The Hemisphere: Women of the Rebellion

Spotted proudly among the bearded troopers as the main rebel army moved into Havana last week were handfuls of gun-toting girls. They were the women of the revolution, who rarely fired rifles but in day-to-day operations kept the hidden rebellion alive. Fidel Castro had a word of grateful praise for "the valor of the Cuban women in the waiting and praying and smuggling of guns, ammunition and messages."

For two years a slim, changing line of girls—about 800 in all—moved ceaselessly through government lines with the intelligence and supplies that were oxygen for the...