Battle of Uvero, the first great victory of the Rebel Army

At 5:15 a.m. on May 28, 1957, a shot fired at the protective hut of the radio equipment of the barracks in the mountain village of El Uvero was the first major combat of the Rebel Army, victorious by the way, which would mark, according to Che Guevara, one of its outstanding protagonists, the coming of age of the revolutionary force born in early December of the previous year.

It was Fidel Castro himself, head of the armed insurrection in combat from intricate enclaves of the Sierra Maestra, in the south of eastern Cuba, who gave the unmistakable signal of the beginning, with his accurate aim.

The battle, very unequal, lasted about three hours and demanded incredible efforts from the rebel soldiers, poorly armed and with little military experience, but imbued with courage and faith in victory. This led them to triumph and to make a very great qualitative and moral leap when it was still perhaps not expected, according to very punctual and objective conditions.

In spite of the fact that days before the garrison of El Uvero had received reinforcements in armaments and men, totaling 60 soldiers, the rebel victory was devastating. Their strength was multiplied in a difficult, bloody and hard battle from the very beginning.

In 1965, in the speech commemorating the action that became a symbol, Fidel Castro said that this combat also revealed the value of confidence in the struggle and in the certain and real possibility of victory, when the fear of the enemy was lost and the advance was made.
The leader explained that at the beginning it was a confrontation decided as an act of solidarity, when they found out that a detachment of Cubans, not belonging to the 26th of July, would come to Cuba to fight for freedom.

It was the so-called Corynthia yacht expedition, made up of 27 young men led by Calixto Sanchez White, who arrived in Cuban shores from the United States with the purpose of going into Cuba and fighting for freedom from the Sierra Cristal, north of Oriente. Nothing could prevent them from being ruthlessly persecuted and exterminated by the dictatorship's army.

Fidel Castro had imagined the viciousness and ferocity with which they would be persecuted -which indeed happened- and tried to divert the attention of the Batista's people with the opening of the focus of the battle of El Uvero.

It was an accomplished combat even though once in the field the revolutionaries and their leader realized the insufficiency of the information received, the barracks were not easily visible, there were neighbors' houses nearby and they were forced to do it in a frontal way, almost at daybreak. There could be no turning back when the pros and cons were weighed, and it was necessary to fight at all costs.

The rebel force was nucleated with about 100 soldiers determined to fight but in a training phase as far as military skills were concerned. They did not have automatic weapons, like the well-equipped army, nor grenades. Nor were they supported by radio or other communications other than personal messengers.

They generally carried out ambushes on the roads and access routes, taking into account the surprise factor and the control of the territory, actions that facilitated casualties with hardly any losses. Approximately one year was to pass before they achieved competence in the strategy of encircling units and carrying out operations of annihilation, as they did in the exceptional first great combat of El Uvero.

With the resounding victory, the Rebel Army was able to acquire important war supplies such as Garands rifles and machine guns that replaced some old hunting rifles.

During the fierce confrontation, Ernesto Che Guevara, Juan Almeida and Guillermo Garcia stood out at the front of their men. The first two opened the way to access the garrison so well defended by the guards, and the latter operated his machine gun, which was jammed.
Raul Castro stood out in his advance at the head of the platoon that besieged one of the barracks' forts.

In the end, almost a third of the participants were killed or wounded. The rebel casualties have been computed in seven dead combatants, among them Julito Diaz and Emiliano Diaz (Nano).The Batista army lost 11 men and reported 19 wounded.For some analysts with a result ahead of its time, the combat of El Uvero was really transcendent and marked a turning point and a great advance, without stopping, for the luck of the Cubans.