The 1961 US-led Bay of Pigs Invasion in the Mind of a Cuban War Vet

Sancti Spiritus, April 18 (ACN) Carlos Muro Guevara, and 80-year-old war vet who fought the US-led mercenary invasion on the south-western Bay of Pigs back in 1961 cannot forget the days of that battle which ended with the first military defeat of the United States in Latin America.

Talking to an ACN reporter at his place in this central city of Sancti Spiritus, Muro Guevara recalls that in only 66 hours the Cuban forces rejected the mercenaries from setting up a beach head to launch a provisional government that would call a US military invasion of Cuba with the approval of the Organization of American States (OAS).

“I was taking an emergent militia course in the city of Matanzas, under the orders of Captain Jose Ramon Fernandez, when the attack took place in the evening of April 17,” he recalled and added “Our school turned into a battalion with six companies and we left for the Australia sugar mill in the locality of Jaguey Grande.”

The command post where Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro led the war operations was set up at the sugar mill, the vet said and added that they were ordered to advance towards a locality called Palpite, where airlifted mercenaries had already landed.

He recalled that he was only 18 at the time and on the road to Palpite town he and his comrades greeted a B-26 aircraft with the sign of the Cuban revolutionary air force, which resulted in an enemy warplane which shot over them all with no chance to find a hideaway in either side of the swampy areas.

During long hours, Muro Guevara and his comrades fought back the mercenaries of the 2506 mercenary brigade, made up of Cuban exiles who were recruited and trained by the CIA to defeat the Cuban Revolution.

The Cuban troops were made up of Rebel Army members, the National Police and lots of voluntary militiamen with no combat experience.

The veteran said that neither the over four million dollars initially used by the enemies to launch the invasion nor their military training in countries like Guatemala, Nicaragua, the United States and in Puerto Rico or the Panama Canal could stop the victory on April 19, 1961 of the Cuban people against the US-led invasion.

The 1961 US-led Bay of Pigs invasion aimed at toppling the young Cuban revolution caused Cuba 176 lives, 300 wounded and 50 disabled persons, while the over 1 thousand 500 mercenaries armed with all kind of weapons were defeated in less than three days and inflicted 89 casualties, 250 wounded and 1 thousand 197 prisoners.