military campaign also relied on a complex structure deployed on the mainland, where highly specialized units provided crucial intelligence for the operations.

Among them stood out OPELEC , the 602nd Electronic Operations Company of the Argentine Army , made up of specialists in electronic warfare who, through radio direction finding and interception of communications, helped to locate British vessels off the Patagonian coast.

Despite the significance of that mission, its members are still not officially recognized as war veterans.

The unit was deployed between April 16 and May 5, 1982, along a line of almost 900 kilometers, with positions in Trelew, Comodoro Rivadavia, Puerto Deseado, Puerto Santa Cruz, and Río Gallegos. From these five points, operators listened to enemy communications, identified frequencies, determined their origin using goniometers, and sent the information to an interpretation center located in Comodoro Rivadavia, which established the precise location of the transmissions to transmit it to the Southern Air Force.

"Our company moved south in two groups. At those five points, we listened to all the English communications; we had translators, we marked the direction from which they came, and the interpretation center determined the exact point. That information was passed on to the Southern Air Force ," recalled one of the former members interviewed by Agenda Malvinas .

All electronic warfare activities carried out in the Theater of Operations by OPELEC were conducted by its personnel and translators inside the Unimog cabs in 24-hour shifts. They remained in combat uniform and armed with 11.25 mm caliber pistols with three magazines and FAL rifles with one hundred (100) rounds of ammunition, inside a fully camouflaged vehicle. In addition, all soldiers of the subunit provided perimeter security, guarding the vehicle, as well as antenna fields and generators, due to intelligence regarding enemy infiltrations in the mainland sector.

The final report prepared in June 1982 by then Major Miguel Vicente Guerrero, head of Operations of the Southern Air Force and later recognized as the father of Project Condor II, confirms that the Air Force used the mobile radio direction finding units deployed by the Army to locate enemy stations, especially ships that maintained operational traffic, describing this capability as one of the greatest benefits obtained during electronic operations.

Interception, science and combat

Former members explain that the work demanded a high level of technical expertise. Telefunken equipment mounted on Unimog vehicles, extensive and carefully calibrated antenna fields, and specialized operators allowed them to detect signals, triangulate their origin, and deliver useful information for planning air strikes.

"It was a highly operational unit. First, the listening teams worked detecting the frequencies; then the goniometers took over, and all that information reached the interpretation center, from where it was relayed to the Southern Air Force ," explained another of the company's former members.

According to testimonies, many of the detections corresponded to British ships, including HMS Sheffield and the Sir Galahad , incidents that were also documented in publications of the Signal Corps. They even recall that some mobile units had painted silhouettes of vessels whose location had helped facilitate subsequent Argentine attacks.

The sinking of HMS Sheffield, on May 4, 1982. A combat action where OPELEC played a fundamental role.

The specialty necessarily required a continental deployment. "There was no other way the work could have been successful if we weren't deployed within 900 kilometers of the islands and the fleet. If all our teams had been in the Malvinas, we wouldn't have been able to do the job," one of them stated.

Paradoxically, this same condition is what prevents them from receiving official recognition as war veterans today. Although a small detachment was sent to the islands, the military reports themselves concluded that they could not effectively carry out their planned mission there and returned to the mainland to rejoin the radio direction finding system.

The former members maintain that their claim was never motivated by an economic issue related to pensions, but by institutional recognition and the honors due to those who participated directly in a strategic military operation.

They also point out that military doctrine continues to study the company's actions in advanced Army courses, while the institution itself maintains, without explanation, a distinction between those who fought from the islands and those who, from the mainland, played an essential role in the war effort. This contradiction keeps alive a claim that, more than four decades later, remains unanswered.