Cuba: Toward D-Day

• Share

The testing hour for Fidel Castro was drawing near.

At 6:25 a.m. Saturday, two B-26 light bombers roared in from the sea toward Havana, dropped to low level and started their bomb runs. One plane worked over Castro's Air Force Base at San Antonio de los Baños, 20 miles southwest of the capital. The other attacked Havana's Camp Liberty, Castro's main military headquarters. Darting through a curtain of antiaircraft fire, the B-26 swept over the camp toggling bombs, banked around for a rocket attack, then finished off by a strafing run with eight .50-cal. machine guns. As smoke from exploding ammo dumps and burning buildings spread over Castro's GHQ, radio reports crackled in of a similar B-26 raid on the military airport at Santiago, 460 miles away on the eastern end of the island.

Shortly thereafter, a B-26 with Cuban Air Force markings limped into Miami International Airport, one engine feathered, its engine nacelles nicked by bullets. A second B26, with a shot-up engine and landing gear, scraped down on a bed of fire-preventing foam at the U.S. Naval Air Station at Key West. A third reportedly landed in Jamaica. The crewmen, all Cubans, were whisked away before reporters could ask questions. One pilot, who finally told an elaborate story of his day's work, asked not to be named, to protect his family in Cuba.

Prelude to Invasion? As the news hit the wires, José Miró Cardona, head of the exile Revolutionary Council in Manhattan, proclaimed the attack a last salute to Fidel Castro by defecting members of the Cuban Air Force. "Before flying their planes towards freedom, these true revolutionaries attempted to destroy as many Castro military planes as possible." The well-coordinated, professionally executed mission was known to the council beforehand, said Miró Cardona. "We have been in contact with, and have encouraged these brave pilots." He added that "military security" prevented further explanation.

Castro accused the U.S. of staging the attack, raged that it was the prelude to direct, frontal invasion by "North American imperialists." Raúl Roa, Castro's U.N. delegate, popped up to demand that the General Assembly consider the anti-U.S. charges immediately, was eagerly backed by the Soviet Union. Adlai Stevenson, for the U.S., denied all, and cited the Cuban markings on the planes.

All week Castro's Cubans had been excited by the possibility of an imminent showdown. They could find support for their fears on Page One of the New York Times, which reported from Florida troop-laden aircraft roaring off into the night, exiled Cuban doctors called to service on a hospital ship standing by off the coast, launches making nightly runs to Cuba with explosives and saboteurs. Training groups of exiles were reported breaking up at a mysterious jungle-warfare camp in the Louisiana bayous, at a sabotage school near Houston, at a string of seven camps between Guatemala and Panama. Between 3,000 and 5,000 anti-Castro Cubans—some reports said 7,000—awaited the signal.