Mr. Jones is the author of the just-published book, The Bay of Pigs (Oxford University Press).

On April 17, 1961, a small band of 1500 Cuban exiles invaded their former homeland at the Bay of Pigs in an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro. Masterminded by the CIA, the operation hinged on covert action, a pre-emptive strike, and, its greatest novelty, an arrangement with the Mafia to assassinate Castro and set off a popular insurrection. The Kennedy administration had taken a new direction in foreign policy, one that rested on assassination and military force. Indeed, the assassination of Castro was just one part of an executive action program under development inside the CIA that aimed at regime change by simply eliminating troublesome state leaders.

The landing, as is well known, was a spectacular failure. Castro not only survived the invasion but outlasted ten presidents despite every effort to force him from office-including at least six attempts at assassination.

The question is, what lessons can be extracted from this fiasco of nearly half a century ago? The short answer is that "regime change" has remained a central part of American foreign policy, meaning that the White House failed to learn anything constructive at the Bay of Pigs.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures page ii

Prologue page 1

Chapters

I. U.S. Political Considerations page 3

II. Formation of Frente and Brigade Training page 20

III. The Plan page 30

IV. The Invasion page 35

V. Ransom page 87

VI. Conclusions and the Principles of War page 95

Appendixes

A. Memorandum 2 & 3 from Taylor Commission Report page 109

B. Cuban Project Time Line page 119

C. Invasion Time Line page 121

Bibliography page 124

FIGURES

Figure

I. Cuban Project Organization 1959-1961 page 7

II. TRINIDAD Plan page 14

III-1. Planned Disposition of Forces page 38

III-2. General Disposition of Forces at the End of D-Day page 66

IV. General Disposition of Forces at the End of D+1 page 78

PROLOGUE

This paper presents a review of the invasion of Cuba in April 1961, by a group of Cuban exiles. This invasion became known as the Bay of Pigs invasion because the landing took place near the Bahia de Cochinos on the Southwestern coast of Cuba. The invasion force was financed and trained by the CIA with the knowledge and approval of the Executive branch of the United States government.

The operation was conceived under the Eisenhower administration as a guerrilla insertion. It was passed on to the Kennedy administration where it was expanded to the final product of a full scale invasion by the Brigade of exiles. Although the project was run by the CIA it was so compartmentalized that virtually no one individual had all the details of the operation. The Military was brought in very late to review the plans and lend some covert support to the actual invasion.

A force of 1,443 landed on the shores in the early morning hours of 17 April, 1961. They established a beachhead and held it against a numerically superior enemy for three days before they literally ran out of ammunition and were captured, killed or escaped. The examination of this operation provides the military student a small scale model of an amphibious operation which can provide a validation of U.S. Marine Corps Amphibious doctrine. Closer study of Brigade performance also demonstrates areas of battle study particularly valuable to the small unit leader such as the effective use of the reserve, tactical use of terrain, and the value of a viable command and control system.

The story of Brigade 2506 is set forth in this paper from beginning to end. The foundation for the operation is laid from both the standpoint of the preparation of the force and the political requirement for the mission. This is followed by a detailed description of the invasion and subsequent fighting. The capture and imprisonment of the members of the Brigade and their subsequent release are described. The analysis and conclusions are based primarily on the actual combat performance of the Brigade in light of the Principles of War as set forth in Marine Corps doctrine.

Appendices contain the results of the Taylor Committee which was appointed by President Kennedy to investigate the reasons for the failure of the operation. The information in the following report was compiled from a number of publications dealing with the subject to include; books, magazine articles, newspaper reports, speeches, and government documents. The result is a look at a bargain basement amphibious operation which presents the opportunity to view both its successes and its failures.

CHAPTER I

U.S. Political Considerations

The third week of April, 1961 was a fairly normal one for most of the United States and the American people. The eyes of the news media were focused on the war crimes trial in Israel of Adolph Eichmann, former Nazi Chief of the Gestapo's "Jewish Affairs" section. The Soviets were grabbing global headlines by placing Major Yuri Alekseyvich Gargarin into the first manned orbit of the Earth. There was just beginning to be public awareness of the guerilla tactics of the Pathet Lao fighting the pro-Western loyalists in Southeast Asia. [1].

On Wednesday, April 12, 1961, President Kennedy held a routine weekly press conference in the afternoon. The American people and the world were watching the fledgling administration closely to determine how effective it would be. It is interesting to note that after brief introductory remarks, the first question asked at the press conference was: "Mr. President, has a decision been reached on how far this country will be willing to go in helping an anti-Castro uprising or invasion of Cuba? What could you say with respect to recent developments as far as the anti-Castro movements in Cuba are concerned?"

The President replied: First, I want to say that there will not be, under any conditions, an intervention in Cuba by the United States Armed Forces. This government will do everything it possibly can, and I think it can meet its responsibilities, to make sure that there are no Americans involved in any actions inside Cuba ... The basic issue is not one between the United States and Cuba. It is between the Cubans themselves. I intend to see that we adhere to that principle and as I understand it, this administration's attitude is so understood and shared by the anti-Castro exiles from Cuba in this country. [2].

Over the past few months there had been numerous indications that United States relations with Cuba were in jeopardy. There had been reports of an unknown "force" training at bases outside the United States. The reports inferred that this "force" was training for an invasion of Cuba.

In reality these rumors were very true. The force was Brigade 2506, a unit made up of approximately 1500 Cuban exiles intending to invade their Cuban homeland and overthrow the government of Fidel Castro. On the day of the President's press conference, the Brigade had moved from their training camps in Guatemala to their embarkation port at Puerto Cabeza, Nicaragua. At this point, it is necessary to present some back-ground before describing the execution and the results of Operation PLUTO; the attack of a force of Cuban exiles upon their Cuban homeland at the Bahia de Cochinos (The Bay of Pigs).

On New Year's day 1959, Fidel Castro had ousted the Batista government and seized control of the government of Cuba. At first it looked as if Fidel Castro might establish a regime favorable to United States policy in the Caribbean. In the beginning, there was no clear indication of his philosophy or intentions for ruling Cuba. Over the next few months, however, it became increasingly apparent that he was not going to be easy to deal with as a neighbor and his policies demonstrated an increasingly socialist point of view.

By March of 1960 it was realized, by political world leaders, that the policies of the government of Fidel Castro were not compatible with the goals or interests of the United States. Within the highest levels of the United States government, a search began for a solution to the situation. It was during this time that the seeds were planted that would eventually bear the fruit that would be Operation ZAPATA.

Castro was rapidly becoming an irritant to the United States. It was obvious to the Eisenhower administration that no overt actions could be taken within the structure of international law to remedy the Cuban situation. The President chose to exercise the option of covert action to depose or discredit the Cuban leadership. With the concurrence of the Special Group, he asked Allen Dulles, the head of the CIA, to put together a "program" for dealing with Castro. [3]. (The Special Group consisted of a deputy Under Secretary of State, the deputy Secretary of Defense, the Director of the CIA, and the special assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. It was authorized by the National Security Council Directive NSC 5412/2 and was the most secret operating unit of government at the time.) Dulles called on the head of the CIA plans division, Richard Bissell, to begin to put together a program for covert action. Thus, the "Cuba Project" was born.

The CIA had proven to be quite capable in the overthrow of Latin American governments and had staged an extremely successful operation in Guatemala in 1954. Eisenhower had been elated with the results of the operation and so the CIA began making plans for a similar project for Cuba. Early in the planning phase of the operation, it became obvious that the operation would be expensive and could not be totally concealed within the agency's budget. At a cabinet meeting on August 18, 1960, the President approved $13 million and the use of some Department of Defense personnel and equipment. This money was programmed for the training of a Cuban guerrilla force outside the U.S. It became apparent at this time that no U.S. military personnel were to be used in a combat status. [4.]

The initial plan included a series of independent operations which would come together as the government of Cuba began to crumble. First, Howard Hunt and Gerry Droller were sent to Miami to try to form a coalition of all the splinter groups of Cuban exiles there; to form a representative group to function as a government in exile (See Figure I). [5]. The many groups were constantly fighting among themselves and no basis for trust could be established among them. It became imperative that a group of leaders be brought together before any other operations commenced. This leadership would be the only way to lend an air of legitimacy to the training and equipping of a revolutionary force.

Second came the job of recruiting, equipping, training and delivering a group of guerilla fighters to undermine the Cuban government. They would act as a nucleus for anti-Castro citizens in Cuba to join, and later train and equip the local populace as the uprising began. Toward this end, the agency set up a recruiting network in Miami and soon had enough Cuban volunteers to begin initial training. They established training centers within the United States in violation of their guidelines: in Florida, in Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, and the Jungle Warfare Training Center in Panama.

The third function was to set up a propaganda network. David Phillips, who had handled the propaganda program for the Guatamala scenario, began to set up a similar program for the Cuba Project. He put a radio transmitter in operation on Swan Island off the coast of Honduras and began broadcasting with a group of Cuban refugees, delivering anti-Castro speeches between musical selections. The initial estimate was that six months would be required to stimulate the desired results.

The fourth and final area of the project still remains highly classified, but most certainly existed. This involved a plot to dispose of Castro by assassination. The success of this endeavor would have made the rest of the operation unnecessary. However, although there seems to have been several attempts to poison Castro, none were successful. There are strong indications that the agency utilized members of the American underworld in their efforts, and are somewhat embarrassed by the evidence that has come to light since the operation. [6].

While Radio Swan continued to pour propaganda broadcasts into the Cuban homeland, preparations for training camps were established in Guatemala. An agreement was reached with the government of Guatemala whereby a large plantation, belonging to Roberto Alejos, was leased and transformed into a large training camp for the Cuban guerilla force. This camp became known as Base Trax and was the primary training site for the ground forces for the Bay of Pigs operation. The training of Cuban volunteers for guerilla tactics continued through October 1960, with approximately 300 Cubans receiving their training there.

In early November 1960, the administration decided to scrap the guerilla operation for three reasons: (1) It became apparent that supplying the guerillas by air drops would be extremely difficult. (2) As Castro's regime became more allied with the Communist block nations, he was receiving more arms and ammunition, and thus beginning to re-equip his military. (3) The Castro regime's control over the civilian population was much tighter than had been anticipated, making a long guerilla campaign undesirable.

On November 4, 1960, the C.I.A sent a cable to Base Trax officially cancelling guerilla training for all but 60 of the Cubans. It specified how future training should be handled and indicated that the force would now be trained for conventional warfare with an emphasis upon amphibious assault training. 7. This cable indicated a major change/escalation of the type operation to be mounted in Cuba and occurred only four days prior to the Presidential elections of 1960. Simultaneously, an airfield at Ratalhuleu had become a major construction project funded by the American government. It became operational in September 1960 and training began there for the Cuban pilots of the Brigade Air Force. Their aircraft consisted of C-46 and C-54 transport aircraft, and a few B-26 medium bombers. These aircraft were not chosen at random. All had been sold widely on the world market after World War II. They were all reliable, generally well-suited to the missions to be performed, and all in service with Castro's Cuban air Force. Little or no attention was paid to the fact that Castro's pilots were flying a different model of B-26 than the ones flown by the exiles. [8]. This fact will prove to be of great importance later on.

The Cuban flyers were trained by a group of American pilots recruited by Major General Reid Doster, head of the Alabama National Guard. Most of the American aviators he used were without current military ties but all had extensive multi-engine experience and most had flown in combat. They had a difficult task, since most of the Cuban students had less than 100 hours of flying time and few had any experience with the heavy, multi-engine aircraft they would be flying; but a few had airline experience or had been members of the air force under Batista. These men quickly became the leaders of the fledgling Brigade Air Force.

As the training of the Cuban invasion forces continued, events on the political scene changed. The 1960 presidential election was over and Kennedy was the victor. It became apparent that the operation could not be executed prior to the shift of power in the White House; because of this on November 27, 1960 president-elect Kennedy was briefed on the plan. He was disturbed only by the small size of the Brigade and encouraged Allen Dulles to continue with the development of the force. [9].

Over the course of the next few weeks, there followed an escalation of the operation. A plan was put before the Special Group calling for a landing of 600-750 men, preceded by air strikes. With the change from guerilla operation to actual invasion, air power became a very important consideration. For such a small force to gain a beachhead they must have absolute air superiority to avoid being picked apart by Castro's air force.

Up until this time the administration had directed the Department of Defense to provide any assistance required by the CIA. There had been no provision for an actual briefing of the Defense Department as to exactly what was occurring and what assistance the plan required. Some of the requests for DOD assistance had been delayed to the point that the CIA had gone up the chain of command to expedite them. This understandably upset the military leadership. Under Secretary of Defense James Douglas learned that the CIA was planning an "over-the-beach" landing in Cuba. He requested and received a meeting with the President and CIA director Dulles. He desired to dissociate the Department of Defense with a plan that seemed impractical. The knowledge of the existing plan remained at the Secretary of Defense level--and was not passed to the JCS.

Without knowledge of the CIA plan, the JCS appointed a committee to study what could be done to unseat Castro. The Committee, headed by Brigadier General David Gray, produced a report containing six alternatives: (1) economic warfare; (2) blockade; (3) infiltration by a guerilla force; (4) a guerilla force with U.S. backing; (5) U.S. air and naval warfare with no invasion; or (6) all out invasion. The committee suggested that nothing short of step 4 would work. After a briefing on the report of the JCS committee, President Kennedy, on January 28, 1961, ordered the JCS to review the CIA plans. General Gray headed the committee to review them. The committee soon learned that so compartmentalized were the CIA operations that no actual written plan existed. The committee was briefed orally for two days by the principals involved in various phases of the operation. They then compiled their notes and presented in written form the plan that had been briefed to them.

They produced what became known as The TRINIDAD Plan. The general scheme was to land the Brigade near Trinidad on the southern shore of Cuba. This had been reported to be an area where opposition to Castro flourished. Intelligence indicated that a popular uprising would occur soon after the landing of the Brigade; hence the Brigade was really designed as a body around which forces could build. Each of the unit leaders had been trained to lead a unit one step larger, i.e., platoon leaders were company commander capable. The plan assumed that the Brigade would flesh out within a few days after landing. The guerilla forces trained at Base Trax would be operating in the Escambray Mountains nearby and would link up with the invasion force, further adding to its size. (Sea Figure II). [10].

General Gray reported, on January 31, 1961 to the JCS, the findings of his committee. He estimated the chances of success as "fair" and re-emphasized the requirement for absolute air superiority. On February 3, 1961, the Chiefs sent a report to the White House and the CIA. They advised that the chances of achieving military success was favorable, but advised that the ultimate success would depend on political factors such as the actual popular uprising and the ability to build a substantial force. They also left themselves a loophole by saying that their assessment of the combat worth of the forces was, of course, based on 3rd and 4th hand reports on their condition, training, and equipment.

President Kennedy received a briefing on the JCS views of the CIA plan. At the meeting, the President did not seem to be overly enthusiastic about the plan; he reminded Bissell as the meeting ended that he reserved the right to cancel the whole idea at any time up to the day before D-day. [11]. Later, when the dissolution of the Brigade was discussed, the President's advisors pointed out that the release of the Cubans could cause serious political problems as they spread across the U.S. and Latin America and began telling people what they had been doing in Guatemala. The President reflected that the simplest solution would be to let them go to the destination of their choice: Cuba. [12].

As plans and training continued, Hunt and Droller had still not been able to form an effective coalition government-in-exile in Miami. The infighting of the Cuban politicos seemed to intensify as the Brigade forces increased their readiness. Equally important, intelligence sources on conditions and social attitudes within Cuba were offering conflicting information concerning how the Cuban population would react to the effort to oust Castro. CIA sources were almost unanimously optimistic about the potential for popular uprising once the spark had been ignited by the invasion forces. Media coverage and reports of people who visited Cuba, however, dispelled the rumors of poverty and discontent; such reports noted that Castro was riding an increasing wave of popularity, his land reform program and the nationalization of large U.S. corporate assets within Cuba.

On March 11, 1961, President Kennedy held a meeting in the cabinet room. This meeting probably influenced the eventual outcome of the operation more than any other since the conception of the "Cuba Project". Everyone expected the President to make the "go-no, go" decision on the operation. Richard Bissell presented a brief on the TRINIDAD Plan. The Trinidad area had many significant advantages. It was located a substantial distance from Havana, with troop and aircraft concentrations. Only one main road existed which would act as a military supply route and axis of advance for Castro's forces. This road could be easily cut by destroying one bridge. The population was fairly large and had demonstrated support for the guerilla forces already operating in the nearby Escambray Mountains. There were port facilities and docks in Casilda which could be used for unloading large amounts of ammunition and supplies quickly.

From a military standpoint, the area was extremely well-suited for the operation. From a political standpoint a major drawback existed. The small airfield there could not support operations of the B-26 bombers. This would eliminate the facade that the air strikes were originating within Cuba and would make the knowledge of U.S. involvement a certainty.

President Kennedy rejected the plan as much too spectacular; and he stated his preference for a more quiet landing, preferably at night, with no basis for U.S. intervention.

He summed up the problem by stating that, the greater the military risks, the smaller the political risks, and vice versa. He adjourned the meeting by tasking the agencies involved to find a compromise plan that would reduce the divergence of risk of both political and military concerns. [13].

A task force worked to find an option which would meet the President's requirements. On March 15, 1961, the JCS approved a plan calling for a landing on the north coast of Oriente Province near Bahia de Cochinos (The Bay of Pigs). The military aspects of the terrain were not as favorable as those at Trinidad, but were deemed acceptable. The area was bordered by the Zapata Swamps on the flanks, and there were few access roads to allow Castro's forces to approach.

There were no docks or port facilities, but the Bay allowed the force to land well away from the sea. Most important, the airfield at Giron was 4900' long and could ostensibly support B-26 operations. (The CIA later learned that only 4100' were usable but this did not alter the plan.) By changing to the Bay of Pigs area the Brigade lost the ability to move into the mountains and revert to guerilla warfare. The President was not told this and still thought they had this option.

After receiving a briefing on the modified plan, Kennedy advised the CIA to proceed with the operation. Again, he reminded them that he reserved the option of canceling the operation within one day of its execution. [14]. Military planning now began in earnest. Time was considered a critical factor, since Soviet weapons were daily pouring into Cuba by the shipload. The most critical factor became the forecast date for Cuban pilots to complete flight training in MIG aircraft. This training which took place in Czechoslovakia, was thought to be near completion. Once these pilots returned to Cuba, they would eliminate any chance for the Brigade to obtain the required air superiority.

(Chapter I)

1. "Stopped in the Swamp", Time, 21 April 1961, p. 19.

2. Public Papers of the President of the United States: John F. Kennedy, (Jan 20 - Dec 31, 1961, Washington, D.C.:

GPO, 1962), p. 258.

3. Peter Wyden, Bay of Pigs, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979) p. 24.

4. Maxwell D. Taylor, Memorandum 1 Taylor Commission Report, "Narrative of the Anti-Castro Cuban Operation

Zapata" (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1961, sanitized version declassified May 8, 1977), p. 8.

5. Howard Hunt, Give Us This Day, (New York: Arlington House, 1973), p. 20.

6. Warren Hinckle and William W. Turner, The Fish is Red, (New York: Harper & Row, 1981), p. 29.

7. Haynes Johnson, et al., Bay of Pigs, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1964), p. 54.

8. Wyden, p. 176.

9. Wyden, p. 68.

10. Wyden, p. 91.

11. Wyden, p. 92.

12. Wyden, p. 100.

13. Wyden, p. 100.

14. Wyden, p. 102.

CHAPTER II

Formation of Frente and Brigade Training

Over the same time period that the U.S. political decisions were being made, Howard Hunt was trying to organize the Cuban exile leaders into some sort of provisional government-in-exile. This had proven to be no easy task because of all the fighting among the different Cuban exile groups.

Hunt originally set up his organization in Mexico City, in an effort to keep the perception of U.S. involvement to a minimum. He began working there with representatives of five major exile organizations. Sanchez Orango led the Triple A; Tony Verona represented the Rescate; Justo Carrillo the Montecristi Group; Manuel Artime the Revolutionary Recovery Group (MMR); and Dr. Jose Rasco the Christian Democratic Movement (MDC). After much deliberation, these groups formed a coalition which was called the Frente Revolucionavo Democratico (FRD or Frente as they became known). [1].

The Mexican government was not happy to have a group of revolutionaries operating within the country. They initiated surveillances, searches, and general government harassment, which made it clear, to all members of the Frente, as well as, to Hunt and his organization, that their presence was not desired. Finally, after approximately three months of operations in Mexico, Hunt moved the organization to Miami.

Although the Frente was by no means representative of the entire Cuban community nor a tightly-knit group, it did serve to give a common cause to the Cuban exiles. The Frente became instrumental in influencing young Cuban males to flock to the CIA recruiting offices to join the Brigade. Through the exile newspaper sponsored by the CIA the dreams of contra-revolution were kept alive among the many exiles in the Miami area. The changes of membership and leadership over this time period are too numerous to state, as are the squabbles and political upheavals that occurred. However, a few points are germane and should be made. First, is the relationship that evolved between the Cuban exile political leadership and the Brigade. All members of the Frente knew that their ultimate goal was the overthrow of the Castro regime by military force. They also knew that this force was to be the Brigade, which was being formed and trained in Guatemala. As the political heads of the exile movement, they assumed that the Brigade was their army and that they would control it. They believed that the Brigade's objective would be to install them as the governing body of Cuba after Castro's fall.

The members of the Brigade, however, did not share this view. They were loyal to the individual representatives who made up the Frente, but were not overwhelmed by allegiance to the Frente itself. In general, they viewed the operation as a military project and as long as the supplies, equipment, and promises of landing on the Cuban shores kept coming, they felt above the stormy world of the politicians. They felt that once the government of Castro had toppled, they would have a lot to say about who gained control of the new government. This had become the Cuban way, and they held the military might -- the real power.

These feelings were, no doubt, fostered by the attitudes of the operatives within the U.S. organization. Because of the compartmentalization of the operation, there was little or no direct interface between the political and military operations within the CIA organization. Any decision affecting both, went up-the-chain and then back down, with no coordination at lower levels authorized. The only time Hunt and his military counterpart met face-to-face was at meetings at Quarters Eye (CIA headquarters) in Washington, D.C. On these rare occasions, they stated their opinions, and decisions were made by higher authorities.

This lack of teamwork among the U.S. organizers could not help but affect the Cubans that they worked with. One major flare-up occurred which almost caused the cancellation of the whole project. A few malcontents created a division among the members of the Brigade, leading to open hostility between the factions. The political leaders found out about this and decided to visit the training camp and speak to their men in order to smooth over the problems. U.S. authorities denied them permission to visit the camps. This sent the politicians into an uproar.

The military leaders at the camp in Guatemala gathered up the malcontents and separated them from the Brigade. Since they could not just turn them loose to tell the world of the operation, they had to be detained. They were taken to a prison camp in the Peten Jungles in northern Guatemala and held until after the Cuban landings. [2]. This did not totally quiet the friction among the Brigade's, but did allow for training to continue.

Finally, approximately two months later, Hunt finally persuaded his superiors to allow a committee from the Frente to visit the camps. In the beginning, it looked as though this junket would be a disaster because the Frente discovered, for the first time, exactly what power was exerted over the Brigade, as well as over their organization, by their U.S. mentors. Then they came to realize that without the U.S. organization to support and hold them together, they really had no way of accomplishing their goals. They gathered the Brigade together and spread oil on troubled political waters. When they left Guatemala, the Brigade was again a single unit and had rededicated itself to the mission of overthrowing the Castro government. [3].

Another incident which increased the awareness of the Frente as to actual control of the operation, came when Colonel Martin Elena resigned his post as nominal head of the invasion forces. The Cuban colonel presented Hunt with a long list of complaints about being kept in the dark on military subjects and, in general, about his lack of authority. He complained that he could not effect satisfactory planning for the invasion without better knowledge of the Brigade, their capabilities, and supplies. He (and in effect the leaders of the Frente) was told that his planning would not be necessary. The operation was much too complicated and certainly, far too important, to be left to Cuban tacticians. The entire invasion would be planned and coordinated by U.S. planners. Colonel Elena was at that point left with no alternative except to resign. [4].

These incidents, as well as numerous other indications, some small and some large, revealed that the Cuban exiles were not totally in charge of their own destiny. In spite of this, neither the politicians nor the military leaders lost the naive faith that whatever the U.S. was doing for and with them was certainly in their best interest. They fully realized that they had no hope of reaching their goal without the full military, political, and, most important, monetary support of their U.S. benefactors. Indeed, all they had to do was observe the great accomplishments that had been made in assembling and training the Brigade even the foundation of the Frente.

Although not all inclusive, this background information should bring the events leading up to the Bay of Pigs invasion into a clearer focus. By March 1961, Radio Swan had been operating for seven months, providing music and propaganda to the residents of the Cuban mainland and to the Cuban exiles in Florida and scattered throughout Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean Basin. The radio station also served the function of passing messages in code to the operatives working inside Cuba and to the guerrilla forces fighting in the Escambray Mountains.

Both intelligence sources and the news media carried conflicting reports of the political and socio-economic situation in Cuba. A solid judgement on how the population would react to an exile invasion and the possible overthrow of the Castro government could not be made. The U.S. decision makers tended to be somewhat optimistic in their estimates and were ready to believe that at least a portion of the population would join in an uprising against the government. History had proven that the Cuban people, generally, were ready to back a counter-revolutionary power, if they thought it had a chance for success.

The Frente, although a very fragile coalition, became a viable political organization. Although made up of a volatile membership, it had a sturdy framework and the organization would stand up and present the image of a government-in-exile. This fulfilled their mission as the U.S. backers did not show their concern of who would provide the future leadership of the Cuban nation once the Castro regime had been ousted. Anything would be better than the government that now existed. Actually, the more the power was split among the various factions, the easier it would be for the diplomats of the U.S. to make their choice and throw their support behind "their man" after the invasion.

The Brigade had been formed and trained. Although they were still involved in training exercises in Guatemala, they were considered, by U.S. military experts who had inspected them, to be combat ready. [5].

Even though they were definitely a para-military organization, the Brigade's invasion force had grown to almost 1,500 men, all fairly well-trained and exceptionally motivated to accomplish the amphibious operation at the Bay of Pigs and then move on to Havana.

The Brigade was made up of a true cross-section of the Cuban populace. Students comprised the largest group, but there were representatives from most professions, as well as, farmers, fisherman, and other workers. Many had wives and children, some of whom were still in Cuba. The majority were Catholic, but there were also protestants and some Jews. The majority were white, but there were approximately 50 negroes and some others with mixed blood. Only about 140 had been professional Soldiers, while most of the rest had no previous military training. They were, however, united by their democratic ideals, sense of duty, and unanimous conviction that the invasion would be successful. [6].

The Brigade air force was operating from the American-built base at Retalhuleu, Guatemala. Their aircraft consisted of 16 B-26 medium bombers, 4 four-engined C-54 transports, and 5 [C-46] twin- engined transports. The B-26's had been stripped of their tail and waist guns to allow them to operate with enough fuel to make the round-trip from Central America and still deliver their bombs. Their only self-protection was four cannon mounted in the nose.

The planners considered this adequate since they hoped to eliminate Castro's miniscule air force on the ground.

Although many training missions were still being flown, some combat exposure had been gained by the transport pilots who had flown missions to drop supplies to the guerrilla forces operating within Cuba.

Clandestine operations within the Cuban homeland had not proven very successful. All attempts to assassinate Castro had been foiled. [7]. Each attempt was thwarted by either Castro's intuition or the failure of the operatives involved. [8]. The guerrilla forces operating in the Escambray Mountains were slowly being eliminated by Castro's army and were quickly becoming totally ineffective. [9].

Many of the radio operators who had been infiltrated into Cuba were still available, but they had been given no orders concerning what their part in the plan was or how to carry it out. They were severely limited in their movement by the Castro regime's mass search for subversives that resulted in hundred of Cuban citizens being jailed.

On the U.S. political scene, there were beginning to be doubts by many important people. The President's advisors were reluctant to voice these doubts and an attitude was developing which would later be often analyzed but seldom understood. This would become known as the phenomenon of "assumed consensus". Since virtually no one spoke of their doubts, each began to think no one else had any. Thus, no real, hard questions were voiced, and the common feeling existed that everyone was in agreement.

History shows that this was not the case. As is so often the case within a highly-compartmentalized organization, the fact that no one had brought a detail to another's attention did not necessarily mean that someone else was taking care of it. From an operational standpoint, things were thought to be ready to come together. The general planning was complete. The Brigade forces (both ground and air) were ready. The propaganda mission seemed to be on track and the political organization had been brought together. All that was necessary for Operation PLUTO to commence was the approval of the President.

(Chapter II)

1. Hunt, p. 44.

2. Johnson, p. 61.

3. Hunt, p. 133.

4. Hunt, p. 158.

5. Johnson, p. 66.

6. Peter Lazo, Dagger in the Heart (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1968), p. 258.

7. Hinckle & Turner, p. 37

8. Wyden, p. 110.

9. U.S. News and World Report, 1 May 1961, p. 39.

CHAPTER III

The Plan

This is an excellent point to leave things while we examine the situation from the military standpoint of METT (mission, enemy, terrain and weather, and troops).

I. Mission

A. The mission of the operation was two-fold.

1. Political - The political mission: to over-throw the Castro government in Cuba. This would be followed, initially, by the establishment of a coalition government made up of the members of the Frente.

2. Military - The military mission: to conduct an amphibious assault coordinated with an airborne assault to seize and establish a beachhead in the vicinity of Bahia de Cochinos. Initial objectives were the beaches and existing port facilities at Playa Larga and the airfield at Giron. The Brigade should function as a Cadre for the additional patriots who would come from the common uprising against the Castro government and then to break out of the beachhead and press on to Havana to oust the existing government through force-of-arms.

C. Ground -

1. Castro's ground forces were formidable when compared to the Brigade. His total force had been built around some 250,000 militiamen, armed mainly with "light, modern, submachine guns made in Czechoslovakia". These were augmented by "some 15,000 young men of an elite corps, Communist and pro-Communist fanatics, armed with new Belgian FN [FAL] rifles, firing 20 round clips at a rate of 600 rounds per minute." Along with this, the regular army of Cuba totaled about 40, 000 men armed with Russian equipment. There was also a tank force equipped with approximately 100 Russian T-34 tanks which were fast and highly mobile. [4].

2. All of these troops were well-armed, well-trained, and highly motivated to the defense of their homeland. They were deployed throughout Cuba because they did not know where the invasion would come. This wide deployment constituted their only major weakness, since it would take some time to mass the forces in any given area.

III. Terrain and Weather

A. The beachhead was to be established at the head of the Bay of Pigs. This bay is some 15 miles-long and three to five miles wide on the southwest coast of Cuba. The area encompassed by the beachhead was sparsely populated by, generally uneducated people. The major industry of the area was the making of charcoal; although there were a few makeshift docks, no major port facilities existed. The area was surrounded by the Zapata swamps, which are almost impenetrable. There was one major road to the north which would provide the most likely avenue-of-approach for the Castro forces, and another to the northwest which could provide a limited approach. The area was served by limited electric power and had no telephone facilities. The town of Giron, approximately 12-14 miles southeast of the head of the Bay, had an airfield with 4100 feet of usable runway (out of a total length of 4,900 feet).

B. The area around Playa Larga at the head of the Bay was the site of a major construction project. Castro enjoyed fishing in the area and had begun construction on a major resort. This construction had brought jobs and prosperity to an otherwise undeveloped part of Cuba and had made the local populace fiercely loyal to the Castro regime.

C. Weather was not a factor.

[EDITOR: WTFO? What kind of moron says the above?]

IV. Troops

A. Ground - Brigade 2506 consisted of 1443 well-armed and well-trained Cuban exiles. Their training had been mostly in small-unit tactics and amphibious assault. All small-unit leaders had been trained to move up one level as the ranks were expected to swell with the anticipated influx of anti-Castro Cubans, once the Brigade was ashore. The force was well-supplied and would land with 10 days of supply for the initial landing force, plus enough weapons and ammunition to equip those who were expected to join them from within the civilian population. The majority of the force was armed with M-1 carbines and Browning Automatic Rifles (BAR's). They had some anti-tank weapons and were supported by light artillery.

B. Air - Air cover would be provided initially by aircraft flying from bases in Nicaragua and, once the airfield at Giron had been secured, the Brigade air force would operate from there. [5].

The major weakness of the Brigade, was the relatively small number of troops in respect to both the numerically superior enemy, and in regard to the scope of the mission. It is also considered a weakness that the leaders were executing a plan in which they had no role in the planning evolution.

(Chapter III)

1. Wyden, p. 103.

2. Johnson, p. 70.

3. Lazo, p. 117.

4. U.S. News and World Report, p. 38.

5. Johnson, p. 85.

CHAPTER IV

The Invasion

This was the situation when the base commander at Camp Trax, Guatemala received the mobilization order on 9 April, 1961. The time had come to move the Brigade from Guatemala to Base Trampoline, the spring-board for the operation.

This would be Puerto Cabeza, Nicaragua. It took three days to move the entire Brigade to Base Trampline. The majority of the equipment was staged there already or had been moved from Guatemala as early as April 2, 1961. The CIA had chartered six freighters (slow, old, rusty, and very unmilitary looking), all about 2400 tons, from the Garcia Line.

The shipping corporation had offices in both New York and Havana, but it was not pro-Castro in any way. These ships had proceeded to New Orleans, Mobile, and other Gulf Coast ports, where they had been pre-loaded with the majority of the Brigade's supplies, ammunition, aviation gasoline, and other supplies.

Then they were to proceed to Puerto Cabezas. Upon arrival there, the crews of the ships were told they were to deliver the Brigade to the shores of Cuba and were given the opportunity to quit. One captain and six crewmen did; they were replaced with no problems. [1]. In Puerto Cabezas, the ships were fitted with machine guns for self-protection, although this was considered to be a formality since the Cuban air threat would be neutralized.

When the Brigade assembled at Base Trampoline, the leaders met for a briefing of the operation. This was the first time that the details of the plan for the landing had been discussed with them. Operation ZAPATA called for landings at three points -- Plays Larga, called Red Beach; Giron, Blue Beach; and a point twenty miles east of Giron cutting the road to Cienfuegos, Green Beach.

Giron was the center of invasion. There, at Blue Beach, Pepe San Roman would land his men and establish his command post. From Red Beach to Green Beach, the Brigade would control 40 miles of Cuban coastline. The 1st Battalion of Paratroopers would be dropped in three places -- along each road crossing the swamps; at La Horquito, in front of Yaguaramas; at Jocuma, in front of Covadonga; and along the road from Central Australia to Playa Giron. Del Valle, their commander, would establish his headquarters at San Blas. Thus, the Brigade's initial holdings would extend inland for more than 20 miles.

Olivia would land at Playa Larga with the 2nd and 5th Battalions of infantry. Near Playa Larga, a Paratroop detachment would seize an airport and town called Sopillar. San Roman would land at Giron with the 6th Battalion of infantry, the 4th or armored Battalion, and the Heavy Gun Battalion. The 4th Battalion would send a reinforced company with 2 [M41 light] tanks to support the Paratroopers at San Blas; the rest of the battalion would enter the Playa Giron Airfield, a major objective, and be held in reserve until needed The Heavy Gun Battalion Artillery was to give general support to the Paratroopers, and also the 3rd Battalion of infantry which was to land at Green Beach. (See Figure III-1 for Planned Disposition of Forces.)

The invasion plan carefully allocated supplies from D-Day to D-Day + 10; then from the tenth day after the invasion to the twenty-first day, and on to the thirtieth day. On D-Day itself, 72 tons of arms, ammunition, and equipment; enough to support four thousand men, would be unloaded. In the next ten days, 415 tons more were to be unloaded, followed by 530 and then 607 tons. Everything was worked out, ton-by-ton, day-by-day. The plan was superb. [2].

Throughout the briefing, questions were asked about the capability of Castro's planes to interfere with the landing and subsequent operations ashore. These questions were always given the same reassuring answer: Castro's planes would be destroyed on the ground before the landing was commenced. This was said so often and so confidently that the Cuban leaders did not question these assumptions or how it would be done. The Brigade leaders were told, "there will be a plane over all the major roads of Cuba every five minutes. The Brigade ships are loaded with four thousand gallons of gasoline, so the air force will begin immediate missions once the field at Giron is seized." 3.

It should be noted here that no mention of any alternate plan was made. Such a plan had, in fact, been made but not communicated to the Cubans. The CIA officials decided that if the alternate plan were to be briefed to the Cubans, it might weaken their resolve when things got rough.

Instead, they were told that if things went seriously wrong they should contact the base camp, via radio, for further instructions. This decision sentenced the Brigade to be committed to only one course-of-action, as it took away any contingency--except to hold-the-beachhead, at any costs. [4].

When the briefing was completed, the Cubans left the building feeling confident. The plan they had heard sounded complete, solid, and workable. They had full confidence in the American planners and so they were full of optimism as they walked to the pier around 1700, 14 April, 1961. There, they said farewell to their American advisors, talked about how they would see them all later in Cuba, and boarded the ships which would sail them into the glorious invasion. The Brigade was on its way.

In Washington, the moment-of-truth arrived. Although, during subsequent investigation many people professed to have doubts about the ability of the force or the plan, no objections were raised when it mattered.

Richard Bissell had been pressing President Kennedy for days for a final decision. The President had reserved the right to cancel the operation until 24 hours before D-Day. That time was approaching rapidly. Although Kennedy was still non-committal, he had stressed again and again, in public and in private, that American military personnel would not be directly involved in the operation. He had, however, approved the use of U.S. naval ships in a support and air cover role.

The USS Essex and her battle group of 5 escort destroyers were ready to escort the five Garcia Line freighters to a rendezvous point just outside the Bay of Pigs. They had only one task: to ensure that the Cubans got to the beaches, not to assist them once the landing was made. The Essex had taken aboard a squadron of new A-4D Skyhawks--but their mission was yet undefined.

While the Brigade's invasion force steamed toward their destiny, things were not entirely quiet. Nino Diaz and a reconnaissance group of 160 men prepared to execute a diversionary landing approximately 30 miles east of Guantanamo in the early hours of Saturday morning April 14, 1961. As they neared the shore, they saw what they thought were cigarettes being smoked by a number of militiamen along the coast. They aborted the landing and returned to their small cruiser off the coast. As dawn broke, they were well over-the-horizon to wait and try again the next night. The failure of this group to land was blamed on the weakness of the Cuban leader. The failure of this diversionary raid had a profound effect on the success of the real invasion, since its mission was to draw Castro's forces to the east and confuse his command. [5].

For the pilots at Puerto Cabezas, the morning brought an air of excitement. Although some had flown supply drops for guerrillas over Cuba, today would be the day that they struck the first blow for the freedom of their homeland. That morning they would attack Cuba. As they received their mission briefings, they learned that two planes were to attack Managua, two San Antonio de los Banos, two Santiago de Cuba, four Ciudad Libertad (Castro's main air base), and one plane to attack San Julian and Baracoa. Shortly after the briefings, the attacks on Managua and San Julian were cancelled, with no explanation given.

As the pilots at Puerto Cabezas finished their briefing, they were asked for volunteers to fly special missions. There were many volunteers, but only three pilots were chosen. These men were taken away from the main group and given special briefings. They were told that, under no circumstances, were they to discuss the mission they were about to fly with anyone for a period of five years. Their mission was to provide the cover story for the rest of the attack on Cuba. They were to fly to the U.S., where they would land and say that they had defected from Castro's air force. They were to take credit for the raids on Cuba and were given a story to release to the press. Afterwards, they were to "vanish" and would be returned to Puerto Cabezas to resume their part in the operation. [6].

The pilots were assigned aircraft numbers FAR 933 and FAR 915. [7]. Some of the panels were removed from the aircraft and had bullets fired through them to give them a battle- worn appearance. The aircraft proceeded to the United States where one landed at Miami International Airport and the other at Boca Chica Naval Air Station at Key West, Florida. Both aircraft landed with an engine feathered. The pilots were whisked away by U.S. Customs and Immigration officials and their identities were not released to the press. Later, statements were released giving the story provided for them by the CIA.

The statements, as printed in the major newspapers, read that the pilots were three of a group of four who had been planning for some three months to escape Cuba. They said that the government did not trust its pilots and would only allow the planes to be fueled enough for each mission, but not enough for them to reach asylum in the U.S. On the day before their escape, they had seen one of their group, whom they mistrusted, talking to some Castro officials. This had made them nervous and they had decided to leave the next morning. After takeoff, they had bombed and strafed military targets around their bases and then flown to Florida where they asked for asylum. [8].

The real strikes against the Cuban bases took place at dawn on April 15, 1961. The 8 B-26's to be used were loaded with two 500-pound demolition bombs, ten 200- pound fragmentation bombs, and eight rockets. They also carried eight machine guns in the nose with 2800 rounds of ammunition. These B-26's were the A-26 Invader derivative of the World War II Martin Marauder, but they differed from those flown by Castro forces; the exile aircraft had an all metal nose vice the plexiglass nose of the Cuban model.

Although the story of the B-26's landing in Florida and their crews defecting achieved the desired effect of casting doubt on U.S. involvement, it was later to have a seriously adverse effect on the operation. The political pressure put on the administration, as result of the initial air strikes caused the President to be extremely hesitant to launch further strikes without first having the Brigade in control of the airfield at Giron. This left the remnants of Castro's air force free to operate against the Brigade on the beaches. It negated the assumption of air superiority, on which the plan was based, and very likely turned the tide of the battle.

In the wake of the air attacks, it became even more obvious to Fidel Castro that his island nation was on the verge of being invaded. He had reports from his agents, as well as, the American media reports that the Brigade had left their training bases. He knew they must be on their way. As Castro weighed the invader's options, he felt that there were two major courses of action available. A series of small, widely-spaced landings, or a single major amphibious assault. Several smaller landings would prevent the invaders from suffering a single crushing defeat. Numerous pockets of resistance along the coastline would split his forces and severely test his command and control network. This option also left choice of landing and then operating as a network of guerrilla groups.

He felt that if the Brigade landed in one area, with all of their men it would be to his benefit. In his opinion, a frontal assault by the Brigade would allow his numerically superior forces to liquidate the enemy rapidly. Castro's concluded that the Americans would not allow the Brigade to risk everything on a single beachhead. A total defeat would bring with it too much discredit, both for the U.S. and for the counter-revolutionary movement.

Acting on his decision, Castro studied the coast for probable landing sites. Then he sent small groups of 100-500 men to these sites to keep watch and build defensive positions. The area around Trinidad (the original site chosen for the operation) was especially heavily fortified, as were all approaches to the mountainous areas, to prevent the forces from gaining access to the terrain which Castro knew from experience would favor guerrilla operation. There was nothing left to do but watch and wait. [11].

The offices of the CIA, State Department, Pentagon, and the White House were buzzing with activity. Everything was ready for the invasion, the wheels were turning and the first blow had been struck; but still President Kennedy had not given the authorization for the actual invasion to commence. There had been numerous meetings, over the past few weeks, all of them ending without a decision. The only person who had aired any doubts about the operation had been Senator Fulbright; but he had been very moderate in his attack of the plan. Everyone felt the decision would be to go with the operation, yet there was an air of hesitancy until the formal approval was given.

The 24-hour deadline passed. Finally, about mid-day on D-1, 16 April, 1961, President Kennedy phoned Richard Bissell and gave him the go-ahead. [12]. The mood at CIA headquarters immediately became one of jubilation. It was a tremendous relief to finally know that the year's worth of effort and millions of dollars spent on the operation would not be scrapped at the last minute.

The decision of President Kennedy to continue had been based on the following logic:

It offered what appeared to be a last chance to overthrow Castro by Cubans before the weapons and technicians acquired from the Communists and the repressive internal measures which would make the task too hard without overt U.S. intervention. It was recognized as marginal and risky, but the Cuban Brigade, if not used quickly, would become a political liability, whereas used in a landing it might achieve important success before Castro became too strong. Even if unable to hold the beachhead, something would have been accomplished as the Brigade could turn guerrilla and provide a strong reinforcement to the resistance movement on the island. [13].

Upon notification, the extensive propaganda program conceived by the CIA was executed as planned. Radio Swan and 11 other CIA controlled stations began an intense propaganda blitz. They also included in their broadcast coded messages for operatives inside Cuba to execute pre-planned missions. Most of these were never carried out. The only failure was the planned leaflet drop by the Brigade air force planes. The tactical decision was made, that bombs would be more necessary than the leaflets and so, the drops were cancelled.

Late Sunday afternoon, a very significant event occurred at CIA headquarters in Washington. The message giving the order for the dawn airstrikes the following morning was drafted and sent to the Deputy Director of the CIA for release. He asked the operative who brought him the message if the strike had been cleared. The operative, who was aware that the strike had been an integral part of the plan, replied that they had been cleared. As a precaution the Deputy Director decided to check with Dean Rusk. After a few minutes, McGeorge Bundy, the special assistant to the President, telephoned the Deputy Director and informed him that no strikes were to be flown in support of the operation until the airstrip at Giron had been secured. If further consultation on the matter was required, it should be discussed with the Secretary-of-State. [14].

In reflection, this decision must have been made in light of the political pressure brought to bear on the United States at the U.N., as a result of the cover story told by the pilots who had landed in Florida the previous day. The administration was not willing to risk dropping the final shreds of denial of complicity in the operation, even for something as important as the chance to finish off Castro's air force before the invasion began.

Richard Bissell was called in and appraised of the situation. He knew at once that the strike was vital to the operation; he and the Deputy Director [USAF MG Charles Cabell] then met with Rusk at the State Department. Rusk listened to the two men's objections of the cancellation of the air strikes and agreed to call the President for a decision. They listened as he told the President that they were in his office and were urging reconsideration of the decision to cancel the strikes. He reported their opinion that the strikes were very important to the success of the landing, and then stated, "I am still recommending, in view of what's going on in New York, that we cancel." [15]. The president agreed.

What were probably the most important air strikes of the invasion, were cancelled on political grounds.

A new message was drafted and sent to Puerto Cabezas, canceling the strikes. It arrived just after the engines had been started on the strike aircraft. When the senior American official read it, he immediately sent a protest back to Washington. Fresh U-2 photographs indicated that Castro had at least 2 T-33's and some Sea Furies operational. It was vital that these aircraft be destroyed. [16]. He received a reply quickly restating the cancellation. No one in the Department of Defense or JCS chain- of-command was questioned on the effect of the cancellation, or for that matter even notified until the following morning.

To the average American, the reason for the failure of the Bay of Pigs operation was the lack of air cover. The strike that had just been cancelled had been designed to decimate Castro's air force on the ground, thus eliminating the need for defensive air cover for the Brigade. This would allow the Brigade pilots to concentrate their efforts on offensive [close] air support for the ground operations. If Castro was able to operate any tactical aircraft at all, the Brigade would be at their mercy throughout the invasion.

The CIA immediately recognized the seriousness of the cancellation of the air strike and took what action they could. They immediately notified the Brigade leaders and warned them that enemy air attacks would be likely during the invasion. They ordered the ships to expedite unloading and to withdraw from the beach before dawn. They set up a schedule to give the ground force continuous B-26 cover during daylight hours and had the JCS alert the naval forces to the possibility of receiving the mission of providing air cover. The deputy director of the CIA personally called on the Secretary of State and requested that the U.S. Navy provide air cover and early warning destroyers to protect the now vulnerable ships of the Brigade. The request was put to the President. He disapproved the air cover, on the grounds of the President's original policy of no direct involvement by the U.S. military. He did, however, authorize the use of the early warning destroyers for ship escort, with the proviso that they were restricted from operating any closer than 30 nautical miles from the Cuban shore. [17].

The men of the Brigade were very crowded aboard the freighters. The ships, which were not designed for troop transport, were overloaded with supplies and equipment and the men slept wherever they could find space. It did not matter, as the voyage was short and spirits were soaring because of the imminent action. During the trip, plans were completed, last-minute orders issued by small unit leaders, and some training was conducted. Aboard the Atlantico, the machine guns installed aboard the ship for protection were being fired for training when the hastily-welded, deck plate broke loose. There was a group of 20 men sleeping on the deck below, and the barrel of the gun dropped and fired through the deck. One man was killed and two wounded, one very seriously. The captain broke radio silence and asked for help. The USS Eaton, a destroyer, responded and took the wounded men aboard for medical treatment. They were the first casualties of the invasion.

Around noon on April 16, 1961, the officers of the Frente met at the Statler Hilton in New York City and drafted an announcement for later release of the commencement of the invasion. They then left, via the kitchen exit, to avoid reporters and drove to Philadelphia. There, they boarded a small private plane and were flown to Opa-Locka Airfield in Florida; there they remained under guard in an old barracks to await their planned trip to Cuba after the invasion force had secured a beachhead. [18]. These men, the highest officials of the Cuban government-in-exile, felt that they were being held prisoner by the Americans at the very time when they should have been with their men. They were not at all satisfied with their treatment over the next two days.

Shortly after 2000 on the night of April 16, 1961, D-1, the lead Brigade ship and four other freighters of the Garcia line rendezvoused with the USS San Marcos. The San Marcos was the landing ship dock (LSD) which had brought the landing craft for the Brigade to use. The San Marcos transferred three landing craft utility (LCU) and four landing craft vehicle and personnel (LCVP) to the Brigade, exactly 30 nautical miles off the Cuban coast. These craft were already loaded with trucks, jeeps, and some tanks. Just as the transfer was complete, a landing craft mechanized (LCM) arrived under its own power and was also transferred to the Brigade. This was the final step for the invasion, and now, the Brigade, in control of its landing craft, was fully operational for the first time.

The Brigade fleet sailed into the mouth of the Bay of Pigs and split their formation, proceeding to their assigned areas -- Blue Beach at Giron and Red Beach at Playa Larga. The landing at Blue Beach was designated the main attack and the landings at Red Beach and Green Beach were the supporting attacks.

The men got out of the raft into waist deep water and waded toward the shore. They were about fifty yards off shore, when they heard a jeep coming down the beach. It stopped adjacent to them and swung its headlights around onto them. The American fired on the jeep with a BAR [7.62mm x 82mm "30.06" cartridges, heavy and hard to control on full-auto, but an excellent weapon] and was joined by the Cubans. They riddled the jeep with machine gun fire and knocked out the headlights. They did not take any return fire. These were the first shots fired in the Bay of Pigs invasion. [20]

Immediately after the incident, the lights all over the town went off. A truck loaded with militiamen started down the beach toward them. The men of the advance force radioed the Blagar and requested help. They were soon engaged in an intense firefight with the militiamen. San Roman decided to begin the landing of the Brigade. He was in one of the lead landing craft and soon had enough men ashore to establish a small beachhead.

The 4^th Battalion was landed and given the mission of securing the air strip. Intelligence had indicated that it would require some engineering support to become usable.

Photos indicated piles of sand and gravel on the runway, and that some trees would have to be cut down to allow for a safe approach. But San Roman was informed that the air strip was secure and usable. The expected obstacles did not

exist. The Brigade aircraft now had a place from which to operate on Cuban soil. [21]

As San Roman set up his headquarters in Giron, the orderly unloading of vehicles and supplies commenced. Although the beachhead at Blue Beach was secure, Castro's militiamen had been able to transmit the alarm to troop and air force headquarters in Havana before the Brigade had destroyed a microwave antenna in the area. San Roman evaluated the situation and made the decision to cancel the landing at Green Beach and consolidate its troops, equipment, and supplies at Blue Beach. [22]

In spite of resistance, all vehicles and tanks were unloaded at Blue Beach by 0730. All personnel were ashore by 0830. [23]

At Red Beach, the American advisor (a CIA man) who had disobeyed his orders, and the Cuban frogmen were able to place their marker lights, in spite of immediately coming under fire from Castro's forces.

They radioed back to the Barbara J and the Houston to expedite the landing, and set up a hasty defense of the beachhead against a rapidly increasing militia force.

As the Houston came within range, the machine guns on the beach opened up on her. The attack was answered by her gunners, catching the frogmen in a crossfire. She was able to silence the guns from the shore, but in the process one of the frogmen was killed. This was the first Brigade casualty of the invasion.

Erneido Olivia, the commander of the Brigade forces at Red Beach, also saw the need for his leadership ashore earlier than expected. He changed the landing sequence and came ashore in one of the first waves with his staff. [24]

The 2^nd Battalion was very slow in coming ashore. The navy landing craft were planned to be utilized for the movement of the heavy vehicles and supplies. Personnel were primarily to be transported in small, fiberglass launches with outboard engines. This caused a major problem, as the outboard motors proved to be unreliable as numerous failures occurred. The small launches did not have much freeboard and were unable to withstand the heavy seas. Many were swamped on their way to the beach. Although there were only 185 men in the 2^nd Battalion destined for Red Beach, by 0530 all of the men were still not ashore. The 5^th Battalion never did get ashore because of the boats and poor leadership. [25]

Once ashore, Olivia ordered his men to seize and destroy the microwave station in Playa Larga. When the station was seized, the equipment was found to be warm and all the transmit switches were in the "on" position. The alarm had been broadcast from there, also.

At 0315, Fidel Castro received the news of the invasion. He was informed of the landings at Playa Larga and Giron and ascertained that his militiamen in the area were resisting. Castro ordered confirmation of the information, and quickly received it. Fidel then alerted the forces that were in the area, consisting of several platoons of militia stationed at the Central Australian Sugar Mill and a battalion containing three mortar batteries in Matanzas Province. The troops at Central Australia were not able to mobilize until dawn and the others a little while later. Castro also ordered three battalions from Las Villas Province to Yaguaramas and Covadonga to protect the other two major highways into the Zapata Swamps. He issued orders to the air force to commence its attack at dawn on the ships at Playa Larga and Giron. [26]

The situation at 0400-0530 was fairly stable. Beachheads had been established at both Red and Blue Beaches. Men and equipment were pouring ashore (although slower at Red Beach). Both San Roman and Olivia established their headquarters and command posts, but were at that time unable to communicate with each other.

The Brigade had pushed inland in both areas and the airstrip had been secured at Giron. Although considerable confusion existed, the plan was generally being followed except for the cancelled landing at Green Beach.

Then the Brigade received word that Castro still had operational aircraft and that they should expect to be attacked from the air at dawn. They were advised to have the ships put back to sea before the attacks began, and expect them to return the following night. There was no time to coordinate such a change.

At 0600, the frogmen reported that they had charted a path through the reefs. At 0625, as the landing craft from the Blagar were moving the tanks and troops of the Heavy Gun Battalion ashore, they were attacked by a B-26. The B-26 was soon joined by a T-33 and several Sea Furies. The remainder of the Heavy Gun Battalion, as well as the 3^rd and 6^th Battalions, were forced to land while receiving heavy fire from the air. [27]

The other Paratroop units landed safely without organized opposition and proceeded to their blocking positions along the roads to Covadonga and Yaguaramas. These blocking positions were each manned by almost 20 men; their weapons consisted of a 57mm [recoilless rifle] cannon, a .30 caliber [medium] machine gun, a [2.36" or 3.5"] bazooka, and an [BAR or Johnson 41?] automatic rifle squad. Fortunately, they were heavily equipped, since they came under attack shortly after getting into position. They performed well in the engagement on Eastern front.

The airborne drops secured two of the three main roads. But the road to the north of Playa Larga to Central Australia remained open. But this was where Castro's forces concentrated and therefore posed the major threat to the exiles. San Blas was the only area where any real support for the Brigade was shown by the populace. A number of local citizens offered assistance to the paratroopers, volunteered to carry supplies and water, and worked as nurses. 5 civilians volunteered to fight; they were given uniforms and weapons and integrated into the Brigade unit. [29]

The battle plan of the Castro forces was becoming apparent and it surprised the Brigade leaders. They had assumed that Castro's main thrust would be from the east through San Blas to Giron road.

They had deployed their forces to defend against this expected attacks.

It was now becoming obvious that Castro was attacking with his main force from the north down the road and railroad bed from Central Australia; this would drive a spearhead into Playa Larga and Red Beach. This was the more lightly defended area of the Brigades forces and could certainly not withstand a heavy sustained attack.

Meanwhile, the war in the air was not going well. One of the C-46's, which had dropped its Paratroopers, had been shot down by a Sea Fury earlier in the day as it had turned back out to sea.

A B-26 had been shot down by a Castro T-33 as it made a bomb run in support of the Brigade, and another was forced to ditch into the sea about halfway back to Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, after having one engine shot out and additional heavy battle damage. One Brigade pilot reported that he had been receiving fire from two Castro aircraft when U.S. Navy jets had joined on them. The Castro planes had broken off and fled, but the Navy jets had never fired on them. [32]

A Brigade C-46 on a resupply mission tried to land at the Giron airport. However, he turned back within sight of the beachhead when informed over the radio by a B-26 pilot that 2 T-33's were in the area.

The Brigade now had full control of an usable airfield but it could not be used because Castro had been able to maintain air superiority.

The four remaining ships had left the coast and had been ordered to proceed beyond the 12 mile limit. The Atlantico and Caribe had pulled out first, with the Blagar escorting the crippled Barbara J. Although under air attack, none suffered significant damage and the Blagar even managed to shoots down a B-26 which crashed so close that wreckage ended up on fire on decks.

The ships planned to rendezvous about 50 miles out to sea and then to move back to the twelve mile limit during the night. They would then unload their cargo onto the remaining landing craft and lighter it ashore. The men on the ships knew that the Brigade was using so much ammunition that they would need resupply after the first days fighting.

The Barbara J and Blagar reached the rendezvous point, but were unable to communicate with the other two vessels. The Atlantico and Caribe had actually left the area and headed south. Navy destroyers intercepted the Atlantico 110 nautical miles south of the beachhead and convinced her to return; she would not arrive in the area again until 1830 on D+1, 18 April, 1961. Another destroyer did not overtake the Caribe until she was 218 nautical miles south; she was never again available for resupply to the Brigade before the beachhead collapsed. [33]

As D-Day drew to an end, the Brigade held a tenuous position. They maintained the beachhead around both Red and Blue Beach, as well as the airfield at Giron. The forces at Red Beach were bearing the brunt of the action; casualties were high and ammunition and supplies were low. The Castro forces were threatening to push down the road into Playa Larga, while the Cuban Air Force controlled the skies.

Brigade air support had been weak and they had lost four aircraft. 2 ships supply ships of the Brigade were sunk, and 2 more had completely departed the area. Most of the medical supplies had been lost with the field hospital aboard the Houston and medical treatment for the wounded was scarce.

Overall, the situation looked bleak--but not hopeless. (See Figure III-2 for actual deployment of forces at the end of D-Day.) [34]

Meanwhile it had been an eventful day back in Washington. The personnel manning the command post were receiving only sketchy details of how the operation was proceeding. Generally, with the poor communications, they were operating about 12 hours behind events at the beachhead. Much of their information was coming from what the Brigade pilots saw and reported in their debriefings back in Nicaragua. They were getting some details from the men aboard the Blagar and the Barbara J but, it too, was second hand and not timely.

They knew that the supply of ammunition was getting low and ordered air drops from the base in Nicaragua for the night of the 17th. Missions were flown by 4 C-54's and 2 C-46's. Of these, five of the drops were successful but the cargo of the sixth was blown into the sea. [35]

It had been a day filled with failure. One of the most puzzling of these had been the failure of the CIA to notify the network of infiltrators and Cuban underground of the invasion, even after it had begun. One infiltrator later reported that around noon of D-Day, he finally received a message that the invasion had begun and to blow the bridges between Playa Larga and Central Australia. He could not do this because of the massive Cuban mobilization. It would have made little difference anyway, since the militia had crossed the bridges he was ordered to destroy six hours earlier. The failure to use the covert forces available to the CIA cost them the opportunity to divert Castro's forces and allowed them to focus on the actual site of the Brigade's invasion. [36]

Political turmoil reigned in New York and Washington. The cover story, told by the "defecting pilots" who had landed in Florida, had been broken by a reporter who had inspected one of the planes and found it to be a different model than those flown by Castro's air force. He had found the bombay hinges covered with undisturbed dust and grease and the guns uncocked and unfired. He also noticed that the rocket mounts were disconnected and covered with corrosion. [37]

The disclosure of this information had unleashed chaos within the United Nations. The Soviet Premier, Niketa [Nikita] Khrushchev, had sent a strongly worded message to President Kennedy in which he denounced the U.S. aggression and accused Kennedy of threatening world peace. The Soviet leader promised that the Soviets would support the Castro regime, even if it meant armed intervention.

But some of the news media had bought the official cover story put forth by the government: that there had been no invasion, and the action in Cuba was attributed to a small number of Cuban exiles (200-300) trying to land supplies for the underground. However, others did not believe it.

In the United Nation, ambassador Stevenson was doing his best to hold off the charges of the Cubans that the attack had been launched by mercenaries paid, trained, and supplied by the U.S. government. With a great deal of showmanship, he read off a list of the more prominent participants in the Brigade and the Frente. As he would read a name, he would give the position the man held in Cuba prior to leaving for the United States. The list was quite impressive and included almost two thirds of Castro's original cabinet.

At the CIA, the situation was becoming all too obvious. Even though the officials recognized the first signs of failure, there was very little they could do little about it. The CIA Command Post had already ordered the air drop of resupply ammunition and given orders to the ships to continue resupply operations after nightfall. Now, all they could do was just wait and hope the Brigade could change the situation through the application of its combat power.

The Joint Chiefs had taken all steps to ensure they would be ready if called upon to intervene in the battle. They were ready to offer any support ordered by the President and had moved several aviation units within striking distance to bases in the south. The Navy, which was the closest service to being actually involved, was ready to assist with air cover, escort, or naval gunfire, as soon as the order was issued. Still, President Kennedy clung to his policy that the U.S. military forces would not be involved in the invasion of Cuba.

At Opa Locka airfield, just outside Miami, Florida, the Cuban exile officials of the Frente were still waiting to be transported to the beachhead. They still remained under strict guard in the old barracks, but had been furnished with a radio by their guards. They had it tuned to Radio Swan and were receiving only reports that the invasion forces were winning the battle. This made them even harder to control. They were anxious to fly immediately to their homeland and be part of the victory.

It looked like it was going to be a long night for the men at Red Beach. They had caught a Cuban column in an ambush late in the afternoon and efficiently annihilated it. From the prisoners they had taken, the exiles learned that Castro was massing his forces at Central Australia; this meant there would be a major attack that night. Olivia had the men of the Brigade prepare defensive positions astride the main road and railway bed. [38]

At Blue Beach, San Roman was also ordering his men into the defense for the night. There had been periods of heavy fighting along both roads into the area as Castro's forces had probed his positions. Now, as nightfall came, the advance post on the road to Covadonga had come under heavy artillery fire; San Roman interpreted this as the preparation for an attack. San Roman assessed the situation well and sent the 4th Battalion to Red Beach to reinforce Olivia.

Olivia placed these reinforcements into his line. He deployed 6 mortars, and all the shells he had, to support his front and flanks, and sent 3 [M41] tanks to cover two crossroads where they had excellent fields-of-fire. He kept nothing in reserve as he prepared for what would become the "fiercest battle of the Bay of Pigs".

Back in New York City, the CIA's public relations office released what the press called the Cuban Revolutionary Council's Bulletin Number 3. It read:

What a contrast with the actual situation at the Bay of Pigs. San Roman expected the ships to begin unloading sometime shortly after dark, and had a large work party standing by. He was sorely disappointed when no ships or landing craft arrived. He sent a 25-foot launch with a radio operator out to sea to try and locate the vessels.

They spent the entire night trying to establish radio contact with their supply ships. But their efforts were in vain. The Cuban crews aboard the Blagar and the Barbara J refused to return anywhere near the beaches.

The first attack of the night soon occurred, but it did not come from the expected direction. The advance guard from San Blas made unexpected contact with a Cuban armored column. They planned to hold for a long as possible then fall back to another blocking position: but the Cuban forces were overpowering and all resistance gave way. The Brigade unit was lucky to have its remnants evacuated by trucks in front of the advancing hostile column.

The unit fell back a safe distance and was joined by a mortar unit. The observers saw the Castro forces coming down the road, advancing in the light of their own trucks and tanks. They held their fire until the enemy was well in range and then thoroughly routed Castro's column. The mortars halted any further advance toward San Blas for the rest of the night.

Then, came the infantry assaults. At 0100, Olivia called in the mortar fire on the infantry with deadly results. The battle continued through the night. At 0445, the Brigade tanks pulled back, out of ammunition. The enemy tanks kept coming, working their way past the wreckage and toward the Brigade's lines. As one would be knocked out by Brigade bazooka fire, another would take its place.

Just at dawn, when the situation was the most desperate for the Brigade forces who were almost out of ammunition, the tanks began to retreat. An hour later, a Castro tank rolled into the crossroads. The driver got out, surrendered, and stated he wanted to join the Brigade. He explained to Olivia that over the night Olivia's 370 troops had faced and defeated over 2,100 men (300 regular soldiers, 1600 militia, and 200 policemen) and over 20 tanks. The enemy had suffered over 500 killed and over 1000 wounded; Olivia had lost 20 dead and 50 wounded. [42]

At 0900, they mounted the remaining trucks and proceeded to Giron where they thought resupply would be waiting. Not only was resupply not waiting at Blue Beach, but San Roman had trouble of his own there.

His position had started receiving heavy artillery fire around 0400. He had committed his reserve by splitting it and putting the troops in blocking positions along the two roads coming in from the east and northeast. He also had established a blocking position along the road to Playa Larga to the northwest. He knew that Olivia would be coming to Blue Beach to consolidate the forces, but did not know how many enemy troops would be following him.

During the night 6 B-26's had launched around 0230 from Puerto Cabezas and arrived over Cuba at dawn in an attempt to catch Castro's aircraft on the ground and destroy them. Luck was not with them however, for the targets were obscured by heavy haze and low cloud cover. The mission was aborted. [43]

When the men from Red Beach arrived at Giron, the only fighting still continuing was in the area of San Blas, where the Castro column was still stalled by the Paratroopers and mortar fire. Olivia and San Roman met and studied their situations. They had troops in contact along the road to the northeast, and expected to come under attack by forces coming down from the northwest from Playa Larga at any time. All units were low on ammunition, and mortar shells had been rationed since midnight. They felt that if the brigade could hold out until nightfall, resupply would certainly occur either from the ships or by air drop.

Olivia suggested that the Brigade strike to the east through Cienfuegos and try to reach the Escambray Mountains where they could conduct guerrilla operations. San Roman opposed this plan for several reasons. He considered the mountains to be too far away. In order to reach them, they would have to fight their way through Cienfuegos, which he believed contained a large Castro troop concentration; also they were very low on ammunition. There weren't enough trucks available to transport everyone in the Brigade and, if they were to stand any chance of resupply, the Brigade would have to remain on the coast so the ships and planes could find them. He made the decision to hold the beachhead. [44]

At 1030, radio contact was finally established with the Blagar. San Roman requested resupply of food, ammunition, medical supplies, and communications equipment. He was promised that it would be delivered that night by LCU and air drop. This sealed his decision to remain at Giron. The Blagar told him that if things really got bad they would evacuate the Brigade from the beaches. San Roman replied, "I will not be evacuated. We will fight until the end here if we have to." [45]

He took the 6^th Battalion, who were from Red Beach, and placed them in the blocking positions on the road to Playa Larga. He called in the Paratroopers who were in the advanced positions north of San Blas. He only had one artillery piece to support them as they broke contact and returned to San Blas. For some reason, the Castro force of over 20,000 men did not pursue them. If they had, the Brigade would have been destroyed on-the-spot. [46]

That day the Brigade was under almost continuous air attack. They were bombed and strafed by Castro's planes throughout the beachhead. There were Brigade missions flown that day, but many were flown by American CIA pilots. The Brigade pilots had made the early launch, which had been aborted, and many were too exhausted to fly the 6- hour round trip again.

At 1800, on D+1, the disposition of Brigade forces was as shown in Figure IV. [50] Although food, ammunition, and medical supplies were in short supply, the Brigade leaders had still not given up hope. They retained the faith that the U.S. would not allow them to fail and would step in with assistance at any time. Once again, the Brigade looked forward to a long night. The leaders had been told that resupply would begin shortly after nightfall, and they desperately needed it to hold on for another day.

Shortly after 1800, Castro's forces started pounding the advance posts with artillery. A short time later, the Brigade blocking positions on both the East and West fronts made contact with Castro's advance guards. A major push began at San Blas, but was halted before it gained momentum by sending 2 tanks to reinforce the positions.

About 1900, a Brigade C-54 made an air drop of supplies over the Giron airfield. The wind blew all of the supplies into the swamp, where a work party labored all night but only recovered a small percentage of the drop. Another C-54 arrived and made a second drop over the beaches. These supplies were blown into the sea. A group of frogmen were dispatched and were able to recover about half of these supplies.

At one point during the night, San Roman thought the Castro forces were massing for an attack on his Western front. He committed his reserve, the 2nd Battalion, to that position of the line but the attack never came. The only action throughout the night were light skirmishes, as the Castro forces probed the Brigade's line.

At sea, the Barbara J and the Blagar knew the situation was bad. They were about 50 nautical miles south of the beaches. The crews worked against time, trying to manually load supplies into 3 LCU's. They did not think they could get to the beaches and out again before daylight. They knew that if the ships were caught during daylight by Castro's aircraft, they would all be destroyed. The ships sent the following message to Puerto Cabezas: "Barbara J, BLAGAR, and LCU's cannot arrive Blue Beach, discharge and leave by daylight. Request jet cover from U.S. in beachhead area." Their next message read: "BLAGAR proceeding Blue Beach with 3 LCU's. If low jet cover not furnished at first light, believe we will lose all ships. Request immediate reply." [51]

There was only one man who could grant this request --President Kennedy. He was dismayed by the news coming from Giron. The President could not, however, view the invasion in a fishbowl, but had to keep in mind the world situation. He had answered Khrushchev's morning dispatch with stern words of his own but Kennedy was still not ready to commit American forces to save the Brigade. He did concede to provided limited escort for the Brigade aircraft for one hour on Wednesday morning, April 19, 1961, from 0630 to 0730.

Abroad the USS Essex, all markings were painted off the carrier's A-4 Skyhawks. The crews were briefed, that they would rendezvous with a flight of Brigade aircraft at 0630 and provide them air cover while they performed their mission. The jets were not to attack ground targets, but were supposed to keep the Castro planes from attacking the Brigade aircraft.

The Brigade had only 7 of its original 16 B-26's left. Again, American pilots had to be used to substitute for the Cubans, who were too exhausted or who refused to fly. 4 B-26's, two manned by Americans and two by Cubans, launched from Puerto Cabezas at around 0200, Wednesday, D+2. One of the planes, crewed by Cubans developed engine trouble and turned back shortly after take-off. The other three proceeded toward Giron. They arrived in the air an hour before the jets were to be launched, but were unaware of this. They proceeded to their targets. The results were disastrous.

Olivia formed a small unit of the men he could find and marched them to the east toward Cienfuegos. A short distance out of Giron, the column was strafed by two Sea Furies and a T-33. The unit broke up and fled individually into the swamps. This ended the last organized fighting of the Bay of Pigs campaign. The Brigade was gone. The beachhead had fallen. The invasion had failed. [57]

ENDNOTES

(Chapter IV)

1. Wyden, p. 133.

2. Johnson, pp. 83-84.

3. Johnson, p. 25.

4. Johnson, p. 26.

5. Taylor Report, Memo 1, p. 15.

6. Wyden, pp. 174-175.

7. New York Times, 16 April 1961, p. 4, col. 1.

8. New York Times, 16 April 1961, p. 4, col. 1.

9. Taylor Commission, Memo 1, p. 15.

10. Wyden, p. 180.

11. Johnson, p. 89.

12. Taylor Report, Memo 1, p. 15.

13. Taylor Report, Memo 1, p. 15.

14. Taylor Report, Memo 1, p. 17.

15. Johnson, p. 199.

16. Wyden, p. 193.

17. Taylor Report, Memo 1, p. 18.

18. Wyden, p. 207.

19. Wyden, p. 218.

20. Wyden, p. 219.

21. Taylor Report, Memo 1, p. 18.

22. Taylor Report, Memo 1, p. 18.

23. Johnson, p. 105.

24. Johnson, p. 109.

25. Taylor Report, Memo 1, p. 20.

26. Johnson, p. 110.

27. Johnson, p. 111.

28. Taylor Report, Memo 1, p. 20.

29. Johnson, p. 115.

30. Wyden, p. 230.

31. Johnson, p. 115.

32. Wyden, p. 235.

33. Taylor Report, Memo 1, p. 21.

34. Taylor Report, Memo 1.

35. Taylor Report, Memo 1, p. 21.

36. Johnson, p. 121.

37. Time, April 28, 1961, p. 19.

38. Johnson, p. 126.

39. Johnson, p. 129.

40. Johnson, p. 132.

41. Johnson, p. 134.

42. Johnson, p. 138.

43. Wyden, p. 270.

44. Wyden, p. 274.

45. Johnson, p. 143.

46. Johnson, p. 145.

47. Wyden, p. 278.

48. Taylor Report, Memo 1, p. 23.

49. Johnson, p. 144.

50. Taylor Report, Memo 1.

51. Johnson, p. 151.

52. Johnson, p. 155.

53. Taylor Report, Memo 1, p. 24.

54. Johnson, p. 158.

55, Wyden, p. 282.

56. Johnson, p. 167.

57. Wyden, p. 286.

CHAPTER V

Ransom

The next few days were a mass of confusion for the survivors of the invasion. As the ammunition had run out, various parts of the beachhead had broken down at different times. As a unit would run out of ammunition, it would break-up into small groups and either make for the open sea in the few small boats that remained or strike out through the swamps.

For the men who escaped via the sea, a U.S. task force patrolling the coast to pick them up. There is no accurate count of how many members of the Brigade were rescued at sea, but the number appears to be around 150. [1] One group of twenty-two men boarded a twenty-two foot sailboat and set out to sea. They sailed for fifteen days before being picked up by an American freighter, 178 miles south of the Mississippi River. 10 of the 22 men had died at sea. [2]

For those who escaped into the swamps, being captured was the least of their worries; mere survival was difficult. Some lasted longer than others, but virtually all of them were destined to either die in the swamps or to be captured by Castro's forces. The swamps consisted of mire and thick vegetation, but very little water. The swamps contained little to eat except snakes, lizards and an occasional bird.

They were constantly harassed by helicopters flying overhead and random shelling of the swamps by artillery. The troops could not navigate through the thick swamps, and eventually all were forced to return to the roads where the militia patrols were waiting for them.

The prisoners were taken back to Giron where they were kept under guard for several days. They were interrogated by officers of Castro's army and questioned by reporters. Castro thus achieved quite a propaganda coup from the round-up of Brigade prisoners.

After the interrogations were complete, the prisoners were transported to the Sports Palace in Havana for initial detention. Although they were generally treated well, there was one incident where 149 prisoners were loaded onto an enclosed semi-trailer truck at Giron and transported to Havana; unfortunately, 9 men died of suffocation during the transit. [3]

A total of 1,189 men of the Brigade became Castro's prisoners. 114 had died in the operation and around 150 had made their way back to safety in one way or another. For the prisoners, the coming months would be harder than the fighting during the invasion. The entire group of over 1, 000 prisoners were held for several days in the Sports Palace, where they were made to sit on the hard seats for 21 hours-a-day. Then they were called forth, one at a time, and interrogated. Several were taken to a television station where, during a live broadcast, they were questioned by a panel. Some of the answers were more than Castro wanted the public to hear, so the broadcasts were stopped after four days.

Fidel Castro himself appeared before the assembled Brigade on the night of April 26, 1961. He delivered a speech which lasted from 2330 until after 0300 the next morning; in it the Brigade was berated for its criminal activities and labeled as pawns of U.S. imperialism. Castro ended the speech by telling the men that although he knew they should all be shot, which was what they deserved, he would not kill them, but would spare the lives of those not guilty of committing war crimes. (This meant primarily war crimes under the Batista regime, not during the invasion).

The leaders, San Roman, Olivia, and several others, were kept isolated from the Brigade and from each other. They were interrogated thoroughly, and sometimes brutally, about their training and about the invasion, with special emphasis on the American role in all phases of the operation. Although they all felt betrayed by the United States, none of the Brigade leaders told their interrogators anything about the American participation and very little about the actual invasion.

During the night of May 13, 1961, the Sports Palace was emptied and the entire Brigade was transferred to the unfinished 5-story Havana Naval Hospital. Here, the men were treated much better. They were assigned twenty to a room and allowed to bathe and sleep on mattresses.

In a speech to the National association of Small farmers on May 12, 1961, Castro finally divulged his plan for his prisoners. He told the farmers: If imperialism does not want its worms to work, let it exchange them against tractors and agricultural machinery! Of course, those among such blackguards that may have committed murder, we cannot exchange against anything. Those that have assassinated are not subject to exchange. All others, all others, we will exchange with imperialism, against five hundred bulldozers, if it is interested in rescuing them." [4]

Castro had the prisoners elect a committee of 10 men, specifically excluding the leaders of the Brigade, to go to Washington and carry his demands to the U.S. government. They left Cuba for Miami on May 19, 1961. A committee was formed in the United States at the request of President Kennedy to meet with the delegation. The committee was not officially sanctioned by the administration, who felt that it could not deal with any representative of Castro since diplomatic relations had been severed with Cuba in January of 1961. Instead, it was a bipartisan committee of four citizens, ostensibly operating as concerned individuals forming a private organization. The committee became known as the Tractor-for-Freedom Committee.

What had seemed a fairly simple and routine matter to the President soon became a political hot potato. When the Senate met on 22 May, many senators demanded that the administration make its position clear, as to the government with the committee. Many of the lawmakers felt that the nation was being blackmailed by Castro into ransoming the Brigade. Congress felt that the bulldozers would be used to increase Castro's military power instead of for agriculture and that was the last thing the United States wanted.

After much debate, The Tractors-for-Freedom committee offered Castro 500 wheeled tractors with agricultural attachments instead of the bulldozers, which could ostensibly be used for military purposes. Castro refused the offer by sending a fiery cable to the committee restating his demands.

On June 13, 1961, a committee delegation went to Havana to negotiate release terms with Castro. Fidel told them he would accept 500 bulldozers or their equivalent in cash, credit or other farm machinery, as long as any combination of these added up to $28 million. When the Committee returned to Washington with the demands, the administration concluded that the demands were impossible in the light of the current political situation, and disbanded the committee.

On July 17, 1961, the Brigade prisoners were taken from the Naval Hospital to the Castillo del Principe. This was an old castle which now served as a prison. The men were herded into the cells they would occupy for the next year and the doors slammed shut. The men of the Brigade were faced with months of despair but few gave up hope.

On Thursday morning, March 29, 1962, the largest mass trial in Cuba's history began by assembling the Brigade in the courtyard of the prison. A 5-man tribunal sat in judgement of 1180 men (6 had died during imprisonment and 3 had escaped), all to be judged as one. The Brigade turned down the services of a court-appointed defense counsel and told the tribunal that their actions needed no defense. The trial lasted four days and left something to be desired from a strictly legal standpoint. On the fourth day of the trial, final summations were given and the tribunal went into deliberation.

Before the verdict was announced, the Cuban Families Committee sent a cable to Castro, saying that they had pledges for the $28 million he had requested. They would deliver the amount in foodstuffs shipped from the U.S. No answer was immediately given by the Cuban leader.

On Sunday, April 8, 1962, Castro announced to the world the sentence of the tribunal. The men of the Brigade were sentenced to thirty years imprisonment. He then went on to announce that he would ransom the prisoners for various amounts. He wanted $500,000 each for Olivia and San Roman, while the remainder of the Brigade had been divided into three groups. Their freedom could be purchased for $25,000 per man in the first group; $50,000 per man in the second group; and $100,000 per man in the third group. The total for the entire Brigade came to $62 million. [5]

Castro released 60 of the most seriously wounded prisoners and was paid their ransom through the Royal Canadian Bank. The money had been raised through the Cuban Families Committee. Negotiations for the remainder of the prisoners dragged on for months. Each time a solution was almost reached, Castro would change the conditions, putting the release of the prisoners just out of reach of the negotiators.

Finally, an agreement was reached. This involved complicated transfers of drugs, medicine, medical and surgical supplies, and foodstuffs, to the Cuban government. The items had been donated by private corporations in the United States, induced by large tax incentives provided by the government.

On the morning of December 23, 1962, the freighter, African Pilot docked in the Havana harbor, and commenced unloading the first of many shipments of drugs and supplies. At 1700, that afternoon, the first planeload of prisoners took off for Florida. At 2145, on December 24, 1962, the last planeload of prisoners arrived in Miami. As Pepe San Roman stepped down the boarding ladder, the assembled members of the Brigade saluted him. 6. Now the invasion was over.

ENDNOTES

(Chapter V)

1. Wyden, p. 303.

2. Johnson, p. 201.

3. Johnson, p. 303.

4. Johnson, p. 229.

5. Johnson, p. 282.

6. Johnson, p. 341.

CHAPTER VI

Conclusions and the Principles of War

Immediately after the collapse of the beachhead in Giron, President Kennedy appointed a committee to study the operation. In a letter of April 22, 1961, he charged General Maxwell Taylor, Robert Kennedy, Admiral Arleigh Burke, and Allen Dulles, to "study over governmental practices and programs in the area of military and paramilitary, guerrilla and anti-guerrilla activity, which fall short of outright war with a view toward strengthening our work in this area." [1] He directed special attention to the lessons which could be learned from the recent events in Cuba (the Bay of Pigs invasion).

Although the committee began work immediately, it was hamstrung by the fact that the leaders and participants of the invasion were imprisoned in Cuba. Despite this it set about interviewing everyone they could locate who had a hand in the invasion. These included the decision-makers; the planners, both military and CIA; the advisors who had trained the Brigade; and the operatives who had carried out the political and propaganda portions of the operation. They also questioned the few members of the Brigade who had been able to escape and return to the U.S.

The results of the committee's investigations were not designed to cover up anything or to place the blame on any particular individual. It had only one goal; to find out what happened, how and why it occurred, and how this type of disaster could be prevented from repeating itself. [2]

The result was four memorandums from the committee to President Kennedy. Memorandum Number I contained a narrative of the events during Operation ZAPATA. Memorandum Number II discussed the immediate causes of failure of the operation. Memorandum Number III contained the conclusions of the Cuban Study Group and Memorandum Number IV was the recommendation of the Cuban Study Group. Initially, these documents were so sensitive as to be classified "Eyes Only" and were hand carried to designated individuals. A sanitized version was declassified and released in March, 1977. (See appendix I for transcripts of Memorandums II & III.)

The foregoing has been the story of the Bay of Pigs invasion of 17-19 April, 1961, from conception to the return of the Brigade to U.S. soil. Volumes have been written concerning the operation, how and why it failed. However, another way to make an interesting analysis would be to take the operation out of its context as a political event, and examine it as a conflict between opposing military forces. To compare the battle, from the Brigade standpoint, to the principles of war and see which were used effectively and which were not.

The principles to be examined will be objective, offensive, mass, economy-of-force, maneuver, unity of command, security, surprise, and simplicity. Some of these elements must be incorporated during the planning stage and some during the execution phase. Both of these will be discussed, although it must be remembered that the Brigade leaders were not part of the planning evolution but were presented with the completed plan and expected to execute it. It should be noted that both Olivia and San Roman were products of U.S. Army formal schools and could be expected to be aware of these principles.

The principle objective states that "every military operation must be directed toward a clearly defined, decisive and obtainable objective." [3] In the case of the Brigade's invasion, clear objectives were laid down for the, initial stage (amphibious stage) of the operation. The forces crossing Red Beach were to assault, seize, and defend the town of Playa Larga, and control the road leading south from Central Australia within the beachhead. The forces landing across Blue Beach were to assault, seize, and defend the town of Playa Giron, and the airfield and dock facilities adjacent to it. They were to control the roads leading into the beachhead from Cienfuegos, Yaguaramas, and Covadonga. The Paratroopers were to drop on the forward edges of the beachhead and set up blocking positions along the enemy avenues-of-approach in their zone. These objectives were clean, concise, and attainable.

In fact, this portion of the plan was executed well, with the exception of the Paratroopers dropping out of their planned drop zones.

The problems came after the initial objectives were taken. There was no real plan for a breakout from the beachhead to continue the operation to fulfill the ultimate goal of liberating the country.

The fact that problems in unloading supplies prevented further movement inland aside, there was no coordinated plan to do so in any event. For the planners to deliver the Brigade to the beaches and then not give them further guidance was, at very least, short-sighted. The lack of a plan limited the scope of the operation to the establishment of the beachhead and then "see what happens next".

The principles of offensive action states that "offensive action is necessary to achieve decisive results and maintain freedom-of-action. It permits the commander to exercise initiative and impose his will upon the enemy, to set the pace and determine the course of the battle, to exploit enemy weaknesses and rapidly changing situations, and to meet unexpected developments." [4]

The Brigade was forced into the defensive almost immediately upon landing. They faced a force which was numerically superior on terrain favorable to the defense. They were never quite able to consolidate the beachhead as planned, and the lack of communication handicapped them severely. They were able to use the offense on a limited basis by staging counterattacks to turn the momentum of Castro's forces attacks. In general, their action was almost entirely defensive, as could be expected without a formal plan for action once their initial objectives were achieved.

The principle of mass states that "superior combat power must be concentrated at the critical time and place for a decisive purpose. Superiority is adjudged by relating available force to that of the enemy's and results from the proper combination of the elements of combat power." [5]

On initial examination, it would appear that the Brigade never had a chance to employ the principle of mass in the face of vastly superior numbers of forces. This is not true. Although Castro had many times the number of men and weapons than the Brigade possessed, he was forced to employ them on very narrow fronts. The terrain canalized his approach to the battle area, to the point that, only the lead elements of the column were able to engage the Brigade. The leaders of the Brigade chose sites of engagement where they could bring all of their limited combat power to bear on a lead element and therefore, in effect, maintain superior force in the actual battle area. The Brigade leaders proved to have an excellent ability to read the situation and commit their tanks and supporting fires at the moment that they would inflict the most damage, physical or psychological, on the enemy.

There was, of course, no way that the Brigade positions could be sustained for an indeterminate length of time in the face of such overwhelming odds. Eventually, the sheer number of Castro's forces was able to wear away the Brigade's defenses. The Brigade was still holding its own when they ran out of ammunition. Although the end result was inevitable, victory would have cost Castro dearly had the supplies held out.

The principles of economy-of-force states that, "skillful and prudent use of combat power enables the commander to accomplish the mission with a minimum expenditure of resources." [6] This principle implies that the most efficient expenditure of resources will allow you to have the combat power to commit at a decisive point in the battle.

If there is an area of weakness in the Brigade's performance, it would have to be the violation of this principle, especially during the first 24 hours of action. The Brigade came ashore, established defensive positions, and became engaged with the enemy almost immediately. For the vast majority of the men, this was their first exposure to combat. Although they had been well-trained, they showed very poor fire discipline in both individual weapons or supporting arms. They fired constantly without using aimed fire and consequently, consumed about three days of supply in the initial 24 hours. This should have been expected from green troops, and better controlled by small unit leaders and gun crew supervisors.

In defense of the men of the Brigade, it should be noted, that there was really little need for tight fire discipline, in light of the planned logistical support. They had landed with five days of supply and another ten days of supply were to be offloaded from the Houston. Not only this, but there were to be enough arms and ammunition to support all of the indigenous personnel who were expected to join the ranks of the Brigade. There should have been an ample supply of ammunition, even with the poor fire discipline.

In an effort to adhere to this principle the 5th Battalion was held in reserve and not committed. They were staged aboard the Houston, where they could be employed on either front as required. Unfortunately, any advantage this gave the Brigade was lost when the Houston sank five miles south of Red Beach. The 5th Battalion broke up and never became effective again throughout the invasion.

The principle of maneuver states, "the object of maneuver is to dispose forces in such a manner as to place the enemy at a disadvantage and thus achieve results which would otherwise be more costly in men and material." [7]

Maneuver was never a major factor for either side.

The terrain positively dictated precise avenues-of-approach for Castro's forces and restricted his ability to outflank or maneuver against the Brigade forces. Once he had committed a force down a narrow roadway or railway bed, there were but two directions to proceed, attack or withdraw.

The Brigade was able to employ maneuver units on a limited basis, especially in setting up blocking positions and ambushes. The fact that they kept their front lines fairly fluid meant that Castro's forces advanced at a very slow pace to avoid ambush.

San Roman was also able to move his tanks around the battlefield to work along or to reinforce an area requiring fire support. He was able to keep his lines from collapsing on several occasions by sending tanks and infantry to another part of the front. although they were holding limited space, and were backed against the sea, the Brigade forces actually had the advantage of better maneuverability over the Castro forces.

The principle of unity of command states, "unity of command obtains unity of effort by coordinated action of all forces toward a common goal. While coordination may be achieved by cooperation it is best achieved by vesting a single commander with the requisite authority." [8]

Unity of command in Operation ZAPATA must be viewed from several vantage points. From the standpoint of the actual combat operation, San Roman was in complete control of his forces. He vested some of the combat leadership in Olivia on Red Beach, but he retained control as the commander of the Brigade forces. Although his efforts were outstanding, he was operating in a vacuum. San Roman was, in effect, only the Commander Landing Forces (CLF), and the Commander Amphibious Task Forces (CATF) was, in effect, President Kennedy in Washington, D.C.

Although San Roman did an outstanding job of employing his force tactically, he remained out of contact with the man who was in full control of the operation. President Kennedy and his staff were making decisions without adequate knowledge of the situation (due, in part, to the loss of the communications equipment aboard the Houston). The chain-of-command stretched from the oval office to the Zapata swamps. When messages were sent either way, there was a built in time lag, i.e., the order was given for the supply ships to return to the beaches but by the time it was received, the unloading would have been during daylight.

The decisions being made by President Kennedy were being made in light of, not only the situation on the beaches, but also the political environment. He weighed the success of the mission against world opinion of the methods and amount of U.S. involvement necessary to achieve that success.

The net result was that there were two commanders. One tactical, committed to the goal of achieving his military objectives, and one strategic, weighing the value of that success against its cost in world opinion. The strategic commander, President Kennedy, did not have the same resolve to see the mission through as did the tactical commander, San Roman. Regardless, the key to the success of the invasion lays not in the hands of San Roman fighting on the beaches of Cuba, but with President Kennedy in the political world of Washington, D.C. Unfortunately, on his shoulders also rests the responsibility for the failure of the invasion.

Another facet of the operation that must be brought out under the subject of unity-of-command, is the lack of concurrent and parallel planning. As stated earlier, the Brigade was given the completed plan and expected to execute it. They had no hand in the planning process and certainly, no input in decisions which would normally be made by the commander. This must have left Olivia and San Roman somewhat ignorant of many facets of the operation, no matter how well it was briefed to them.

The next principle, that of security, states that "security is essential to the preservation of combat power. Security is achieved by measures taken to prevent surprise, preserve freedom-of-action, and deny the enemy information of friendly forces." [9]

On the ground, the Brigade performed in an excellent manner placing forward positions to act as security posts. They covered these small units with supporting arms and had them dig-in successive positions to allow for a defense-in-depth. They were generally in contact with the leading edge of Castro's forces throughout the battle and were generally able to hold off large attacking forces with a very small number of men, especially on the Eastern fronts.

Security of the Brigade forces from air attack, conversely, was far from adequate and cost the Brigade dearly. At no time were they able to protect themselves from Castro's air assaults. The enemy aircraft did little damage to the actual fighting forces and delivered very little close air support. Instead, they concentrated on destroying the Brigade's ships and supplies, thus defeating their ability to sustain the operation. They also denied the Brigade's aircraft access to the beachhead, thus negating any capability for them to support the ground forces as planned.

The major effect, other than the destruction of supplies and shipping, was the denial of the Brigade air force the use of the airfield at Giron. Had the airfield at Giron been available, the Brigade planes could have quadrupled their sortie rate, improved coordination with the ground forces, and in general provided the Brigade ground forces with meaningful support; but the airfield was unusable because Castro's planes would most certainly have destroyed the Brigade's small air force on the ground.

Hence the almost 7-hour round trip to Puerto Cabezas almost did away with their usefulness. The principle of surprise states that, "surprise can decisively shift the balance of combat power. By surprise success out of proportion to the effort expended may be obtained. Surprise results from striking an enemy at a time, place, and in a manner for which he is not prepared." [10]

Although Fidel Castro was certainly aware that some type of military action was forthcoming, he did not know when, where, or most importantly, what type of force he would face. The failure of the diversionary landing near Guantanamo had a profound effect on the success of the main invasion. Castro was poised and ready to react. Had the diversionary landing gone as planned, he would have most likely committed at least a portion of his forces to that area, giving the Brigade more time to prepare their positions.

San Roman was able to use the element of surprise in his small unit tactics and use of supporting arms as well. He relied heavily on the ambush and could stop the movement of Castro's column by pouncing on the flanks of the lead elements with small groups. He would commit only a few mortars to a fight and then, at a moment when the tide of battle could be turned, he would unleash massed fire from the other mortars, artillery, and tanks, forcing the Castro forces back just as they sensed victory.

The final principle is that of simplicity. It states, "simplicity contributes to successful operations. Direct, simple plans and clear, concise orders minimize misunderstanding and confusion." [11].

San Roman had no choice but to keep his tactics simple. He was out-manned, out-gunned, and surrounded on three sides with his back to the sea.

He had virtually no communication equipment and relied heavily on messengers. This meant that once he was committed to a course of action, it could be changed only with extreme difficulty. He had to lay out a concept for an operation and then rely on his subordinates to implement it. However, if he had had radio communications, it may have caused him to try more grandiose schemes of maneuver, which may not have worked as well.

This look at how the Brigade operated with respect to the principles of war, should indicate that they generally adhered to good solid tactics which served them well. The fact that the Brigade was able to hold on for 3 days, in the face of such an overwhelming force, is testimony to their training, motivation, tactics and leadership. They proved themselves to be a formidable force, by inflicting over a ten-to-one kill ratio on the Castro forces. The Brigade lost only 114 men during the invasion, while the Castro forces lost approximately 1, 250 men.

The debate will surely continue about the possible outcome of the invasion if it had received air support, along with any number of other "ifs". The invasion is long since past, but should never be forgotten, if for no other reason than its participants. This was the battle of 1,443 men in a desperate struggle to free their homeland. Their failure to do so is our failure as a nation also for sometime in the future, we may be forced to pay a much dearer price to accomplish the same mission.

ENDNOTES

(Chapter VI)

1. Taylor Report, cover letter.

SUMMARY

1. The proximate cause of the failure of the ZAPATA Operation was a shortage of ammunition which developed from the first day of the landing, April 17th, and became increasingly critical until it resulted in the surrender of the landing force about 0400 on April 19th.

2. There were three primary reasons for this shortage of ammunition. The logistical plan for the landing made ample provision for ammunition with the men and in floating reserve. However, upon landing there is evidence that the Cubans wasted their ammunition in excessive firing, displaying the poor ammunition discipline which is common to troops in their first combat.

3. Far more serious was the loss of the freighters Rio Escondido and Houston through air attack at about 0930 on the morning of April 17th. The RIO was a particular loss as it had 10 days of reserve ammunition on board, as well as other important supplies. The Houston should have been able to land most of its supplies before being hit, but the unloading was delayed by trouble with the outboard motors of the ships boats as well as by the apparent lethargy of the 5th Battalion charged with the unloading.

4. The air attack which sunk these ships caused all others in the landing area to put out to sea, as the only available protection in the absence of control of the air, with the order to rendezvous 50 miles off the coast. The freighters Atlantico and Caribe headed south and never stopped until intercepted by the U.S. Navy at points 110 miles and 218 miles, respectively, south of Cuba.

5. The Caribe was so far away that its cargo, principally aviation supplies, was never available for movement to Blue Beach while the fight lasted. The Atlantico, which had considerable ammunition on board, did rejoin the other ships of the expedition at 1816, April 18th, at a point about 50 miles south of the beach and transferred her supplies to the waiting two LCI's and three LCU's for a night run to the beach.

6. By the time the supplies were transferred and the convoy had started north it was too late to hope to resupply the beach under cover of darkness. The convoy commander asked CIA Operational Headquarters, Washington, for destroyer escort and U. S. Navy jet cover without which he believed that he would lose his ships to air attack the next morning. He added that without U.S. Navy support the Cuban crew would mutiny if sent back to the beach.

7. As a result of these messages, CIA Headquarters, feeling that it would be futile to order these ammunition craft to attempt a daylight unloading, called off the mission and the attempt to get ammunition to the beach by sea ended. The President was not requested for specific authority to extend the air cover to protect the ammunition convoy.

8. These causes for the ammunition shortage rested in turn on others which lay deeper in the plans and organization of this operation and the attitude toward it on the part of Government officials. The effectiveness of the Castro Air Force over the beach resulted from a failure to destroy the airplanes on the ground (particularly the T-33's whose importance was not fully appreciated in advance) before or concurrently with the landing. This failure was a consequences of the restraints put on the anti-Castro Air Force in planning and executing its strikes, primarily for the purpose of protecting the covert character of the operation. These restraints included: the decision to use only the B-26 as a combat aircraft because it had been distributed widely to foreign countries; the limitation of pre-landing strikes to those which could be flown from non-U.S. controlled airfields under the guise of coming from Cuban strips, thus eliminating the possibility of using jet fighters or even T-33 trainers; the inability to use any non-Cuban base within short turn-around distance from the target area (about nine hours were required to turn around a B-26 for a second mission over the target from Nicaragua); prohibition of use of American contract pilots for tactical air operations; restriction on munitions, notably napalm; and the cancellation of the strikes planned at dawn on D-Day. The last mentioned was probably the most serious as it eliminated the last favorable opportunity to destroy the Castro Air Force on the ground. The cancellation seems to have resulted partly from the failure to make the air strike plan entirely clear in advance to the President and the Secretary of State, but, more importantly, by misgivings as to the effect of the air strikes on the position of the United States in the current UN debate on Cuba. Finally, there was the failure to carry the issue to the President when the opportunity was presented and explain to him with proper force the probable military consequences of a last minute cancellation.

9. The flight of the Caribe and Atlantico might have been prevented had more attention been paid in advance to the control of the ships to include the placing of some American aboard. The CIA officer responsible for all the ships involved was a [ ] who was aboard the LCI Blagar with no means to control the freighters, or, indeed, to locate them after they disappeared. Only the initiative of the U.S. Navy in the vicinity brought them back to the scene of action. The absence of Americans on board these vessels was an application of the general order to keep Americans out of the combat area. This order had been violated in a few cases, but it was apparently not considered important to do so in the case of the freighters.

10. The lack of full appreciation of the ammunition situation at the end of D+1 in the CIA Operational Headquarters was largely the result of the difficulty of keeping abreast of the situation on the beach, and the location and movement of the ships at sea from the distance of Washington. Also, there was a confidence in the supply of the beach by air which turned out to be unjustified. Had there been a command ship in the sea area with an advance CIA command post on board, a more effective control would have been possible.

11. The Executive Branch of the Government was not organizationally prepared to cope with this kind of paramilitary operation. There was no single authority short of the President capable of coordinating the actions of the CIA, State, Defense, and USIA. Top level direction was given through ad hoc meetings of senior officials without consideration of operational plans in writing and with no arrangement for recording conclusions and decisions reached.

13 June 1961

Memorandum No. 3

CONCLUSIONS OF THE CUBAN STUDY GROUP

1. It is concluded that:

a. A paramilitary operation of the magnitude of ZAPATA could not be prepared and conducted in such a way that all U.S. support of it and connection with it could be plausibly disclaimed. Accordingly, this operation did not fit within the limited scope of NSC 5412/2. By about November 1960, the impossibility of running ZAPATA as a covert operation under CIA should have been recognized and the situation reviewed. The subsequent decision might then have been made to limit the efforts to attain covertness to the degree and nature of U.S. participation, and to assign responsibility for the amphibious peration to the Department of Defense. In this case, the CIA would have assisted in concealing the participation of defense. Failing such a reorientation, the project should have been abandoned.

b. Once the need for the operation was established, its success should have had the primary consideration of all agencies in the Government. Operational restrictions designed to protect its covert character should have been accepted only if they did not impair the chance of success. As it was, the leaders of the operation were obliged to fit their plan inside changing ground rules laid down for non-military considerations, which often had serious operational disadvantages

c. The leaders of the operation did not always present their case with sufficient force and clarity to the senior officials of the Government to allow the latter to appreciate the consequences of some of their decisions. This remark applies in particular to the circumstances surrounding the cancellation of the D-Day strikes.

d. There was a marginal character to the operation which increased with each additional limitation and cast a serious doubt over its ultimate success. The landing force was small in relation to its 36-mile beachhead and to the probable enemy reaction. The air support was short of pilots if the beach was to require cover for a long period. There were no fighters to keep off such Castro airplanes as might escape the initial air strikes. There were few Cuban replacements for the battle losses which were certain to occur on the ground and in the air. It is felt that the approval of so marginal an operation by many officials was influenced by the feeling that the Cuban Brigade was a waning asset which had to be used quickly as time was against us, and that this operation was the best way to realize the most from it. Also, the consequences of demobilizing the Brigade and the return of the trainees to the U.S.A., with its implication that the United States had lost interest in the fight against Castro, played a part in the final decision.

e. The Cuban Expeditionary Force achieved tactical surprise in its landing and, as we have said, fought well and inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy. Although there had been considerable evidence of strong pockets of resistance against Castro throughout Cuba, the short life of the beachhead was not sufficient to trigger an immediate popular reaction, and Castro's repressive measures following the landing made coordinated uprisings of the populace impossible. The effectiveness of the Castro military forces, as well as that of his police measures, was not entirely anticipated or foreseen.

f. In approving the operation, the President and senior officials had been greatly influenced by the understanding that the landing force could pass to guerrilla status, if unable to hold the beachhead. These officials were informed on many occasions that the ZAPATA area was guerrilla territory, and that the entire force, in an emergency, could operate as guerrillas. With this alternative to fall back on, the view was held that a sudden or disastrous defeat was most improbable. As we have indicated before, the guerrilla alternative as it had been described was not in fact available to this force in the situation which developed.

g. The operation suffered from being run from the distance of Washington. At that range and with the limited reporting which was inevitable on the part of field commanders absorbed in combat, it was not possible to have a clear understanding in Washington of events taking place in the field. This was particularly the case on the night of D+1 when an appreciation of the ammunition situation would have resulted in an appeal for U.S. air cover and an all-out effort to supply the beach by all available means.

h. The Joint Chiefs of Staff had the important responsibility of examining into the military feasibility of this operation. By acquiescing in the ZAPATA Plan, they gave the impression to others of approving it although they had expressed their preference for TRINIDAD at the outset, a point which apparently never reached the senior civilian officials. As a body they reviewed the successive changes of the plan piecemeal and only within a limited context, a procedure which was inadequate for a proper examination of all the military ramifications. Individually, they had differing understandings of important features of the operation apparently arising from oral briefings in the absence of written documents.

f. Although the intelligence was not perfect, particularly as to the evaluation of the effectiveness of the T-33's, we do not feel that any failure of intelligence contributed significantly to the defeat.

j. The planning and conduct of the operation would have been improved if there had been an initial statement of governmental policy, assigning the mission and setting the guidelines within which it was to develop. Thereafter, there was a need for a formalized procedure for interdepartmental coordination and follow-up with adequate record-keeping of decisions.

2. In the light of the foregoing considerations, we are of the opinion that the preparations and execution of paramilitary operations such as ZAPATA are a form of Cold War action in which the country must be prepared to engage. If it does so, it must engage in it with a maximum chance of success. Such operations should be planned and executed by a governmental mechanism capable of bringing into play, in addition to military and covert techniques, all other forces, political, economic, ideological, and intelligence, which can contribute to its success. No such mechanism presently exists but should be created to plan, coordinate and further a national Cold War strategy capable of including paramilitary operations.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Hinkle, Warren and William W. Turner. The Fish is Red. New York: Harper and Row, 1981.

Hunt, Howard. Give Us This Day. New York: Arlington House, 1973.

Johnson, Haynes, et al. Bay of Pigs. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1964.

Lazo, Peter. Dagger in the Heart. New York: Funk and Wagnall's, 1968.

Periodicals

New York Times, 16 April 1961.

"Stopped in the Swamp," Time, 21 April 1961. Time, 28 April 1961.

U.S. News and World Report, 1 May 1961.

Government Publications

FMFM 6-1. Marine Division. PCN 139 000400 00. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 22 March 1978.

Public Papers of the President of the United States:

John F. Kennedy. 20 January, 1961 ... 31 December, 1961. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1962.

Taylor, Maxwell D. "Narrative of the Anti-Castro Cuban Operation ZAPATA." Memorandum 1 Taylor Commission

Taylor, Maxwell D. "Immediate Causes of Failure of the Operation ZAPATA." Memorandum 2 Taylor Commission

Taylor Maxwell D. "Conclusion of the Cuban Study Group." Memorandum 3 Taylor Commission Report. Washington, D.C. GPO, 1961. Sanitized version declassified 8 May 1977.

For 35 years, bound by my oath not to reveal classified information, I kept silent about the fatal errors in judgment that led to this disaster. Now this information is no longer classified, and I believe the facts should be reported.

My involvement with the Cuba Project began during the Eisenhower Administration. In late August of 1960, the commandant of the marine corps, General David Shoup, told me that the CIA had requested the services of a marine officer to assist in the landing of a small force of Cuban exiles. I had the required experience in amphibious operations, and also in guerrilla warfare (Philippines, 1943), and so he was assigning me to the job. I reported to the CIA on September 1.

At the CIA, I was assigned duty as Chief of the Paramilitary Staff of the Cuba Project, responsible directly to the Chief of the Cuba Project, Mr. Jacob Esterline.

I soon learned that the Cuba Project had been initiated by President Eisenhower in January 1960, when it had become clear that Castro was a Communist bent not only on establishing a Communist state in Cuba--but also on subverting other Latin Arnerican countries. President Eisenhower decided that Castro should be overthrown and directed the CIA to prepare plans to that end.

The concept of the operation, developed by the CIA before involved training paramilitary teams of Cuban exiles to be introduced secretly back into their country for purposes of intelligence, sabotage, propaganda, and political and guerrilla activity. Each team would have a radio capable of communicating with the United States. It was planned also to form a small infantry force of 200 to 300 men that could be sent in to augment guerrilla activity fostered by the teams.

The project was flawed from the outset owing to diplomatic/political considerations. The safest and most efficient venues for both training camps and bases of operations would have been in the United States or Puerto Rico. However, the CIA was anxious not to have the operation appear to be run by the United States, and so training camps and airfields were established in Guatemala and Nicaragua, at extremely unsuitable locations. The training camp in Guatemala was located on the side of a remote volcano with very little level ground. Conditions there were extremely crowded and became health-threatening as additional recruits arrived. And from the airfield in Nicaragua chosen for tactical air operations, Cuba was just barely within range of the B-26 bombers procured by the CIA for the exile air force.

If the Cuban forces had been trained here, they could have been ready for action months earlier than they were, an important consideration. While the preparations continued, the Soviet Union was pouring great quantities of arms and other materiel into Cuba, enabling Castro to organize and equip large militia forces and consolidate his security system for control of the Cuban people. In view of these rapidly growing capabilities, the Deputy Director for Plans at the CIA, Mr. Richard Bissell, decided that the planned infantry force of 200 to 300 would not be large enough; more like 1,500 men would be needed to establish a serious presence in Cuba. I expressed reservations about a force this large in view of the increased difficulties in recruiting, training, and providing support. However, President Eisenhower directed that preparations be made for a larger force.

In late 1960 and early 1961, teams of paramilitary agents were landed in many places on the Cuban coast. Most of the teams established radio communication with the CIA, but some were captured immediately and never heard from again. The surviving teams reported that there were large numbers of men in all provinces of Cuba who were willing to fight against Castro if they were armed. The CIA tried to supply arms and ammunition to some of the teams by nocturnal parachute drops, but without success. The Cuban pilots were not experienced enough for these difficult missions, and our request for permission to use American contract pilots was denied, again so that the U.S. would not appear to be too deeply involved. The only sizable delivery of arms through the efforts of the agent teams was made by sea to a 400-man guerrilla unit operating in the Escambray mountains of central Cuba. About 1,000 guerrillas operated in this area in separate groups for many months.

Soon after President Kennedy's inauguration, Mr. Bissell briefed him about the Cuba Project. The new President was interested and scheduled a series of meetings at the White House involving the Secretary of State, Mr. Dean Rusk; the Secretary of Defense, Mr. Robert McNamara; the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Lyman Lemnitzer; and Mr. Bissell. Each of these officials brought assistants to these meetings, and I usually accompanied Mr. Bissell.

President Kennedy emphasized that operations would have to be conducted in such a way that U.S. involvement could be "plausibly deniable." This was the fundamental mistake underlying the other fatal errors that led to the failure of the operation. It should have been apparent to all concerned that the recruiting of large numbers of Cubans in Miami, followed by the landing of a well-armed Cuban exile force in Cuba with air support, would be attributed to the United States. If that was held to be unacceptable, the operation should have been canceled; if it was not canceled, it should have received the support required for success. As it was, the Administration neither escaped blame nor succeeded in liberating Cuba.

THE crucial point at issue was air support. Throughout my participation in the Cuba Project, I frequently emphasized, both orally and in formal correspondence, the absolute necessity for complete destruction of the opposing air force at the outset of the operation. In January 1961, in a memorandum to higher CIA authority, I recommended that the landing operation be canceled if sufficient air operations were not to be allowed. In another memorandum in early 1961, I stated flatly that if Castro's aircraft were not all destroyed before the troop transports arrived at the landing beaches, a military disaster would occur. An unarmed freighter cannot approach a hostile shore, drop anchor, and unload troops, supplies, and equipment while under fighter and bomber attack. Mr. Rusk did not seem to grasp this point. At the White House meetings, it became clear that he was unalterably opposed to any air operations whatsoever. To my surprise and chagrin, neither Mr. McNamara nor Gen. Lemnitzer spoke up in these meetings in defense of the necessity of eliminating Castro's air force completely by preliminary air strikes. And so, when the recommendations of the State Department conflicted with those of the CIA, the President usually adopted Mr. Rusk's position.

Absolute control of the air was essential not only for the landing but also for further operations in Cuba. Our Cuban Brigade was small and could not be expected to undertake operations beyond its initial lodgement unless the strength of the opposing militia was seriously reduced by combat losses-or by defection to our side. Many of the militia were of dubious loyalty to Castro and might well have turned against him had this operation been properly launched.

As the spring of 1961 approached, the Brigade, now up to planned strength, and its supporting tactical air force of 16 x B-26s were nearing readiness for combat.

Commercial freighters were chartered for the operation, 4 for the assault phase and 3 for follow-on delivery of supplies.

Meanwhile, the time element was becoming critical. The Soviet Union continued delivering arms and equipment to Cuba and was training jet pilots for Castro in Eastern Europe. Soon Castro would have a modern jet air force, and a paramilitary effort to overthrow him would have no chance of success.

After long study, the Paramilitary Staff had concluded that by far the best place, and probably the only place, where a successful landing (i.e., one likely to lead to the overthrow of Castro) could be made was at Trinidad near the middle of the southern coast of Cuba. Good landing beaches were available very near the Escambray mountains, where, as noted above, anti-Castro guerrillas were already operating. The Brigade could quickly establish itself in these mountains and incorporate the guerrillas already there.

Once again, the President agreed with Mr. Rusk. He rejected the TRINIDAD plan and directed that a plan be developed that would be less noisy and less like an invasion. He also adopted the restriction advanced by Mr. Rusk that an airfield capable of supporting B-26 operations would have to be captured on the first day so that all air operations could be attributed to that field.

This was the first fatal error made by President Kennedy: rejecting a plan that offered a good chance of success and placing "plausible deniability" ahead of military viability.

Pursuant to Mr. Bissell's oral instructions to me, the Paramilitary Staff studied the entire coast of Cuba in an effort to find a landing area that would satisfy the President's requirements. We found that the only place on the Cuban coast which did so and could be held even for a minimal time was at the Bahia de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs).

I reported this orally to Mr. Bissell and briefly described the area. Behind the beach lay a long narrow strip of flat, scrub-covered land from three to six miles in depth and forty miles wide. This land was cut off from the interior by a great swamp, impassable except for three narrow causeways approaching the beach from the north and a coastal road from the east, all of which could probably be blocked for a time by the Brigade (and on the other side of the swamp by Castro's militia).

I pointed out to Mr. Bissell that the Brigade could hold on there for only a limited time and would have no hope of breaking out through the swamp and reaching guerrilla country in the Escambray mountains eighty miles away.

Our plan for the Bay of Pigs landing provided for an attack on three Cuban military airfields by 16 x B-26 bombers on April 15, the landing itself during darkness in the early morning of April 17, and a second 16-bomber attack against the military airfields at first light on April 17. The President approved the plan and directed that all preparations continue. However, he also stated that he would not finally decide whether to execute the operation until 24 hours before it was scheduled to begin.

Not long after this, the Chief of the Cuba Project, Mr. Esterline, and I had a serious talk about the outlook for the Bay of Pigs operation and found ourselves in complete agreement that it was certain to fail. We went to Mr. Bissell at his home on a Sunday to attempt to dissuade him from continuing with the operation. We even went so far as to say that we did not want to be parties to the disaster we believed lay ahead.

Mr. Bissell tried to reassure us and implored us not to let him down. He said he thought he could persuade the President to permit an increase in our air capability to ensure destruction of Castro's air force. But he gave no assurance about other weaknesses of the plan.

I thought that after hearing unequivocal predictions of complete disaster from his two principal staff officers who were most familiar with the military aspects of the plan, Mr. Bissell would re-examine the whole operation. It had become obvious that the military requirements for a successful operation and the President's insistence on plausible deniability were in irreconcilable conflict. However, Mr. Bissell could not bring himself to give up on the plan. This was another fatal error.

On April 14, devastating instructions [for] me from the White House. The President informed Mr. Bissell that he wanted the number of participating aircraft reduced to the minimum. Mr. Bissell, without consulting Mr. Esterline or me, volunteered to cut the number by half, from 16 to 8 -- although 16 was considered the minimal number for destroying 18 opposing aircraft scattered on three different fields. The President accepted Mr. Bissell's offer. Military failure was now virtually assured.

After my plea, Mr. Bissell and General C. P. Cabell, the Deputy Director of the CIA, spoke to Mr. Rusk. He telephoned the President, who had left Washington, and told him that the CIA wanted to reinstate the air strike that he believed the decision should be changed. McGeorge Bundy, the National Security Advisor, seconded Rusk's advice. The cancellation remained in effect.

This final incredible mistake doomed Assault Brigade 2506. The President himself had initially approved the original operation plan, which provided for forty B-26 sorties in preliminary air strikes. After his last-minute cuts, only eight sorties were flown, a reduction of 80 per cent.

While Washington floundered, the troops of Assault Brigade 2506 landed successfully in darkness. But when morning came, Castro's fighters and bombers attacked, and they continued to attack all day. Unloading supplies from the ships was impossible. Two ships were sunk, and the remaining two had to flee at top speed.

The Brigade fought hard and well for three days and was not overrun or driven from its position. With their supply ships either sunk or chased away, the troops eventually ran out of ammunition and had to surrender.

During three days of combat, from 3,000 to 4,000 casualties were inflicted upon Castro's hard-core militia, mostly by B-26 attacks on troop convoys. The hard-core militia, the only troops trusted by Castro, were limited in number and could not long have endured casualties of such magnitude.

Before the surrender, Admiral Arleigh "31-knots" Burke, the Chief of Naval Operations, requested permission from the President to have carrier aircraft eliminate the rest of Castro's air force and fly cover and support for the Brigade, and to use Navy landing craft to evacuate the troops from the beach. The President refused.

It was noteworthy that when the Brigade landed, the defending militia unit fought little and surrendered quickly. About 150 men were captured, and nearly all volunteered to join the Brigade and fight against Castro. Civilians in the landing area also volunteered to help the Brigade.

THESE facts confirmed that our concept of the operation had merit, and that, if the landing had been made at Trinidad as recommended, and with adequate air support, the objective of overthrowing the Communist government might well have been accomplished.

But, as things turned out, Assault Brigade 2506 was left stranded on the beach, shamefully misled and betrayed by the Government of the United States. The last message from Jose "Pepe" San , the Brigade Commander, was, "How can you people do this to us?"

Less than four months into the Kennedy Administration, the Bay of Pigs fiasco caused the U.S. Government to be perceived as weak, irresolute, and inept. Undoubtedly, Chairman Khrushchev was reassured that he had little to fear from the United States as he pressed on with his plans to turn Cuba into a Soviet armed camp.

If those plans had been aborted at the outset, there would have been no missile crisis bringing us to the brink of nuclear war, and Cuba would be a free and prosperous country today.

Instead, the landing ended in disaster when B-26 air strikes reduced by Kennedy failed to knock out Castro's air force. Castro forces captured 1,189 exile invaders, 114 others died and 150 were unable to land or never shipped out. The captured invaders were ransomed by the Kennedy administration for $53 million in food and medicine. They returned to Miami on Dec. 23, 1962.

The paramilitary staff, which Hawkins headed, was responsible for organizing, training and equipping the Cuban exile brigade and preparing the plans for its landing in Cuba. Although staff personnel changed at times, said Hawkins, they averaged 6 U.S military and 18 CIA officers. Hawkins reported directly to Jake Esterline, the CIA's project chief for the invasion.

The interview with The Herald was the first Hawkins has given to a daily newspaper journalist since the Bay of Pigs, although he wrote a first-person article in the year-end edition of The National Review, a conservative journal published by William Buckley.

In the wide-ranging December interview at his home in Fredericksburg, Va., Hawkins also:

Questioned Kennedy's commitment to the Cuba project initiated under President Eisenhower, based in part on Hawkins' own observations at Oval Office meetings.

Speculated that the lack of commitment may have been partially due to parallel assassination plots against Castro, utilizing the Mafia, that had been undertaken by the CIA in 1960 separately from the Bay of Pigs and accelerated by the Kennedy administration. Bay of Pigs planners -- with the exception of the late Richard Bissell, the CIA's director of clandestine services and the man in charge of the invasion -- were unaware of the plots until they became public knowledge years later.

Said that he and project director Esterline learned only recently from declassified documents that Bissell had agreed with Kennedy to cut the number of CIA-supplied B-26 planes from 16 -- considered the minimum necessary to knock out Castro's air force on the ground -- to 8, but he did not tell them of the decision until days later, on the eve of the first air attack before the landing.

Placed the primary fault for the effort's failure "at Bissell's door. . . . It was really Bissell's operation."

Said that the State Department and Secretary of State Dean Rusk never received their share of the blame for failure of the operation by its continued obstruction.

Noted that he wrote a still-classified May 1961 "after-action'' report on the Bay of Pigs failure in which he recommended against any further covert efforts against Castro because the Cuban leader was "now already too strong to be overthrown by paramilitary operations.''

Hawkins said he had remained silent all these years in part because "I was obligated by my oath of secrecy to the Defense Department and the CIA,'' and also out of concern about Castro retaliation against him.

"I didn't know what Castro's attitude might be, and I was wary of that,'' he said.

In addition, said Hawkins, "I was really disgusted. I thought the United States had acted in an almost contemptible way about this whole thing. . . . I just sort of washed my hands of it and put it behind me, went on with my life and tried not to think about it. It was one of the most disappointing things that I ever had to do with in my life, professionally.''

Time to speak out

He said he decided to speak out when the CIA's Esterline "got in touch with me [early last year] and said he thought it was time that we told the truth about some of these things.''

Hawkins, who retains his native Texas drawl at age 80, joined the marines in 1939 after graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy. He was assigned to the Cuba project on Sept. 1, 1960, as Bissell began to expand it from a guerrilla infiltration into a larger-scale operation involving an amphibious landing, with which Hawkins had considerable experience.

As a marine officer in World War II, he was captured by the Japanese at Corregidor in the Philippines and spent 11 months as a prisoner-of-war. He escaped with several other Americans and two Filipino convicts who served as guides, and joined a guerrilla unit for seven months before getting to Australia via submarine in November 1943.

He later played significant roles in preparing for the U.S. invasion of Okinawa in 1945 and the Inchon landing during the Korean War, then served for three years as an instructor on amphibious landings in marine corps schools.

Hawkins was an instructor at the marine corps schools in Quantico, Va., when he was told "that the CIA was planning to land some exile troops in Cuba and they wanted a marine officer with background in amphibious warfare to help them out with this project.''

There were, he said, several "critical junctures'' in the operation when a "change of course by the decision-making authority at the CIA was called for if the Bay of Pigs disaster was to be avoided.''

Number of planes reduced

Among them, he cites the change in the landing site and the reduction in the number of B-26 aircraft participating in the initial attack in advance of the landing -- intended to knock out Castro's planes on the ground -- either of which should have aborted the operation.

Hawkins has praise, however, for the brigade members, who he says "fought hard and well and inflicted terrible casualties on their opponents. They were not defeated. They simply ran out of ammunition and had no choice but to surrender. And that was not their fault.''

While Hawkins considers the air support critical to any chance of success at the Bay of Pigs, he believes failure became virtually inevitable a month earlier when Kennedy, acting on the advice of Secretary of State Rusk, rejected the TRINIDAD landing as too "noisy,'' one that would attract too much attention to the United States.

The initial plan, beginning in 1960, had been to introduce trained paramilitary teams, of a few men with special capabilities, into every Cuban province, which was done. Their purpose was to develop armed resistance wherever they could and engage in sabotage and propaganda operations.

Simultaneously, it was planned to organize a small infantry force of 200 to 300 men to be infiltrated in and join 800 to 1,000 guerrillas already operating in the Escambray Mountains of Central Cuba above Trinidad.

But, said Hawkins, as the Soviets increased their shipments of arms and military equipment and Castro began to create a large militia force, Bissell decided in the fall of 1960 "that he should have a larger force to get in there, and he hit on the figure of 1,500.''

It was not until early spring of 1961 that the brigade got up to 1,500 men, according to Hawkins, with Trinidad still the targeted landing site.

Changes ordered

Word came March 11 that the president wanted a new, less "noisy'' landing site and a night instead of a dawn landing, as originally planned.

"We were very surprised when we got word that the president had vetoed the TRINIDAD plan, which we thought was the best and probably only place in Cuba where we had a chance to pull this thing off,'' Hawkins said. "It was a good plan, I thought, and we had no idea that it was going to be rejected because it had been discussed right on up to that time.''

Bissell, he said, advised him as they were standing in the corridor that the president had given four days to come up with a "quieter operation. He said this one is too noisy, too much like an invasion. Of course, it was an invasion.''

Working-around-the-clock, Hawkins and the paramilitary staff pored over maps and intelligence reports, determining that the Bay of Pigs was the only alternate place an airfield could be seized that would support B-26s, a requirement.

Hawkins said he reported this verbally to Bissell, at the same time telling him what was wrong with the site, including its isolation and relative inaccessibility.

"Bissell said right then and there on the spot, without consulting anybody else, since this is the only place that satisfies the president's requirements, then we'll go ahead with it on that basis. You draw up a plan immediately, and we'll present it to the president.''

New plan approved

A sketch of the new plan was drafted, presented to Kennedy and approved March 15, a month before the landing took place.

"After we got to drawing the detailed plan,'' Hawkins said, ``I had time to do some careful thinking about the thing. Before, I had just been doing what I was told -- get a plan. So we got it. But then I decided this plan has no chance. It's going to fail.''

Hawkins said he discussed his concerns with Esterline, the CIA's project director for the invasion, who said, "That's exactly what I think. It can't work. It's not going to work.''

He said they met with Bissell at his home in Georgetown the following Sunday and expressed their reservations.

Hawkins said the main purpose of the meeting was to insist that "if you want to go ahead with this operation at the Bay of Pigs, we want out. We just don't want to be part of a disaster, and that's just what it's going to be."

"We told him in no uncertain terms. . . . He didn't give any indication at all that he was willing to give up the landing at the Bay of Pigs. He says, 'Look, you just can't desert me at this point. I won't be able to carry on without you.' Well, we di dn't like it, but we agreed . . . we won't quit -- not now, anyway. We left there thinking that we were headed for trouble, headed for disaster.

"But,'' said Hawkins, "it's a difficult thing for a marine officer or a CIA officer to ask to be relieved of his duty. It's a serious thing to do and you don't like to do it, so we stuck with him, and the results you know.''

Site change 'critical'

"The change of site was the critical thing that made it unlikely of causing the overthrow of Castro,'' Hawkins believes. "I always thought that it was going to take some time. If we got the brigade up into the Escambray [Mountains] and they could coordinate the other guerrillas up there and maybe get new forces, new people, out of Trinidad into the Escambray and then continue the air operations with Castro having no air, they could stay up there a long time.''

Hawkins' account differs somewhat from Bissell's, as recounted in his memoirs, Reflections of a Cold Warrior, published posthumously last year.

Bissell wrote that he remembered "meeting with Hawkins at the headquarters after a long weekend and his saying, `Well, we have developed an alternative plan to meet the president's desire for a quieter landing and we think that you will like it and approve of it. We do, and I think in some ways it's better than the original.''

Hawkins says "that's a lie, absolutely false. Jake and I told him that the plan could not succeed, landing at the Bay of Pigs could not possibly succeed and was going to end in disaster. That's the word I used.''

Esterline recalls the meeting the same way.

Bissell did not mention the Sunday afternoon meeting at his home with Hawkins and Esterline, which most Bay of Pigs historians now consider a key event.

Bissell acknowledged in his memoirs, however, that "there is no doubt that failure to question the viability of the move [from Trinidad] had serious repercussions.''

"No chance to escape"

"They had no chance to escape out of the Bay of Pigs,'' Hawkins said. "We told Bissell that. I told him that. They can't get out of there. Maybe a handful or a few individuals could get out of there and sneak away, but the bulk of them were trapped there. They can't get out.''

As for Hawkins, the change in landing sites was just one more indication of Kennedy's lack of commitment to the entire project.

"I felt that he was not strongly committed to the operation at all. When he first was briefed about it and I began to observe him when I went to these meetings, he didn't seem enthusiastic about it, but he seemed interested.''

Hawkins describes the weekly White House meetings with Kennedy on the Bay of Pigs as "essentially discussions'' that "did not resolve questions of policy. . . . As policy questions arise, they should be resolved decisively and quickly. This was not done for the Cuba Project.''

Much later, Hawkins said, when he learned "about the efforts that [Kennedy] and his brother [Attorney General Robert Kennedy] were making to assassinate Castro . . . it has occurred to me that Kennedy thought he was going to solve the problem by this method, disposing of Castro through the Mafia. And that would make the Cuban operation unnecessary, he thought."

"That's just a surmise on my part. That could have influenced him to delay. In fact, I have heard since, I don't know how reliable the information is, that the assassination was supposed to come off not long before the invasion.''

State Department's role

He also believes that Kennedy was unduly influenced by Rusk and the State Department.

"The first time I ever saw him [Rusk] at one of the presidential meetings, he made it abundantly clear that he was opposed to the operation completely. And he didn't want any air operations whatsoever.''

"I always felt that the Department of State came away from this thing without being blamed as much as they should have been blamed for what happened,'' Hawkins says now.

All of that said, Hawkins still places primary responsibility for failure with Bissell.

"I think that the primary fault must be placed at Bissell's door. It really was Bissell's operation. Mr. [CIA Director Allen] Dulles was just sort of on the fringes of this thing. He gave Bissell free hand to do what he wanted throughout this operation.''

The landing went ahead, and the invasion failed. Hawkins went back to the marine corps, but not before drafting an "after-action'' report on the operation that remains classified.

"It was very comprehensive, included everything that I knew about that was done, and drew some conclusions about it,'' Hawkins remembers.

"I recommended among many other things that no further effort should be made to overthrow Castro in this manner, by these covert means, because he is now already too strong to be overthrown by paramilitary operations.''

The Miami Herald

Wednesday, June 10, 1998

'61 report: Castro ouster would require U.S. military: Marine officer wrote after Bay of Pigs

By DON BOHNING

Herald Staff Writer

Three weeks after the U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, the chief of the operation's paramilitary staff concluded that direct U.S. military action was the only way Fidel Castro would be ousted, according to newly declassified Central Intelligence Agency documents.

"A Communist-style police state is now firmly entrenched in Cuba, which will not be overthrown by means short of overt application of elements of United States military power,'' marine Col. Jack Hawkins wrote in a secret after-action report.

"Further efforts to develop armed internal resistance, or to organize Cuban exile forces, should not be made except in connection with a planned overt intervention by United States forces,'' Hawkins warned in his 48-page post-mortem.

The Kennedy administration took no heed, however, and within less than a year was engaged in Operation Mongoose, another covert action program relying heavily on Cuban exiles, designed to both gather intelligence and destabilize the Castro government.

Hawkins' report, dated May 5, 1961, and titled "Record of Paramilitary Action Against the Castro Government", was among 3,200 pages of material related to the Bay of Pigs invasion that was declassified last week by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The Hawkins report was the most significant of the documents declassified. They did not include a four-volume history of the aborted invasion by the late Jack Pfeiffer, a CIA historian, which remains secret.

A copy of the Hawkins report was made available to The Herald by the National Security Archive, an independent research organization and library located on the campus of George Washington University in Washington.

The declassified documents include photographs, Assault Brigade 2506 training files and National Security Council briefing papers.

In his conclusions, Hawkins cited the incompatibility between political considerations and military objectives and declared that "civilian officials of the government should not attempt to prescribe the tactics of military or paramilitary operations.''

Political-military conflict

In such a Cold War paramilitary operation as the Bay of Pigs, Hawkins said, there was "a basic conflict" between military effectiveness and political considerations.

And, he added, unless immediate survival is at issue, "political considerations tend to dominate, with the result that military measures are progressively restricted and subordinated."

"Experiences of the past few years,'' he said, "indicate that political restrictions on military measures may result in destroying the effectiveness of the latter, and the end result is political embarrassment coupled with military failure and loss of prestige in the world.''

Hawkins, 81, retired and living in Virginia, said in a telephone interview Tuesday that he believes that what he wrote 37 years ago remains valid.

"I think I was exactly right but I did not know, of course, back in those days that the Kennedy administration resumed covert operations under the name Mongoose,''

Hawkins said. "If I had known it, I would have been quite disappointed.''

"What happened with the Bay of Pigs, conflict between political and military considerations, was carried on in Vietnam by the same key people, namely [Secretary of State Dean] Rusk and [Secretary of Defense Robert S.] McNamara, with the same results,'' Hawkins said. "There were lessons learned by them, at least from the Bay of Pigs.''

Hawkins also concluded in his report that "civilian officials of the government should not attempt to prescribe the tactics of military or paramilitary operations.''

Policy restrictions

He cited seven ``significant'' policy restrictions placed on the Bay of Pigs operation -- largely at the urging of the State Department in the ``interest of non-attributability'' -- which he said hampered its effectiveness.

The restrictions prohibited:

* Use of bases in the United States for training paramilitary forces.

* Use of an air base in the United States for supply flights in support of guerrilla forces and of the strike force when landed.

* Use of American contract pilots for aerial supply of guerrilla forces.

* Use of a base in the United States for tactical air operations in support of the amphibious landing.

* Use of American contract pilots for tactical air operations.

* Use of more effective tactical aircraft than the B-26 bomber.

* The full application of the tactical air power available.

"Cancellations at the last moment, while the troops were already off the beaches preparing to land, of the air attacks . . . against Castro's remaining tactical aircraft, doomed the operation to failure,'' Hawkins wrote.

"Paramilitary operations cannot be effectively conducted on a ration-card basis,'' Hawkins said. "Therefore, if political considerations are such as to prohibit the application of all military measures required to achieve the objective, then military operations should not be undertaken.''

Neither, said Hawkins, can "paramilitary operations of any appreciable size be conducted on a completely covert basis, and the requirement for non-attributability introduces tremendous complications in the accomplishment of what would otherwise be simple tasks.''

Basically, there were three kinds of U.S. clandestine and covert operations:

- CIA operations, which were essentially para-military in nature, and usually used some kind of a front (about which usually not really much is known until today);

- covert USAF operations, flown by aircraft with or without U.S.-markings (meanwhile most of such operations were well covered in different publications)

- private enterprises, most of which worked on a smuggling for profit efforts (the history of most such operations remains to be published).

Their relatively small volume characterized the usual para-military operations organized by the CIA, with a small number of aircraft involved (except in SEA) mainly used for air-to-ground tasks. Types used foremost during the 1950s and 1960s were Douglas B-26 Invader and North American P-51 Mustang, which were available in abundance after the end of the WWII, and large number of which were now in storage, from where they could be removed without much attention from the public. If any kind of aerial opposition was expected, everything possible - sometimes short of engaging official U.S. military forces - was tried in order to neutralize it early during the operation by a concentrated counter-air operation.

Certainly, this was not a reason for over-enthusiasm, but then even more problems developed. The original plan for the Operation PLUTO saw the support of the Assault Brigade 2506 not only by B-26s flown by counter-revolutionary pilots, but also by the U.S. aircraft and ships of at least one USN carrier battle group. In January 1961, however, the new U.S. administration of the President Kennedy took over in Washington. Despite his sympathies for the idea, on 3 March 1961, Kennedy issued an order which would not permit any direct involvement of U.S. military, however. Even more so, he also forbade the planned large opening attack by counter-revolutionary B-26s against the Cuban air bases. These decisions were initially kept secret from the personnel of the Assault Brigade 2506, and so also counter-revolutionary pilots. When they learned about them - shortly before the start of the invasion - quite a few were disappointed and frustrated.

The Puma Strike

On Saturday, 15 April 1961, around 02:30hrs, only 8 out of at least 16 operational counter-revolutionary B-26Bs took off towards their assigned targets. The plan - called the Operation PUMA - now saw limited attacks against the FAR air bases, which would then be explained as caused by a defecting crew of the FAR. This story was to be supported by another counter-revolutionary B-26 - of course, in full FAR-markings - landing in Miami, where its crew would explain that they defected after fleeing from Cuba.

The 8 bombers were organized into three sections:

- Puma Flight, with Jose Crespo and navigator Lorenzo Pérez-Lorenzo as "Puma 1"; Daniel Fernández-Mon and navigator Gaston Pérez as "Puma 2"; and Osvaldo Piedra with navigator José Fernández as "Puma 3". Their target was the airfield Campo/Ciudad Libertad (the counter-revolutionary crews called it "Camp Libertad"; the Cubans "Ciudad Libertad).

- Gorilla Flight, consisting of "Gorilla 1" (B-26B "FAR 931"), flown by Capt. Gustavo Ponzoa with navigator Capt. Rafael Garcial Pujol, and "Gorilla 2" ("FAR 933"), flown by Capt. Gonzalo Herrera, with navigator Angel Lopez. Their target was the Antonio Maceo International Airport, Santiago de Cuba.

- Linda Flight including "Linda 1" ("FAR 929") flown by Luis Cosme, with navigator Nildo Batista; "Linda 2" with René Garcia, with navigator Luis Ardois; and "Linda 3", with Alfredo Caballero, with navigator Alfredo Maza.

Their target was San Antonio de los Banos air base.

- "AIR WARS AND AIRCRAFT; A Detailed Record of Air Combat, 1945 to the Present", by Victor Flintham, Arms and Armour Press, 1989 (ISBN: 0-85368-779-X)

- "Profile Publications" series, Profile Publications Ltd., Leatherhead, Surrey, from the late 1960s and early 1970s.

- Ian Allan "At War", "Postwar Military Aircraft", and "Modern Combat Aircraft" series

- THE ARMS BAZAAR, by Anthony Sampson, Hodder and Stoughton, 1977 (ISBN: 3-498-06118-6)

- "LATIN-AMERICAN MILITARY AVIATION, by J.M. Andrade, Midland Counties Publications, 1982

- NORTH AMERICAN F-51 MUSTANG IN LATIN AMERICAN AIR FORCE SERVICE, by J. Dienst & D. Hagerdon, Aerofax, 1985

- ENCYCLOPEAEDIA OF THE WORLD'S AIR FORCES, by Michael J.H. Taylor, Multimedia Books Ltd., 1988 (ISBN: 1-85260-135-3)

- THE PENGUIN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN WARFARE, by Kenneth Macksey & William Woodhouse, Penguin Group, 1991 (ISBN: 0-670-82698-7)

- WORLD'S AIR FORCES, by John Pacco, JP Publications, 1992 (ISBN: 90-801136-1-1)

- FOREIGN INVADERS; The Douglas Invader in Foreign Military and U.S. Clandestine Service, by D. Hagedorn & L. Hellström, Midland Publishing Ltd., 1994 (ISBN: 1-85780-013-3)

- AEROSPACE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WORLD AIR FORCES, edited by David Willis, Aerospace Publishing, 1999 (ISBN: 1-86184-045-4)

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Further Recommended Reading

- "Bay of Pigs; the Men and Aircraft of the Cuban Revolutionary Air Force" by Doug MacPhail and Chuck Acree, posted at the website of the Latin American Aviation Heritage Society

- "Secret Warriors; the CIA's Liberation Air Force in 1954 in Guatemala" by Mario E. Overall, another excellent article posted at the website of the Latin American Aviation Heritage Society, offering an exclusively detailed insight into the organization of the typical CIA para-military operations of the time

Birmingham Weekly

Sept.13, 2007

The Good Fight: The True Story of the Alabama Air Guard and the Bay of Pigs

By: Jesse Chambers

Joe Shannon's life course was set forever one day in 1927, when he was just 6 years old. His dad took him to Roberts Field in Birmingham to see Charles Lindbergh make a stop on the triumphant national barnstorming tour that followed his solo flight across the Atlantic in The Spirit of St. Louis.

"I saw my first airplane up close, and I made up my mind that I wanted to be a pilot," Shannon tells me. "That's all I ever wanted to do."

Shannon, now 86, has flown everything - J-3 Piper Cubs, P-51 Mustang fighters, B-25 bombers, C-47 transports, and more. He flew in World War II and the Korean War. He was a corporate pilot after retiring from the military.

Pictures hanging in the study in Shannon's Birmingham apartment show him with such dignitaries as World War I ace Eddie Rickenbacker; Air Force general Jimmy Doolittle, who led the first bombing raids on Japan in 1942; and even Lindbergh, who Shannon was chosen to escort when he made an appearance in Birmingham in the 1970s. Shannon looks comfortable with these people. He belongs in that class.

Any of these connections to history would make Shannon a good interview, but none of them explains why I was so anxious to spend time with him, or why I found his story so moving.

Shannon is the last survivor of a group of Alabama Air National Guard pilots who flew B-26 bombers in combat at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba in April 1961, during the U.S. government's failed attempt to use Cuban exiles to invade the island and stir up a popular revolt against Fidel Castro.

One of Shannon's best friends died during the mission, along with three other members of the Alabama Air Guard. Although Shannon survived, he was forced to endure nearly two decades of silence before being allowed to tell anyone - even the families of his dead comrades - what really happened.

I'm not the first reporter to talk to Shannon, but he's my first chance to sweeten the dry facts of history with blood and flesh, to look into the eyes and hear the voice of a participant in a major historical event.

Even better, this event has a Birmingham connection - back to the Alabama Air Guard base on the north side of Municipal Airport, just blocks from the quiet working-class enclave of East Lake where I grew up.

The call to adventure

It was December 1960 when Shannon, a Lieutenant Colonel and commander of the Alabama Guard's 106^th Bombardment Squadron, and Major Riley Shamburger, his friend and operations officer, were summoned to the office of their base commander.

They found Brigadier Gen. Reid Doster waiting there with two representatives from the Central Intelligence Agency. "We were not even given their names," Shannon says. The meeting was his introduction to the strange customs and shifting identities of the world of covert operations.

Doster had been asked by the CIA to recruit pilots, crewmen and mechanics willing to train and provide logistical support for a group of Cuban exiles that would fly B-26 bombers in support of an invasion. The landing would be carried out by Cuban exile ground troops, also trained and equipped by the CIA

The Alabama Air Guard unit was picked for the mission because they had flown B-26s until 1958, more recently than other U.S. guard units. Doster wanted Shannon and Shamburger, who were among his highest-ranking officers and best-qualified people, to participate.

The goal of removing Castro from power was appealing to Shannon. "I was very anti-Castro," Shannon says. "I grew up despising dictators. I didn't like the fact that he had established a Communist dictatorship right at our back door."

According to Shannon, the other guys in the Guard, including Shamburger, felt the same. "I felt like it was an opportunity, an adventure for a worthwhile cause," Shannon says.

Shannon, then 39, had his concerns, however, regarding his wife, Helen, and their children, Lauren, Joe, Jr., and Malcolm. "It was hard to agree to go on an operation like this without being able to tell my family where I was going and what I was doing," he recalls. "I didn't make a spontaneous decision. I thought about it overnight."

I asked him if Shamburger, who was 36, also needed time to think. "I don't remember," Shannon says. "I don't think he committed right on the spot. But we went together. We felt like we were in this thing together."

The two men accepted, but still needed something to tell their families. "I just told them I was going to a classified training," Shannon says. Shamburger, according to one account, told his family that he was going to train some foreign pilots on the B-26.

"You said you were angry at the situation. Is there anything else you can put into words?" I asked.

"Well, before we took off, we felt like it was a futile trip," Shannon says. "We knew that it wouldn't have any effect on the outcome of the war."

"Yes, sir," I say, a phrase I used a lot while talking to him. After all, underneath the hip veneer, I'm just an Alabama boy with an innate respect for men who have been in combat, especially those of the same generation as my dad, now deceased, a Navy vet born in 1921, the same year as Shannon.

"Our primary concern was to make sure that the poor guys stranded on the beach knew that they weren't forgotten," Shannon says.

So, Shannon and Shamburger - two battle-tested officers who had already seen their share of death, two men who had families waiting at home - made an almost romantic gesture for men they saw as their brothers-in-arms, flying a mission they were never supposed to fly, and only one came home to tell the tale.

Riley's and Gray's bodies were never recovered. Shannon recalls the memorial service held for Shamburger in Birmingham. "In fact, I went by and picked up Candy, their daughter, and took her to the service," he says.

Shamburger and Grey were not the only Alabamians to lose their lives that day. Pete Ray and Leo Baker were shot down and killed on the ground by Cuban Soldiers.

Aftermath

Shannon was not allowed to tell Riley's wife, Jane, what really happened. He couldn't even tell his own wife, Helen. The operation was classified, and Shannon and Shamburger had been CIA employees. "We had sort of an oath with the CIA," Shannon says.

"It was tough," Shannon says. "And other people that were involved didn't have that restriction, and I would hear stories of people talking about what was going on down there, and I knew it was not exactly as it happened, but I couldn't say anything at all about it."

The Agency began to lift the veil in the late 1970s. Shannon was out of the military then, having retired in 1972 to become a commercial pilot.

"Apparently, the CIA might have been given a lot of pressure to find out exactly what happened to these people," Shannon says, referring to the deceased Guardsmen.

"I got a call late at night from a general counsel from the CIA saying that I was free to tell the families anything they wanted to know about the whole operation," Shannon says. "I don't know which year, but it was probably at least 15 years after the operations."

Shannon was finally able to tell Jane Shamburger what happened. "Before that I don't think I ever had anything to say to her, didn't discuss it at all," he says.

Shannon says that he felt free to talk about the operation. "I assumed it was declassified as far as anyone was concerned because the families could speak to anyone they wanted to about it, and if they could, I thought I could, too," he explains.

The CIA apparently didn't feel the same way. In 1978 the Agency, while posthumously awarding the Distinguished Intelligence Cross, the Agency's highest award for bravery, to Gray, Shamburger, Ray and Baker, still asked the families not to tell anyone how their loved ones died.

It was not until 1997 that the families were invited to CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., for the unveiling of the Wall of Honor, meant to commemorate 70 people - including the Alabama Guardsmen - who had died while working for the CIA.

And it was not until May 1999 that the CIA finally admitted publicly that the four men died on assignment for the Agency at the Bay of Pigs.

The survivors began to receive some recognition. In Birmingham in 2001, Shannon, Carl Sudano and the survivors of three other participants were awarded the CIA Seal Medallion. Shannon has also received, among other honors, the Cuban Liberation Air Force Medal for Valor and an honorary membership in Assault Brigade 2506.

Many of the participants in the operation have nurtured strong friendships, sometimes by attending special events, including Bay of Pigs reunions in Miami. Shannon remains in close touch with numerous Bay of Pigs veterans, including Carl Sudano and Gustavo "Gus" Ponzoa, one of two Cuban pilots Shannon trained for an attack on Castro's airfield at Santiago de Cuba.

The ongoing battle

The main beneficiary of the operation was, ironically, Fidel Castro, who used this evidence of "Yankee aggression" to secure his status as a revolutionary hero and to tighten his grip on power in Cuba, where he remains in office to this day.

Even after 46 years, the Bay of Pigs isn't over - not for the Cuban exiles who failed to retake their island and have never been able to go home, and not for the Americans who lost four of their friends. "I think about them a lot," Shannon says.

It's not over for Castro, who still exploits the Cuban people's memory of the invasion, even when not mentioning it directly. In June of this year, in an editorial in the Cuban Communist Party's official newspaper, Castro accused George Bush of wanting to invade Cuba and warned his people that they should be prepared to make more sacrifices to remain independent.

In fact, as Shannon discovered, Castro may still have scores he'd like to settle with some of the Americans who tried to take him out.

Shannon was informed of his inclusion on a Castro "hit list" by a journalist from Los Angeles who went to Cuba in 1998 to cover the visit of Pope John Paul and subsequently visited the Cuban government's archives. "I don't know whether he saw it or somebody told him, but he got my name down there going through the archives, and he told me that I was on their 'blacklist,'" Shannon says.

Shannon received further confirmation of his presence on this list from the U.S. government in 2002. He had been invited to visit Cuba with a group from Duke University, but was warned by the State Department that it might not be safe for him. "They didn't say 'don't go,' but they suggested I not," Shannon says.

This means that Shannon - like the aging veterans of the Cuban Liberation Air Force and Assault Brigade 2506 - will probably never see Cuba, a country he almost died for.

Still, Shannon believes that Cuba has a bright future. "It may not be in my lifetime, 'cause that would have to be right away," he says, laughing, "but I think eventually they'll get rid of Castro and if they do, and get rid of his brother, and establish a more democratic type of government, I think that Cuba has all sorts of potential. They got lots of smart people down there. It's a beautiful country."

Shannon thinks a lot about what might have been. "There's no question in my mind that [the operation] would have been successful if it had been executed as planned," Shannon says. "Operations of this kind are always a compromise between military and political, and in most cases where there is a failure, the political dominates, and that was certainly the case at the Bay of Pigs."

The Southern Museum of Flight has a small but informative exhibit about the Bay of Pigs invasion. Go to www.southernmuseumofflight.org to learn more.

During the dreary months of solitary confinement, Oliva worked on his watercolor.

On the still manila paper, he painted the cracked gray plaster of his cell wall. A brightly colored Cuban flag rests against the wall. An open book filled with signatures of men who fought with him sits on a simple wooden table. In front of the book lie a crucifix and a crumpled camouflage cap with the number "2506"

Some of the men who signed the book in the watercolor died on the battlefields of Vietnam. Others are scattered throughout the United States and South America.

The watercolor now hangs in the study of Oliva's residence in a quiet Maryland suburb.

The debacle was a lesson, "like a page in my book," Oliva says. The Bay of Pigs taught him his limits, the limits of men in combat and the limitations of American power.

On the last day of the fighting, a brigade tank was hit by a shell and caught fire, threatening to explode in the midst of Oliva's position.

"I yelled for a volunteer to drive the Sherman tank off," Oliva recalls. Jorge Alvarez, a tank driver nicknamed "Little Egg," climbed into the burning tank, managed to start it and quickly drove off.î

"We thought that would be the last time we would see him alive," Oliva says.

His face bleeding, his clothes in tatters, he militarily saluted Oliva and asked to resume his position. Before he moved to his position, "I promoted him to captain on the spot," Oliva says. "I knew we were losing. You don°t promote people when you are losing, but I promoted him anyway."

Kennedy told the Brigade leaders (Manuel Artime, José Pérez San and Oliva) that a Russian threat to Berlin had kept him from committing American firepower to the invasion.

"They thought once we were all prisoners Castro would have us shot," one veteran says. "Remember the Alamo" "Remember the Maine" "It would have been the perfect excuse to invade Cuba with American troops."

But Oliva refuses to call it a betrayal. "I felt frustrated, I felt abandoned by my allies, but I never felt betrayed. I was a Cuban fighting for my motherland," he says. "There was no time for that."

"We haven't reached the moment where the national interest of this country coincides with that of the exiles who want to go back," Oliva adds. "But it seems we're getting closer."

THE FOLLOWING SEGMENTS HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED HERE TO HONOR THE REQUESTS MADE BY MANY CAMCOCUBA READERS.

SINCE THE E-MAIL REQUESTS KEEP COMING, I DECIDED TO PUBLISH THE FOLLOWING UNEDITED SEGMENTS OF MY NOTES.

Silently and undetected, an enemy American-made Sherman tank that had moved behind enemy burning tanks and armored vehicles, previously knocked out at the distance by our Brigade forces, began firing its 76mm cannon against our positions. One of its first rounds made a direct impact on Alemán's tank turret. Alemán, who was at that time standing on top of the tank, trying to observe through his binoculars the enemy movements, was killed instantly. That brave and patriotic brigadista did not have time to react. The explosion threw him from the tank to the ground, only a few yards from my command position.

The fatal blast sent pieces of metal flying through the air over our heads. One fragment sliced off Jorge Alvarez's top right ear. Alvarez was the driver of one of the three tanks that Pepe San had sent at my request to protect the Western Front troops now under my command. It was not my responsibility to be there, I should have been in the Brigade CP, with the commander and his staff. However, the commander of the Sixth Infantry Battalion, Paquito Montiel, was injured and I volunteered to take his place and defend the Western front. Pepe and Manolo Artime agreed with my request. At the time of the explosion, Alvarez had his head outside his tank, talking to a brigadista who was positioned in a near foxhole. Reacting quickly, González Carmenati, the chief of the other tank, fired a single round and destroyed the enemy tank.

As a result of the shell explosion, Alemán's tank began to get fire in the midst of our defensive positions and in close proximity of the other two tanks that I had positioned on step formation, less than fifteen yards apart from each other. The crew of the damaged tank miraculously escaped from it. One of them, José Fajardo (the father of the famous Cuban singer Gloria Estefan), was the tank driver. He had come out stumbling from the burning tank and walked a few yards before falling, unconscious and seriously wounded, inside the trench that I was using as my new command post. Since Fajardo was bleeding profusely from his head and face, I thought that he was dying. I sent him immediately to the rear with the only jeep available to be attended by Brigade°s physicians. Fortunately, he survived his deep wounds.

The others members of the tank crew, shocked by the tremendous blast, were helped by members of Hugo, the brave and courageous commander of the Second Infantry Battalion. Two brigadistas got fire extinguishers and began fighting the flames of the tank, but it was not enough. I shouted to any one who knew how to drive the tank to move it away from our defensive positions. Jorge Alvarez, still bleeding profusely from his right ear, jumped out from his own tank and climbed into the burning Sherman. After a few unsuccessful tries, he was able to start the tank and drove it away, down the road toward Blue Beach with flames shooting up from the back and smoke pouring out from the turret.

Since Alvarez did not know where to park the burning tank, he stopped a few hundred yards behind our forward positions. He thought that the location was clear and far enough from our defensive line. However, he was not aware that swampy terrain had been occupied by Hugo's mortar platoon. The mortar platoon leader began screaming and yelled at Alvarez to "get the hell out of here, get your burning thing away from our positions before it blows us all to the kingdom come."

The platoon leader was correct in his assessment of the dangerous situation. They had more than one hundred mortar shells piled up only a few yards from the place where Alvarez had stopped the tank. Justifiably enough, the brigadista was afraid the shells could explode by the heat and flames coming out from the tank. Alvarez, without hesitation, jumped again into the tank, pulled its automatic fire extinguisher, and extinguished the threatening flames.

About fifteen minutes later, the "Little Egg," as Alvarez was called, soaked with blood from his wounded ear, came running back to my positions, saluted me and asked permission to return to his tank. I congratulated him and he began climbing into his tank. But, before he got inside the vehicle, I stopped him. I saluted the brave man and told him he was promoted to captain for the courage demonstrated in combat and possibly saving the lives of many of his comrades in arms. At that moment, it seemed as an illogical reaction to a heroic performance but it was the only thing I could do to demonstrate my appreciation and recognition of that young man's exceptional valor and courage. It was the only battlefield promotion given to a brigadista for a heroic action in battle during the Bay of Pigs invasion. Many, many more individuals could have been acknowledged for heroism during the three days of intense combat at the Bay of Pigs, but that was the only opportunity that I, as the second-in-command of the invasion, had to recognize a member of Assault Brigade "2506."

The next day, shouting and cursing outside my prison awakened me. I looked through a window and saw a large group of brigadistas who were lined up in a single file. One by one, they were called. When a name was mentioned, the prisoner had to stand in front of a small table where Osmani Cienfuegos was seated, close to another rebel officer that I immediately identified. He was Captain Fernández Vila, chief of the INRA office of the Matanzas province. From their well-guarded chairs, both men called the brigadistas cowards, mercenaries, war criminals, thieves, immoral, and shameless people. The one yelling harder was Fernández Vila. I was really surprised when I recognized that rebel officer because I thought that he had been discharged from the FAR. In January of the previous year, when I was still performing as an INRA General Inspector. At that time, my teammate Lieutenant Leonel Fuentes and I were instructed to investigate a theft in Captain Vila's office. Vila was under suspicion to be the one who took $ 25,000 in cash from his desk's drawer. The money had disappeared overnight without-a-trace. Everyone we interviewed during our investigation thought that Vila had taken the money. However, we were not able to review all the information gathered and reach any final conclusion because, after returning to Havana, we were relieved of our assignment by another INRA team, comprised of only rebel (revolutionary) officers, that took over the investigation. We understood the Section Chief's decision, Captain Rodolfo Villamil. Both, Leonel and I had been members of the Constitutional Army and he thought that our findings, even if they were correct, could be "considered biased" by the bearded men "barbudos", as the members of the revolutionary army were commonly called.

The truck waiting to transport the brigadistas to a new location had been built in the United States, a refrigeration type, the type used on American express highways made of aluminum, plywood stripping inside and with two big doors, one on each side in the middle of the truck. When over one hundred prisoners were inside the truck, four militiamen came to the small house where I was guarded and ordered me to go with them. As soon as I reached the small wooden table, Fernández Vila, with a sense of importance said, "this is Oliva, the Second-in-Command of the mercenaries."

Osmani Cienfuegos gave me a very dirty look and asked me what I had to say. I replied, "my name is Erneido Andrés Oliva, I am the Second-in-Command of the Brigade, my number is 2641." Vila did not like the tone of my answer and shouted that I was insulting Cienfuegos, "a minister of the revolution." It is not my intention to be disrespectful to anyone, I snapped back. I am only providing the information I am required to give you according to the Geneva Convention of 1864. Besides, I added. You better keep your mouth shut because I remember when I interrogated you for stealing money from the INRA. In the midst of the heated argument, Cienfuegos screaming and looking very upset, ordered the militia guards to push me back to my improvised prison cell. "He will be shot tonight," he angrily shouted.

It seemed that Cienfuegos, unwillingly, had saved my life or at least spared me from going through the rough experience that would be lived by those brigadistas who were already inside that truck. I later thought that Osmani never forgave himself for pulling me from over one hundred members of the Brigade who made the trip to Havana in that sealed truck. No one could ever forget the inhumane and murderous treatment he gave to those brave men. I was later told by many of my friends about their many horrifying experiences inside "The truck of the death."

16. UNFRIENDLY WELCOME FROM MY OLD NEIGHBORS AND FRIENDS IN AGUACATE

17. FIRST ASSIGNMENT IN THE REVOLUTIONARY ARMED FORCES (FAR)

19. FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH FIDEL CASTRO AND AN ATTEMPT AGAINST HIS LIFE

21. CONSPIRING WITH FORMER ARMY OFFICERS TO OVERTHROW THE REGIME

30. MEETING OLD FRIENDS AND FORMER FOES AT GUATEMALAN CAMPS

31. BASE TRAX AND ASSIGNED AS A PLATOON LEADER (THIRD TIME A SECOND LT.)

43. UNEXPECTED PROMOTION TO THE BRIGADE SECOND-IN-COMMAND POSITION

70. BRIGADE REINFORCEMENTS REACHED RED BEACH PRIOR ENEMY ATTACK

85. VOLUNTEERING TO ASSUME COMMAND OF THE WESTERN FRONT

90. THE BRIGADE COMMANDER'S UNEXPECTED RETREAT TO THE SWAMPS

92. DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO REACH THE ESCAMBRAY MOUNTAINS

93. SEEKING A ESCAPE ROUTE TO ESCAPE THE ENEMY ENCIRCLEMENT

111. HENRY WINSTON'S RELEASE ORDERED BY THE US ATTORNEY GENERAL

114. THE BRIGADE COMMISSION'S DESERTERS WHO STAYED IN MIAMI

115. THE TRIAL ORDEAL BEGINS

116. GOVERNMENT WITNESSES

117. SECOND DAY OF TRIAL

118. THIRD DAY OF TRIAL

119. FOURTH AND FINAL DAY OF TRIAL

120. WAITING FOR THE VERDICT

121. CASTRO'S UNEXPECTED VISIT TO PERSONALLY READ ME THE SENTENCE

122. THE FAMILY COMMITTEE'S RETURN TO CUBA

123. NEW SURROUNDINGS

124. FAMILY REUNION

CHAPTER XVII "THE ISLE OF PINES"

125. MY CAPTORS FULFILLED MY WISHES

126. TOTAL ISOLATION BEGINS AGAIN

127. PRISON ROUTINES TO REMAIN SANE

128. UNSOLICITED VISITORS, COMPANIONS AND CALLOUS GUARDS

129. NEGOTIATIONS FOR OUR RELEASE CONTINUED IN WASHINGTON

130. THE OCTOBER MISSILE CRISIS

131. AT LAST, FREEDOM RINGS

132. FIDEL CASTRO'S THREATENING FAREWELL

133. FIDEL CASTRO'S FINAL DEMAND

134. THE ORANGE BOWL CEREMONY

135. PRESENTATION OF THE BRIGADE FLAG TO THE PRESIDENT

CHAPTER XVIII "THE SPECIAL PRESIDENTIAL PROGRAM"

136. ROBERT KENNEDY'S STRONG DESIRE TO GET RID OF FIDEL CASTRO

137. STATE DEPARTMENT'S HANDS BEHIND OUR DEFEAT

138. PARTICIPATION IN OPERATION MONGOOSE

139. SPECIAL PRESIDENTIAL PROGRAM FOR THE BRIGADE

140. MEETINGS WITH A GREAT AMERICAN ADMIRAL

141. THE BRIGADE COMMANDER'S RESIGNATION

142. ASSUMING NEW RESPONSIBILITIES IN LEADING THE BRIGADE

CHAPTER XIX "ACCEPTING A DIRECT COMMISSION IN THE US ARMY"

143. A SECOND LIEUTENANT AGAIN (FOURTH TIME IN MY MILITARY CAREER)

144. MANUEL ARTIMES'S OPERATIONS IN CENTRAL AMERICA

145. GRADUATION CEREMONY AT FORT BENNING, GEORGIA

146. NEW OPERATIONAL PLANS TO OVERTHROW CASTRO

147. JOHN F. KENNEDY'S ASSASSINATION

148. THE LAST BETRAYAL

149. MEETING WITH THE NEW PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

150. PROBLEMS AMONG THE PILOTS AT CHANUTE AIR FORCE BASE

151. FINAL UNFORGETTABLE DEFEAT AT THE HANDS OF FRIENDS AND ALLIES

152- THE CUBAN REPRESENTATION IN EXILE (RECE)