Fox News
Long before the intervention in Libya -- before Afghanistan or Iraq, or even Vietnam -- the United States found itself involved in a peculiar operation on the southern coast of Cuba, at a place called the Bay of Pigs.
Starting in the early hours of April 17, 1961, approximately 1,400 Cuban exiles, supplied and backed by the CIA and Pentagon, attempted to invade their homeland and overthrow Fidel Castro. The exile force was routed within days and sent fleeing to the swamps. Castro crowed with victory, while the new administration of John F. Kennedy wallowed in humiliation. “How could we have been so stupid?” President Kennedy muttered to his aides.
Sunday is the 50th anniversary of the invasion of Cuba, and it arrives with Kennedy’s question still begging for an answer. Not just regarding the Bay of Pigs, but a host of other entanglements that followed. The United States went on to engage in no fewer than two dozen forceful foreign interventions after 1961, from Southeast Asia to the Middle East and Central America. And that was just the 20th century. Then came the 21st, and 9/11, and Iraq and Afghanistan. And now, Libya...[Full Article]
Cuba Celebrates 50th Anniversary of Bay of Pigs
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[From Wikipedia]
Invasion day (17 April)
During the night of 16/17 April, a mock diversionary landing was organized by CIA operatives near Bahia Honda, Pinar del Rio Province. A flotilla of small boats towed rafts containing equipment that broadcasted sounds and other effects of a shipborne invasion landing. That was the source of Cuban reports that briefly lured Fidel Castro away from the Bay of Pigs battlefront area.[15][17]:183[22]
At about 00:00 on April 17, 1961, the two CIA LCIs Blagar and Barbara J, each with a CIA 'operations officer' and an Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) of five frogmen, entered the Bay of Pigs (Bahía de Cochinos) on the southern coast of Cuba. They headed a force of four transport ships (Houston, Río Escondido, Caribe and Atlántico) carrying about 1,400 Cuban exile ground troops of Brigade 2506, plus tanks and other vehicles in the landing craft. At about 01:00, the Blagar, as the battlefield command ship, directed the principal landing at Playa Girón (Blue Beach), led by the frogmen in rubber boats followed by troops from Caribe in small aluminum boats, then LCVPs and LCUs. The Barbara J, leading Houston, similarly landed troops 35 km further northwest at Playa Larga (Red Beach), using small fiberglass boats. Unloading troops at night was delayed, due to engine failures and boats damaged by unseen coral reefs. The few militia in the area succeeded in warning Cuban armed forces via radio soon after the first landing, before the invaders overcame their token resistance.[17]:161,167[22]
At daybreak at about 06:30, three FAR Sea Furies, one B-26 and two T-33 jets started attacking those CEF ships still unloading troops. At about 06:50, and 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) south of Playa Larga, Houston was damaged by several rockets from a Sea Fury and a T-33, and about 2 hours later captain Luis Morse intentionally beached it on the western side of the bay. About 270 troops had been unloaded, but about 180 survivors who struggled ashore were incapable of taking part in further action because of the loss of most of their weapons and equipment. At about 07:00, two invading FAL B-26s attacked and sank the Cuban Navy Patrol Escort ship El Baire at Nueva Gerona on the Isle of Pines.[22][38] They then proceeded to Girón to join two other B-26s to attack Cuban ground troops and provide distraction air cover for the paratroop C-46s and the CEF ships under air attack.
At about 07:30, five C-46 and one C-54 transport aircraft dropped 177 paratroops from the parachute battalion of Brigade 2506 in an action code-named Operation Falcon.[43] About 30 men, plus heavy equipment, were dropped south of Australia sugar mill on the road to Palpite and Playa Larga, but the equipment was lost in the swamps, and the troops failed to block the road. Other troops were dropped at San Blas, at Jocuma between Covadonga and San Blas, and at Horquitas between Yaguaramas and San Blas. Those positions to block the roads were maintained for 2 days, reinforced by ground troops from Playa Girón.[17]:206
At about 08:30, a FAR Sea Fury piloted by Carlos Ulloa Arauz crashed in the bay, due to stalling or anti-aircraft fire, after encountering a FAL C-46 returning south after dropping paratroops. By 09:00, Cuban troops and militia from outside the area had started arriving at Australia sugar mill, Covadonga and Yaguaramas. Throughout the day they were reinforced by more troops, heavy armour and T-34 tanks typically carried on flat-bed trucks.[17]:195-196 At about 09:30, FAR Sea Furies and T-33s fired rockets at the Rio Escondido, that 'blew up' and sank about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) south of Girón.[18][22]
At about 11:00, Premier Fidel Castro issued a statement over Cuba's nationwide network saying that the invaders, members of the exiled Cuban revolutionary front, have come to destroy the revolution and take away the dignity and rights of men.[44]
At about 11:00, a FAR T-33 attacked a FAL B-26 (serial number 935) piloted by Matias Farias who then survived a crashlanding on the Girón airfield, his navigator Eduardo Gonzales already killed by gunfire. His companion B-26 suffered damage and diverted to Grand Cayman Island; pilot Mario Zúñiga (the 'defector') and navigator Oscar Vega returned to Puerto Cabezas via CIA C-54 on 18 April. By about 11:00, the two remaining freighters Caribe and Atlántico, and the CIA LCIs and LCUs, started retreating south to international waters, but still pursued by FAR aircraft. At about 12:00, a FAR B-26 exploded due to heavy anti-aircraft fire from Blagar, and pilot Luis Silva Tablada (on his second sortie) and his crew of three were lost.[20][22]
By 12:00 hundreds of militia cadets from Matanzas had secured Palpite, and cautiously advanced on foot south towards Playa Larga, suffering many casualties during attacks by FAL B-26s. By dusk other Cuban ground forces were gradually advancing southward from Covadonga and southwest from Yaguaramas toward San Blas, and westward along coastal tracks from Cienfuegos towards Girón, all without heavy weapons or armour.[22]
During the day three FAL B-26s were shot down by FAR T-33s, with the loss of pilots Raúl Vianello, José Crespo, Osvaldo Piedra and navigators Lorenzo Pérez-Lorenzo and José Fernández. Vianello's navigator Demetrio Pérez bailed out and was picked up by USS Murray. Pilot Crispín García Fernández and navigator Juan González Romero, in B-26 serial 940, diverted to Boca Chica, but late that night they attempted to fly back to Puerto Cabezas in B-26 serial 933 that Crespo had flown to Boca Chica on 15 April. In October 1961 the remains of the B-26 and its two crew were found in dense jungle in Nicaragua.[38][45] One FAL B-26 diverted to Grand Cayman with engine failure. By 16.00, Fidel Castro had arrived at the central Australia sugar mill, joining José Ramón Fernández whom he had appointed as battlefield commander before dawn that day.[17]:168
On April 17, 1961, Osvaldo Ramírez (leader of the rural resistance to Castro) was captured in Aromas de Velázquez, and immediately executed.[46] The CIA was unaware or unconcerned at such repression's effects on the planned operation.[13]
At about 21:00 on 17 April 1961, a night air strike by three FAL B-26s on San Antonio de Los Baños airfield failed, reportedly due to incompetence and bad weather. Two other B-26s had aborted the mission after take-off.[20][41] Other sources allege that heavy anti-aircraft fire scared the aircrews, the resultant smoke perhaps a convenient excuse for "poor visibility".[17]:138
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Bay of Pigs 50th anniversary - Two veterans discuss what happened
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cleb8OXBd_8
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Over 50 years, Bay of Pigs vets shaped Cuba, US
The State
MIAMI — In the weeks before U.S.-backed exiles invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, Felix Rodriguez was spirited into the island to work with underground forces against Fidel Castro's fledgling revolutionary government. A 19-year-old named Santiago Alvarez stood ready in the Florida Keys for orders to attack by sea, while another exile, Alfredo Duran, trained in Guatemala for a beachfront assault at Playa Giron on Cuba's southern coast.
Half a century later, they are still waiting for victory.
Castro decimated the underground before Duran ever reached shore. The U.S. never provided the air and naval support the exiles expected, and Cubans on the island never rose up to join them.
Bay of Pigs survivors pay tribute Sunday to fallen brethren
Fighters who remain from Brigade 2506 will pay homage Sunday to their fallen brethren
Miami Herald
Taps will fill the air in Little Havana Sunday as the survivors of Brigade 2506 honor their fallen brothers, the men who died trying to liberate Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.
The survivors, now in their 70s and 80s, will salute as a bugle plays and 104 names of veterans killed in battle are read. Among the honored dead:
• Brigade pilot Jose Crespo Grasso, 26, who, under fire from a Cuban jet, asked a chaplain over the radio to hear his last confession. “ Me quiero confesar, padre!”
• Alejandro del Valle, 22, a young brigade leader who died of thirst and starvation after fleeing from the failed invasion on a sailboat.
• Manuel Puig, 37, accused of spying on Cuba and sent to a firing squad.
On the 50th anniversary of the failed invasion, Miami’s Cuban exile community will pay homage to the Bay of Pigs veterans — the brigadistas — viewed by many Cuban Americans as heroes, even as their effort to topple Fidel Castro was clouded by defeat.
“These men certainly fit the bill of being considered a great generation,’’ said Victor Triay, who wrote the book The Bay of Pigs: An Oral History of Brigade 2506.
More than 3,000 took part in the doomed mission, about half of which are still alive today.
“What these men did 50 years ago was an act of bravery not seen again by our community,’’ said U.S. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who last week honored a delegation of veterans in the nation’s Capitol...[Full Article]
