.......
Invasion
The counterrevolutionary forces, known as Brigade 2506, were assembled at Retalhuleu, on the west coast of Guatemala, where U.S. engineers refurbished the airport especially for the mission. On April 14 six ships sailed from Nicaraguas Puerto Cabezas, cheered on by Nicaraguan president and U.S.-friendly dictator Luis Somoza, who jokingly urged the soldiers to bring him some hairs from Castros beard.
The Cuban government knew an invasion was coming, but could not guess exactly when or where the attack would take place. When teams of U.S. B-26 bombers began attacking four Cuban airfields simultaneously on Saturday, April 15, the Cubans were prepared. The few planes belonging to the Cuban Air Force were dispersed and camouflaged, with some obsolete, unusable planes left out to fool the attackers and draw the bombs.
As part of the CIA cover story, the attacking B-26 planes were disguised to look as if they were Cuban planes flown by defecting Cuban pilots. An exile Cuban pilot named Mario Zúñiga was presented to the media as a defector, and was photographed next to his plane. The photo was published in most of the major papers, but the surprising omission of several serious details, and the overwhelming amount of information already gathered by reporters, helped bring out the truth much sooner than anyone expected.
Prior to the start of the operation, CIA operatives were sent to Cuba. Their job was to aid the invading forces by blowing up key bridges and performing other acts of terrorism that would make it appear that the people of Cuba were joining the invasion. José Basulto was one of those operatives. He flew straight into Havana airport posing as a student from Boston College coming home on vacation.
Shortly after the attack started, Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, at the United Nations, flatly rejected Cubas Minister of Foreign Affairs Raúl Roas report of the attack to the assembly, saying that the planes were from the Cuban Air Force and presenting a copy of the photograph published in the newspapers. In the photo, the plane shown has an opaque nose, whereas the model of the B-26 planes used by the Cubans had a Plexiglas nose. Stevenson was extremely embarrassed a few hours later when the truth was revealed and he learned that Kennedy had referred to him as my official liar.
The landing began shortly before midnight on Sunday, April 16, after a team of frogmen went ashore and set up landing lights to guide the operation. The invading force consisted of 1,500 men divided into six battalions, with right-winger and CIA-friendly Manuel Artime as the political chief.
Two battalions came ashore at Playa Girón and one at Playa Larga, but the operation didnt go as smoothly as expected. The razor-sharp coral reefs, identified by U2 spy photos as seaweed, delayed the landing enough to expose it to air attacks the following morning. Two ships sank about 80 yards from shore, and some heavy equipment was lost.
Cuban militia commander José Ramón González Suco was one of five men stationed in Playa Larga when the invasion began. He was the first to report the invasion.
Defending the revolution: Castro sits in a tank during the Bay of Pigs invasion
On Monday, April 17, as the invasion was well under way, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk gave a press conference. The American people are entitled to know whether we are intervening in Cuba or intend to do so in the future, he said. The answer to that question is no. What happens in Cuba is for the Cuban people to decide.
Basulto was never told when the invasion would take place. He was surprised to hear the attack had started and didnt have time to get around to blowing up the bridge hed been assigned. He drove out to Guantánamo and jumped the fence to the U.S. Naval Base.
By 3 a.m. Monday morning Castro knew about the landing, and the Cuban government responded almost immediately, taking a superior position in the air during the early morning hours. Cuban pilot Captain Enrique Carreras Rojas was able to quickly sink the command vessel Maropa and the supply ship Houston.
Once Ambassador Stevenson became aware of the true facts, he was so outraged at being duped that he publicly urged Washington to stop the attack and avoid further embarrassment. Soviet Ambassador Zorin said, Cuba is not alone today. Among her most sincere friends the Soviet Union is to be found.
The Revolutionary Army marching against Bay of Pigs
At 12:15 Kennedy received a letter from Khrushchev, in which the Soviet leader stated: It is a secret to no one that the armed bands invading this country were trained, equipped and armed in the United States of America. The planes which are bombing Cuban cities belong to the United States of America; the bombs they are dropping are being supplied by the American Government.
It is still not late to avoid the irreparable. The government of the USA still has the possibility of not allowing the flame of war ignited by interventions in Cuba to grow into an incomparable conflagration.
As far as the Soviet Union is concerned, there should be no mistake about our position: We will render the Cuban people and their government all necessary help to repel an armed attack on Cuba.
The expected supporting air cover by the U.S. Air Force never came. In a political environment full of posturing, threats and confusion, Rusk advised Kennedy to back off, concluding that additional strikes would tilt international opinion too far against the U.S.
At about 9:30 p.m. on April 16, describes L. Fletcher Prouty in BAY OF PIGS: THE PIVOTAL OPERATION OF THE JFK ERA, [URL below] Mr. McGeorge Bundy, Special Assistant to the President, telephoned the CIAs General C.P. Cabell to inform him that the air strikes the following dawn should not be launched until they could be conducted from a strip within the beachhead.
Prouty, the first focal Point officer between the CIA and the Air Force for Clandestine Operations, quotes the report by General Maxwell Taylor, a member of the Kennedy-appointed Cuban Study Group: From its inception the plan had been developed under the ground rule that it must retain a covert character, that is, it should include no action which, if revealed, could not be plausibly denied by the United States and should look to the world as an operation exclusively conducted by Cubans. This ground rule meant, among other things, that no U.S. military forces or individuals could take part in combat operations.
............
Victory
In a desperate last-ditch effort to support the invasion, a limited air strike was approved on April 19, but it would not be enough, and four American pilots lost their lives that day. At 2:30 p.m., brigade commander Pepe Perez San Roman ordered radio operator Julio Monzon Santos to transmit a final message from brigade 2506. We have nothing left to fight with, San Roman said, his voice breaking, how can you people do this to us, our people, our country? Over and out.
Without supplies or air cover, the invading forces fell. To them, the lack of air cover was a direct betrayal. In the end, 200 rebel soldiers were killed, and 1,197 others were captured.
A Hawker Sea Fury FB.11 (FAR-541) of the Fuerza Aerea Revolucionaria (Revolutionary Air Force), at the Museum at Giron, Bay of Pigs, Cuba.
Theres no question that the brigade members were competent, valiant, and committed in their efforts to salvage a rapidly deteriorating situation in a remote area, writes Bissell. Most of them had no previous professional military training, yet they mounted an amphibious landing and conducted air operations in a manner that was a tribute to their bravery and dedication. They did not receive their due.
The reality, writes Schlesinger, was that Fidel Castro turned out to be a far more formidable foe and in command of a far better organized regime than anyone had supposed. His patrols spotted the invasion at almost the first possible moment. His planes reacted with speed and vigor. His police eliminated any chance of sabotage or rebellion behind the lines. His soldiers stayed loyal and fought hard. He himself never panicked; and, if faults were chargeable to him, they were his overestimate of the strength of the invasion and undue caution in pressing the ground attack against the beachhead. His performance was impressive.
On April 20 Fidel Castro announced over Havanas Union Radio that, the revolution has been victorious
destroying in less than 72 hours the army the U.S. imperialist government had organized for many months.
We have always been in danger of direct aggression, said Castro in a speech on April 23, we have been warning about this in the United Nations: that they would find a pretext, that they would organize some act of aggression so that they could intervene.
The United States has no right to meddle in our domestic affairs. We do not speak English and we do not chew gum. We have a different tradition, a different culture, our own way of thinking. We have no borders with anybody. Our frontier is the sea, very clearly defined.
How can the crooked politicians and the exploiters have more rights than the people? What right does a rich country have to impose its yoke on our people? Only because they have might and no scruples; they do not respect international rules. They should have been ashamed to be engaged in this battle of Goliath against Davidand to lose it besides.
At the massive May Day celebrations in Havana, less than two weeks after the attack, Castro spoke again about the invasion:
Humble, honest blood was shed in the struggle against the mercenaries of imperialism. But what blood, what men did imperialism send here to establish that beachhead, to bleed our revolution dry, to destroy our achievements, to burn our cane? [In the account of the invasion published by Castro, it was estimated that the invaders and their families between them once owned a million acres of land, ten thousand houses, seventy factories, ten sugar mills, five mines, and two banks.]
We can tell the people right here that at the same instant that three of our airports were being bombed, the Yankee agencies were telling the world that our airports had been attacked by planes from our own air force. They cold-bloodedly bombed our nation and told the world that the bombing was done by Cuban pilots with Cuban planes. This was done with planes on which they painted our insignia.
If nothing else, this deed should be enough to demonstrate how miserable are the actions of imperialism.
U.S. involvement in the Bay of Pigs attack was a direct violation of Article 2, paragraph 4 and Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, as well as Articles 18 and 25 of the Charter of the Organization of American States, and Article 1 of the Rio Treaty, which makes armed attacks illegal except in self-defense.
The Act of Bogota, which established the Organization of American States, provides that:
No State or group of States has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatsoever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State. The foregoing principle prohibits not only armed force but also any other form of interference or attempted threat against the personality of the State or against its political, economic and cultural elements.
No State may use or encourage the use of coercive measures of an economic or political character in order to force the sovereign will of another state and obtain from it advantages of any kind.
The territory of a State is inviolable; it may not be the object, even temporarily, of military occupation or of other measures of force taken by another state, directly or indirectly, on any grounds whatsoever
The invasion was planned by the U.S. The exile army was recruited, trained, paid, and supplied by the U.S. The planes, boats, tanks and military equipment used was supplied by the U.S. The provisional government was assembled and funded by the U.S. The first on the beach were American frogmen. Four American pilots were killed in battle. Thomas Pete Ray, Riley Shamburger, Leo Francis Baker (who died in a gun battle after crashing) and Wade Gray. Joe Shannon, a Colonel in the Alabama Air National Guard and a surviving pilot, remembers them well, We had lived with the Cubans for three months, and we were so close to them that their cause became our cause.
On April 20, President Kennedy discussed Cuba before the American Society of Newspaper Editors and continued to deny U.S. involvement.
This was a struggle of Cuban patriots against a Cuban dictator. While we could not be expected to hide our sympathies, we made it repeatedly clear that the armed forces of this country would not intervene in any way.
But let the record show that our restraint is not inexhaustible
if the nations of this hemisphere should fail to meet their commitments against outside communist penetrationthen I want it clearly understood that this government will not hesitate in meeting its primary obligations which are to the security of our nation.
In his book, COLD WAR AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION: THE FOREIGN POLICY OF JOHN F. KENNEDY, author Richard J. Walton puts that speech in perspective: Kennedy did not apologize; rather he issued threats. And he reiterated his amendment to the Monroe doctrine; that Latin American nations were free to choose their own governments, but only as long as they were not communist."
Additional Sources: news.bbc.co.uk
www.jfklancer.com
www.laahs.com
www.photoweb.it
www.brigada2506.com
www.usni.org
www.gwu.edu
www.cnn.com
www.rose-hulman.edu
www.campus-oei.org
www.cubaheritage.com
www.btinternet.com
www.patriagrande.net
www.thegully.com
On This Day In History
Birthdates which occurred on April 08:
0563 BC Gautama Buddha (as celebrated in Japan-Kambutsue)
1460 Ponce de León San Tervas de Campos Spain, Spanish conqueror/explorer, searched for fountain of youth, found Florida
1605 Philip IV king of Spain & Portugal (1621-65)
1614 El Greco [Domenikos Theotokopoulos] Iráklion Crete Greece, painter (View of Toledo)
1692 Giuseppe Tartini Italy, violinist/composer (Trillo del Diavolo)
1726 Lewis Morris Bronx NY, US farmer (signed Declaration of Independence)
1731 William Williams Lebanon CT, US merchant (signed Declaration of Independence)
1828 George Baird Hodge Brigadier General (Confederate Army)
1850 William Henry Welch US, pathologist, founded John Hopkins
1859 Edmund Husserl Germany, philosopher (founded Phenomenology)
1869 Harvey Cushing US, neurosurgeon (blood pressure studies)
1889 Sir Adrian Boult Chester England, conductor (BBC Symphony Orchestra)
1893 Mary Pickford [Gladys Louise Smith] Toronto Ontario Canada, actress (Poor Little Rich Girl, Daddy Long Legs)
1905 George Baxter Paris France, actor (Flying Saucer, Lili, Caged)
1911 Melvin Calvin US chemist (photosynthesis, Nobel 1961)
1912 Sonja Henie Oslo Norway, ice skater/actress (Olympics-gold-1928,32,36)
1912 Josef Gabcík Czechoslovakia, resistance fighter (attacked Heydrich)
1919 [Douglas] Ian Smith premier of Rhodesia (1964-..)
1920 Carmen [Mercedes] McRae New York NY, US jazz singer/pianist (Downbeat's New Star of 1954)
1923 Edward Mulhare Cork Ireland, actor (Daniel Gregg-Ghost & Mrs Muir)
1925 Shecky Greene Chicago IL, comedian/actor (Love Machine, Combat)
1937 Seymour Hersh award winning investigative reporter (New York Times)
1944 Anthony Farrar Hockley military historian
1946 Jim "Catfish" Hunter major-league pitcher (A's, Yankees)
1947 Steve Howe London England, rock guitarist (Asia, Yes-Roundabout)
1947 Gerald McRaney Collins MS, actor (Rick-Simon & Simon, Major Dad)
1947 Thomas D Delay (Representative-Republican-TX, 1985- )
1948 Richard Alan Litchfield Massachusetts, bank robber (FBI most wanted)
1963 Julian Lennon Liverpool England, John's son/singer (Too Late for Goodbyes)/subject of Beatles' "Hey Jude"
1966 Robin [Virginia] Wright Penn Dallas TX, actress (Jenny-Forrest Gump, Kelly-Santa Barbara, Princess Bride)
Deaths which occurred on April 08:
0217 Caracalla [Marcus Aurelius Antoniius] Roman emperor (198-217), murdered at 29
1143 John II Comnenus Emperor of Byzantium (1118-43), dies in an accident
1364 Jan II the Good, King of France (1350-64), dies at 44
1492 Lorenzo I de' Medici"il Magnifico" ruler of Florence (1469-92), dies
1498 Charles VIII King of France (1483-98), beheaded at 27
1794 Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicholas-Caritat mathematician dies
1853 Jan W Pieneman historical painter (Battle at Waterloo), dies at 73
1861 Elisha G Otis US elevator builder (Otis), dies at 50
1969 Denton Cooley got 1st fully artificial heart, dies at 48
1973 Pablo (Ruiz y) Picasso Spanish/French painter (Guernica), dies near Mougins France at 91
1976 Phil Ochs rock producer (Joe Hill), dies at 35
1981 General Omar Bradley last 5-star General, dies in New York at 88
1987 Francis C Denebrink US Naval officer (WWI, WWII, Korea) dies at 90
1990 Ryan White hemophiliac aids sufferer, dies at 18
1996 Ben Johnson cowboy actor (Tex, Dillinger, The Wild Bunch), dies of heart attack at 77
1997 Laura Nyro singer, dies of ovarian cancer at 49
GWOT Casualties
Iraq
08-Apr-2003 6 | US: 6 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Corporal Henry Levon Brown Baghdad (south of) Hostile - hostile fire - rocket attack
US Private 1st Class Juan Guadalupe Garza Jr. Baghdad Hostile - hostile fire - sniper
US Sergeant 1st Class John Winston Marshall Baghdad Hostile - hostile fire - RPG attack
US Private 1st Class Jason Michael Meyer Not reported Hostile - hostile fire
US Staff Sergeant Robert Anthony Stever Baghdad Hostile - hostile fire - RPG attack
US Staff Sergeant Scott Douglas Sather Southern part Hostile - hostile fire
08-Apr-2004 8 | US: 8 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Specialist Isaac Michael Nieves Khan Bani Saad (near) Hostile - hostile fire
US Lance Corporal Levi T. Angell Baghdad (Abu Ghuraib Prison) Hostile - hostile fire - RPG attack
US Staff Sergeant William M. Harrell Fallujah [Al Anbar Prov.] Hostile - hostile fire
US 1st Lieutenant Joshua M. Palmer Fallujah [Al Anbar Prov.] Hostile - hostile fire
US Lance Corporal Michael B. Wafford Fallujah [Al Anbar Prov.] Hostile - hostile fire
US Corporal Nicholas J. Dieruf Al Anbar Province Hostile - hostile fire
US Lance Corporal Christopher B. Wasser Al Anbar Province Hostile - hostile fire
US Lance Corporal Phillip E. Frank Al Anbar Province Hostile - hostile fire
Afghanistan
A Good Day
http://icasualties.org/oif/ Data research by Pat Kneisler
Designed and maintained by Michael White
On this day...
1195 Alexius III Angelus drives out brother Isaäk II as Byzantine emperor
1378 Bartolomeo Prignano elected as Pope Urban VI
1455 Alfonso de Borgia elected as Pope Callistus III
1500 Battle at Novara King Louis XII beats duke Ludovico Sforza
1730 1st Jewish congregation in US consecrates synagogue, "Shearith Israel, NYC"
1766 1st fire escape patented, wicker basket on a pulley & chain
1781 Premiere of Mozart's violin sonata K379
1783 Catharina II of Russia annexes the Krim
1789 House of Representives 1st meeting
1801 Soldiers riot in Bucharest, kill 128 Jews
1802 French Protestant church becomes state-supported & -controlled
1838 Steamship "Great Western" maiden voyage (Bristol England to New York NY)
1848 Battle at Xaquixaguana, Peru Pedro de la Gasca beats Gonzalo Pizarro
1861 US mint at Dahlonega GA seized by confederacy
1862 John D Lynde patents aerosol dispenser
1865 General Robert E Lee surrenders at Appomattox Court House in Virginia
1869 American Museum of Natural History opens (New York NY)
1879 Khedive Ismael of Egypt fires French/British ministers
1879 Milk is sold in glass bottles for 1st time
1893 The Critic reports that the ice cream soda is our national drink
1898 Battle of Atbara River, Anglo-Egyptian forces crush 6,000 Sudanese
1904 Great Britain & France sign Cordial Entente concerning colonial matter
1913 17th amendment, requiring direct election of senators, ratified
1913 Opening of China's 1st parliament takes place in Peking (now Beijing)
1914 US & Colombia sign a treaty concerning the Panamá Canal Zone
1916 Norway approves active & passive female suffrage
1931 Dmitri Shostakovich's ballet "The Arrow", premieres
1933 Manchester Guardian warns of unknown nazi terror
1935 Works Progress Administration approved by Congress
1939 King Zog I of Albania, flees
1940 Germany battle cruisers sink British aircraft carrier Glorious
1941 Joe Louis TKOs Tony Musto in 9 for heavyweight boxing title
1943 Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya convicted of involvement with Mau Mau
1945 Nazi occupiers executed, Nazi General Christiansen flees Netherlands
1946 League of Nations assembles for last time
1947 Largest recorded sunspot observed
1952 President Harry Truman seizes the steel mills to prevent a strike
1953 Dag Hammarskjöld chosen as Secretary-General of UN
1956 6 marine recruits drown during exercise at Paradise Island SC
1963 Tigers claim young pitcher Denny McLain from the White Sox for $25,000
1964 Unmanned Gemini 1 launched
1966 AFL chooses 36 year old Al Davis as commissioner
1966 Leonid Brezhnev "elected" Secretary-General of communist party (Meet the new boss, same as the old boss)
1968 New socialist constitution of East Germany takes effect
1968 Baseball's Opening Day is postponed because of Martin Luther King Jr assassination
1968 Czechoslovakia Cernik government forms
1969 1st Baseball game in Canada - Montréal Expos beats New York Mets 10-9
1970 Senate rejects Nixon's nomination of Carswell to Supreme Court
1971 1st legal off-track betting system begins (OTB-New York)
1974 Hammerin' Hank Aaron hits 715th homerun, breaks Babe Ruth's record
1975 Frank Robinson debuts as 1st black baseball manager (Cleveland, beats New York 5-3)
1977 Israel premier Yitzhak Rabin resigns
1985 India files suit against Union Carbide over Bhopal disaster
1985 Amdahl releases UTS/V, 1st mainframe Unix
1986 Clint Eastwood elected mayor of Carmel CA
1988 Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, 52, was defrocked by the Assemblies of God following the disclosure of his involvement with a prostitute. (Swaggart was ordered to stay off TV for a year, but had returned after only three months.)
1989 1-handed pitcher Jim Abbott debut but lasts only 4 2/3 innings
1990 King Birendra of Nepal lifts 30-year ban on political parties
1991 Oakland A's Stadium becomes 1st outdoor arena to ban smoking
1991 Jockey Bill Shoemaker paralyzed in a car accident
1992 After 151 years Britain's "Punch Magazine" final issue
1993 Indians' Carlos Baerga is 1st to switch hit homeruns in same inning (vs Yankees)
1994 Smoking banned in Pentagon & all US military bases
1997 Microsoft Corp releases Internet Explorer 4.0
Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"
World : Roma Nation Day
US : Behave Yourself Day(optional)
US : National Reading a Road Map Week (Day 5)
US : Taxes in 1 week!
US : All is Ours Day
US : Draw a Picture of a Bird Day
Dog Appreciation Month (Woof Woof..That's my other dog impression)
Religious Observances
Buddhist : Kambutsue, Buddha's birthday (Japan, Taiwan, Hawaii, Korea)
Christian : Feast of St Dionysius of Corinth
Christian : Feast of St Perpetuus of Tours
Christian : Feast of St Walter of Pontoise
Roman Catholic : Commemoration of Our Lady of Good Counsel
Roman Catholic : Commemoration of St Julia Billiart, virgin
Anglican : Commemoration of William Augustus Muhlenberg, priest
Christian : Holy Thursday (Maundy Thursday)
Third Day of Passover
Religious History
1546 At its fourth session, the Council of Trent adopted Jerome's "Latin Vulgate" as the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church. (Included in the Vulgate O.T. were the 15 apocryphal books which Protestants reject in their biblical canon.)
1730 Shearith Israel, first Jewish congregation organized in America, consecrated their synagogue in New York City.
1912 The American Theological Society was organized at Union Theological Seminary, in New York, for the purpose of discussing religious, theological and philosophical problems.
1945 German theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the night before he was hanged by the Nazis, said: 'This is the end - - for me the beginning' -- his last recorded words.
1988 Televangelist Jimmy Swaggert, 52, was defrocked by the Assemblies of God following the disclosure of his involvement with a prostitute. (Swaggert was ordered to stay off TV for a year, but had returned after only three months.)
Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.
Thought for the day :
"After all is said and done, a great deal more is said than done."