Posted on 04/19/2014 5:24:45 AM PDT by Kaslin
(You always hear and read of a “fiasco,” a “defeat” a “disaster” at the Bay of Pigs, 53 years ago this week. But you rarely hear about the cause. Here it is.)
"They fought like tigers," writes the CIA officer who helped train the Cubans who splashed ashore at the Bay of Pigs 53 years ago this week. "But their fight was doomed before the first man hit the beach."
That CIA man, Grayston Lynch, knew something about fighting – and about long odds. He carried scars from Omaha Beach, The Battle of the Bulge and Korea's Heartbreak Ridge. But in those battles Lynch and his band of brothers counted on the support of their Commander in Chief. At the Bay of Pigs, Grayston Lynch (an American) and his band of brothers (Cubans) learned — first in speechless shock and finally in burning rage — that their most powerful enemies were not Castro's Soviet-armed soldiers massing in nearby Santa Clara, but the Ivy League's best and brightest dithering in Washington.
Lynch trained, in his own words, "brave boys who had never before fired a shot in anger" — college students, farmers, doctors, common laborers, whites, blacks, mulattoes. They were known as La Brigada 2506, an almost precise cross-section of Cuban society of the time. The Brigada included men from every social strata and race in Cuba—from sugar cane planters to sugar cane cutters, from aristocrats to their chauffeurs. But mostly, the folks in between, as befit a nation with a larger middle class than most of Europe.
Short on battle experience, yes, but they fairly burst with what Bonaparte and George Patton valued most in a soldier: morale. No navel-gazing about "why they hate us" or the merits of "regime change" for them. They'd seen Castroism point-blank.
Their goals were crystal-clear: firing-squads silenced, families reunited, tens of thousands freed from prisons, torture chambers and concentration camps. We see it on the History Channel after our GI’s took places like Manila and Munich. In 1961 newsreels could have captured such scenes without crossing oceans. When those Cuban freedom-fighters hit the beach at the Bay of Pigs 50 years ago this week, one of every 18 Cubans suffered in Castro Gulag. Mass graves dotted the Cuban countryside, piled with hundreds who’d crumpled in front of Castro and Che Guevara’s firing squads. Most of the invaders had loved-ones among the above. Modern history records few soldiers with the burning morale of the Bay of Pigs freedom-fighters.
From the lethal fury of the attack and the horrendous casualties their troops and militia were taking, the Castro brothers and Che Guevara assumed they faced at least "20,000 invading mercenaries," as they called them. Yet it was a band of mostly civilian volunteers their Soviet armed and led-troops outnumbered 20-to-1.
“Where are the planes?” kept crackling over U.S. Navy radios two days later. “Where is our ammo? Send planes or we can’t last!” Commander Jose San Roman kept pleading to the very fleet that escorted his men to the beachhead (and sat much closer to them than the Sixth Fleet sits to the Libyan coast today). Crazed by hunger and thirst, his men had been shooting and reloading without sleep for three days. Many were hallucinating. By then many suspected they’d been abandoned by the Knights of Camelot.
That’s when Castro’s Soviet Howitzers opened up, huge 122 mm ones, four batteries’ worth. They pounded 2,000 rounds into the freedom-fighters over a four-hour period. “It sounded like the end of the world,” one said later. “Rommel’s crack Afrika Corps broke and ran under a similar bombardment,” wrote Haynes Johnson in his book, the Bay of Pigs. By that time the invaders were dazed, delirious with fatigue, thirst and hunger, too deafened by the bombardment to even hear orders. But these men were in no mood to emulate Rommel’s crack Afrika Corps by retreating. Instead they were fortified by a resolve no conquering troops could ever call upon–the burning duty to free their nation.
"If things get rough," the heartsick CIA man Grayston Lynch radioed back, "we can come in and evacuate you."
"We will NOT be evacuated!" San Roman roared back to his friend Lynch. "We came here to fight! We don't want evacuation! We want more ammo! We want PLANES! This ends here!"
Camelot’s criminal idiocy finally brought Adm. Arleigh Burke of the Joints Chief of Staff, who was receiving the battlefield pleas, to the brink of mutiny. Years before, Adm. Burke sailed thousands of miles to smash his nation's enemies at the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Now he was Chief of Naval Operations and stood aghast as new enemies were being given a sanctuary 90 miles away! The fighting admiral was livid. They say his face was beet red and his facial veins popping as he faced down his commander-in-chief that fateful night of April 18, 1961. "Mr. President, TWO planes from the Essex! (the U.S. Carrier just offshore from the beachhead)" that's all those Cuban boys need, Mr. President. Let me order...!"
JFK was in white tails and a bow tie that evening, having just emerged from an elegant social gathering. "Burke," he replied. "We can't get involved in this."
"WE put those Cuban boys there, Mr. President!" The fighting admiral exploded. "By God, we ARE involved!"
Admiral Burke’s pleas also proved futile.
The freedom-fighters’ spent ammo inevitably forced a retreat. Castro's jets and Sea Furies were roaming overhead at will and tens of thousands of his Soviet-led and armed troops and armor were closing in. The Castro planes now concentrated on strafing the helpless, ammo-less freedom-fighters.
"Can't continue,” Lynch's radio crackled - it was San Roman again. "Have nothing left to fight with ...out of ammo...Russian tanks in view....destroying my equipment.”
"Tears flooded my eyes," wrote Grayston Lynch. "For the first time in my 37 years I was ashamed of my country."
When the smoke cleared and their ammo had been expended to the very last bullet, when a hundred of them lay dead and hundreds more wounded, after three days of relentless battle, barely 1,400 of them -- without air support (from the U.S. Carriers just offshore) and without a single supporting shot by naval artillery (from U.S. cruisers and destroyers poised just offshore) -- had squared off against 21,000 Castro troops, his entire air force and squadrons of Soviet tanks. The Cuban freedom-fighters inflicted over 3000 casualties on their Soviet-armed and led enemies. This feat of arms still amazes professional military men.
“They fought magnificently and were not defeated,” stressed Marine Col. Jack Hawkins a multi-decorated WWII and Korea vet who helped train them. “They were abandoned on the beach without the supplies and support promised by their sponsor, the Government of the United States.”
"We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty!" proclaimed Lynch and Hawkin’s Commander-in-Chief just three months earlier.
This is a bullsh!t rumor started by his left wing enemies. Please don't repeat here on a reputable conservative site like FR.
JFK abandoned the Cubans on the beach to a waiting Castro. It was for him the better answer than canceling the operation.
He did essentially the same thing to Eisenhower’s Tibetans who were wiped out to the man. They died as their CIA handlers begged for ammo and an air drop.
He pulled Eisenhower’s team out of Viet Nam (the ones who had beat the communists in the Philippines) and turned it over to his Harvard brain trust, and murdered Diem.
The guy was a wrecking ball.
thanks for the update. I had not heard that about another canal.
But even if he did like to wear women's clothing now and again, so what? Women wear men's clothing all the time and they are never criticized for it!
Anyway, I am convinced, absolutely convinced, that JFK was shot in Dallas as revenge for Bay of Pigs. We may never know how it happened, and who else was involved besides Oswald, but I'm pretty sure about the why.
Lee Jackson’s recent historical fiction novel, Curse of the Moon, starts with the invasion and lack of US support. A great novel.
Wasn’t RFK the motivating force?
This is not the first time the US has promised aid and bailed. Just ask Hungary in 1956!
Hoover did cross-dress. Just ask his Live-In Boyfriend!
J. Edgar was one sick puppy.
Admiral Burke said to President Kennedy:
“The history never questions the winners; but always blame the losers”.
The Communist infiltration and take over of the State Department started with F.D. Roosevelt.
The Infiltration of the U.S. Government
Cliff Kincaid — November 6, 2012
http://www.aim.org/aim-column/the-infiltration-of-the-u-s-government/
“this incident is what lead to castro requesting and giving permission to russia to place nukes on the island..
jfk did not solve the cuban missile crisis...
jfk CAUSED the cuban missile crisis...”
Worth repeating.
And not news to those of us who pay attention to what REALLY happens in the world.
Even back in the early 60s the news media was protecting the left.
I suspect cowering from Kruschev threats
But he and Jackie sure cut a dashing image.
And image - with the right ideology - is enough for the MSM.
I was referring to the takeover of the Democrat Party and it’s agenda.....so yes you know of FDR and State Dept, but not my reference for this comment.
http://edgar-hoover.tripod.com/
http://jezebel.com/5690562/tim-gunn-saw-j-edgar-hoover-cross-dress
Clyde Tolson Relationship w/ Hoover paragraph at bottom:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde_Tolson
Excerpt from Anthony Summers book on J Edgar Hoover:
“Mr. Kessler is the author of a new book on the FBI, The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI, available from Amazon.com. In 1993, Anthony Summers, in his book Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover, claimed that Hoover did not pursue organized crime because the Mafia had blackmail material on him. In support of that, Summers quoted Susan L. Rosenstiel, a former wife of Lewis S. Rosenstiel, chairman of Schenley Industries Inc., as saying that in 1958, she was at a party at the Plaza Hotel where Hoover engaged in cross-dressing in front of her then-husband and Roy Cohn, former counsel to Senator Joe McCarthy.”He [Hoover] was wearing a fluffy black dress, very fluffy, with flounces and lace stockings and high heels, and a black curly wig,” Summers quoted Susan as saying.”He had makeup on and false eyelashes.”[1] - “
We know of J Edgar Hoover accomplishments, however, we all need to learn to separate the achievements of a person from their personal life, because people will surprise you, and put political parties aside in judging whether that item is truth or not.
There were just too many people who knew about him and Tolson. Of course, he kept the cross dressing as secretly as possible, Hoover was the FBI Leader. Note in Tolson bio that he inherited all of Hoover’s estate. That is not insignificant.
Ike doesn't get the Civil Rights credit that he deserves.
Earthquakes and volcanos is why the French chose Panama in the first place.
That makes sense.
No, UF Gator.
31 Knot Burke.
He was a decisive leader in the War. He gave standing orders to engage any enemy spotted without further direction from himself.
Leyte Gulf? And other places of course.
Like Nimitz, he was an accomplished engineer.
94 years of an honorable life by all accounts. The man had determination in his eyes. Funny how you can almost always see it in these guys when they were young.
ping
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