The Bay of Pigs: The Sickening Truth, Parts I and II

Editor's Note:  Part II came out yesterday.  I deliberately chose not to publish Part I when it came out last Saturday in order to publish Parts I and II at the same time. This is a story that can't be told often enough, and no one tells it as well as Humberto Fontova, who has graciously allowed be to publish his work for some years.  You may wish to view my For those who may have wondered at the utter contempt I've expressed for JFK over the years, this will explain it, as this was the most vile act of his corrupt life.  RK

Humberto Fontova  Apr 09, 2022 @ Townhall.com

 

 “I really admire toughness and courage, and I will tell you that the people of this brigade (Bay of Pigs freedom-fighters) 2506 really have that…you were let down by our country.'' (Donald Trump, addressing Bay of Pigs Veterans at Bay of Pigs museum Miami Fl, 11/16, 1999.)

“It’s a great honor and I’m humbled for this endorsement from these freedom fighters—from TRUE freedom fighters… You were fighting for the values of freedom and liberty that unite us all. (Candidate Donald Trump, receiving endorsement of Bay of Pigs Veterans at Bay of Pigs museum Miami Fl, 10/25, 2016.)

“The Republicans have allowed a communist dictatorship to flourish eight jet minutes from our borders…We must support anti-Castro fighters. So far these freedom fighters have received no help from our government.”(Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy baiting Richard Nixon during the famous 1960 debates.) 

Short weeks before the debates CIA chief Allen Dulles (on President Eisenhower’s orders) had briefed Kennedy about Cuban invasion plans (what became the Bay of Pigs invasion,) so Kennedy was lying through his teeth. He knew damn well the Republican administration was training Cuban freedom fighters. And since the plans were secret, he knew damn well Nixon couldn’t rebut. So Nixon bit his tongue. He could easily have stomped Kennedy on it. But to some candidates national security trumps debating points.

To blindside his Republican opponent Kennedy relied on that opponent's patriotism. Let's face it, Republicans are at a woeful disadvantage here. Nixon bit his tongue. He could easily have stomped Kennedy on it. But to some candidates national security (and those freedom-fighters lives) outweighs debating points.

"We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty," proclaimed President Kennedy at his inauguration. 

Not only had KGB satraps the Castro brothers and Che Guevara extinguished liberty “eight jet minutes from U.S. borders” but had also sent armed guerrillas to attempt the violent overthrow of five sovereign Latin American countries, (Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Panama, Venezuela, Haiti,) had stolen $2 billion from American businessmen at Soviet gun point after torturing and murdering several U.S. citizens who resisted, had invited in thousands of Soviet military and police agents, had kidnapped 50 U.S. citizens from Guantanamo Bay, and jailed and executed several Americans—all this before the U.S. even started contingency plans to disturb them.  

In fact during this period, the State Dept. made over 10 back channel diplomatic attempts to ascertain the cause of Castro’s tantrums and attempt to appease him. Argentine President Arturo Frondizi (himself a leftist) was the conduit for many of these and recounts their utter futility in his memoirs. At long last the U.S. started contingency planning for what came to be known as the Bay of Pigs invasion.

Surely, in light of all the factors above, we’re among the luckiest freedom-fighters in modern history, must have reasoned the Cuban volunteers. Few great powers in history have had such overwhelming justification for intervening against a neighboring terrorist enemy than does the mighty USA in April of 1961. And the newly elected, fire-breathing President has gone on record-- both as candidate and as Commander in Chief of the world’s most powerful nation-- promising to back us to the hilt against the Communist regime wrecking our homeland, jailing, torturing and murdering our families, and subverting half the hemisphere on behalf of the Soviet Empire.  

"Freedom is our GOAL!" Roared Pepe San Roman to the men he commanded on April 10, 1961. "Cuba is our CAUSE! God is on our SIDE! ON TO VICTORY!" 

Fifteen hundred men crowded before San Roman at their Guatemalan training camps that day. The next day they’d embark for a port in Nicaragua, the following day for a landing site in Cuba named Bahia De Cochinos (Bay of Pigs). Their outfit was known as Brigada 2506, and at their commander’s address the men absolutely erupted... 

A scene of total bedlam unfolded. Hats flew. Men hugged. Men sang and cheered. Men wept. The hour of liberation was nigh – and these men were putting their lives on the line to see their dream fulfilled. Their dream was a Cuba free from the murderous barbarism that tortured it, free from firing squads, torture chambers and the teeming Castroite Gulag. A Cuba where the chilling command of "FUEGO!" to firing squads would be a horrible memory and nothing more. A Cuba where patriots served their nation. Not one where they were beaten, bound, gagged and tied to a stake at dawn, to be riddled by Russian bullets on the order of KGB satraps. 

Terms like "liberation" were point-blank and crystal clear to these men. No navel gazing about the merits of "regime change" for them. Babbling foreigners in sandals and strange robes wouldn’t be the ones greeting them. They’d be bashing open prison doors and bulldozing down barbed wire, all right – but their own fathers, uncles, cousins and even sisters, aunts, daughters would be the ones staggering out to suffocate them with hugs and sobs. 

One of 19 Cubans was a political prisoner that horrible year. Dozens of American citizens languished in Cuba’s KGB-designed dungeons too. 

Every one of those proud and pumped men (and boys – some were as young as 16) of Brigada 2506 was a volunteer. A good number had wives and children. Some were formerly wealthy. 

"SEE?! SEE?!" snivel the pinkos "We told ya! Only those beastly, slave-driving sugar mill, gambling casino and factory owners opposed Castro!" 

Other freedom-fighters hailed from humble backgrounds …"SEE?! SEE?!" snivel the pinkos again. "Just like those effete millionaires to sit back and hire their gardeners and foot servants to recoup their mansions for them!" 

Forget trying facts and logic with Castro and Che Guevara groupies. You’re better off trying to wean your teenybopper daughter from her Justin Bieber poster. Point is, Brigade 2506 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 much of Europe of the time. 

“My observations the last few days have increased my confidence in the ability of this force to accomplish not only initial combat missions, but also the ultimate objective of Castro’s overthrow.  These (Cuban) officers are young, vigorous, intelligent and motivated with a fanatical urge to begin battle for which they have supreme confidence they will win all engagements against the best Castro has to offer. I share that confidence.” 

This was the final report before they hit the beaches from Marine Col. Jack Hawkins, a highly decorated WWII and Korea vet, who after escaping from Japanese captivity after the Bataan Death March, trained and organized Philippine guerrillas then helped plan the invasion of Okinawa. During the Korean war Hawkins landed at Inchon and fought his way out of Red Chinese encirclement at the famous battle of “Frozen” Chosin Reservoir. I’d say Col. Hawkins qualified as a good judge of military morale.    

“In war morale forces are to physical as three to one,” famously said Napoleon Bonaparte.

(Tune in next week when we hit the beaches with Brigada 2506.)  

The Bay of Pigs: The Sickening Truth Part II, The Battle is Joined

Humberto Fontova Apr 16, 2022 @ Townhall.com

 

 

"They fought like Tigers," wrote a CIA officer who helped train the Cuban freedom-fighters who landed at The Bay of Pigs 61 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 could count on the support of their own chief executive. 

At the Bay of Pigs, Lynch and his band of Cuban brothers learned -- first in speechless shock and finally in burning rage -- that their most powerful enemies were not Castro's Soviet-armed and led soldiers massing in Santa Clara, Cuba, but the Ivy League's Best and Brightest dithering in Washington. 

Lynch trained, in his own words, ''brave boys most of whom had never before fired a shot in anger." Short on battle experience, yes, but they fairly burst with what Bonaparte and George Patton valued most in a soldier -- morale. They'd seen the face of Castro/Communism point-blank: stealing, lying, jailing, poisoning minds, murdering. 

They'd heard the chilling "Fuego!" as Castro and Che's firing squads murdered thousands of brave countrymen. More importantly, they heard the "Viva Cuba Libre!" from the bound and blindfolded patriots, right before the bullets ripped them apart. They set their jaws and resolved to smash this murderous barbarism that was ravaging their homeland. And they went at it with a vengeance.

“Where are the planes?!” kept crackling over U.S. Navy radios 61 years ago from a Cuban beachhead. “Where is our ammo?! Send planes or we can’t last!” The pleas came from Commander Jose San Roman as Soviet tanks, Soviet artillery and tens of thousands of Soviet-led troops pounded the 1400 Cuban freedom-fighters he commanded on a bloody and heroic beachhead now known as the Bay of Pigs.

The same heartsick (some actually sobbing) U.S. Navy men listening to these pleas had escorted these freedom–fighters to that beachhead. Their ships—including the aircraft carrier Essex groaning under a heavy load of deadly Skyhawk jets-- sat just offshore. 

"If things get rough," radioed back the heartsick CIA man who helped train and befriended them, “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 the planes that were promised!  This ends here! 

Camelot’s criminal idiocy as the freedom-fighters battle savagely against outrageous odds finally brought Adm. Arleigh Burke of the Joints Chief of Staff, who was receiving the battlefield pleas, to the brink of mutiny. Years earlier, 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! 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!" 

Finally, JFK relented and allowed some Skyhawk jets to take-off from the Essex. One of these pilots quickly spotted a long column of Castro’s Soviet tanks making for the freedom-fighters. The Soviet tanks and trucks were sitting ducks. "AHA!" he thought. "Now we'll turn this thing around!" The pilot started his dive...

"Permission to engage denied," came the answer from his commander.

"This is crazy!" he bellowed back. "Those guys are getting the hell shot out of them down there! I can SEE it!!" Turned out, JFK had allowed them to fly and look -- but not to shoot!

Some of these Navy pilots admit to sobbing openly in their cockpits. They were still choked up when they landed back on the Essex. Now they slammed their helmets on the deck, kicked the bulkheads and broke down completely.

"I wanted to resign from the Navy," said Capt. Robert Crutchfield, the decorated naval officer who commanded the destroyer fleet off the Bay of Pigs beachhead. He'd had to relay Washington's replies to those pilots.

A close-up glimpse of the heroism on that beachhead might have sent those Essex pilots right over the edge. As JFK adjusted his bow tie in the mirror and Jackie picked lint off his tux, the men of Brigada 2506 faced a few adjustments of their own. To quote Haynes Johnson, "It was a battle when heroes were made." And how!

We call them "men," but Brigadista Felipe Rondon was 16 years old when he grabbed his 57 mm cannon and ran to face one of Castro's Stalin tanks point-blank. At 10 yards he fired at the clanking, lumbering tank and it exploded, but the momentum kept it going and it rolled over little Felipe.

Gilberto Hernandez was 17 when a round from a Czech burp gun put out his eye. Castro troops Soviet-led were swarming in classic Soviet human-wave fashion but he held his ground, firing furiously with his recoilless rifle for another hour until the swarm of Reds finally surrounded him and killed him with a shower of grenades.

By then the invaders sensed they'd been abandoned. Ammo was almost gone. Two days of shooting and reloading without sleep, food or water was taking its toll. Many were hallucinating. That's when Castro's unmolested Soviet Howitzers opened up, huge 122 mm ones, four batteries' worth. They pounded 2,000 rounds into the Brigada's ranks over a four-hour period. "It sounded like the end of the world," one recalled year later to your humble servant here.

"Rommel's crack Afrika Corps broke and ran under a similar bombardment," wrote Haynes Johnson. By now the invaders were dazed, delirious with fatigue, thirst and hunger, too deafened by the bombardment to even hear orders. So their commander had to scream.

"NO RETREAT!" stood and bellowed company commander Maximo Cruz to his dazed and horribly outnumbered men. "We stand and fight!" And so they did….and wrote as glorious a page in military history and the annals of freedom as you’ll ever read.

Right after the deadly shower of Soviet shells, more Soviet tanks rumbled up. Another boy named Barberito rushed up to the first one and blasted it repeatedly with his recoilless rifle, which barely dented it, but so rattled the occupants that they opened the hatch and surrendered. In fact, they insisted on shaking hands with their young captor, who an hour later was felled by a machine gun burst to his valiant little heart.

These things went on for three days.

The Brigada's 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 lavished troops were closing in. The Castro planes now concentrated on strafing the helpless, ammo-less freedom-fighters.

"Can't continue,” crackled over the navy radios. It was San Roman again. "Have nothing left to fight with...out of ammo...Russian tanks in view...destroying my equipment." Then the radio went dead.

"Tears flooded my eyes," wrote CIA man and multi-deocrated WWII hero 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’s Commander-in-Chief a year earlier.