This weekend, I attended the Ninth Annual Civil Procedure Workshop (#CPW9) at the venerable law school formerly known (until just last year) as the Hastings College of Law (now UC Law), and one of my favorite works hands down at this year’s conference was a totally unexpected one: a forthcoming non-fiction novel authored by one of my esteemed law professor colleagues. She shared an extended excerpt from her literary creation with us but asked us not to reveal any details about her new book until it is published, since one part of her story involves a law case that is still pending before the courts. All I am going to say (for now) is that, based on what I have read thus far, my colleague and new friend is not only one hell of a good storyteller; she is also an inspiration: I hope to follow in her literary footsteps next fall, when I will be on sabbatical to finish writing my own “law and pop culture” book.
It’s been a few years since I have dabbled in game theory (see here and here, for example). Nevertheless, building on the work of Andrew Munro, Scott Page, and others, I am happy to report that I will be presenting my “Colonel Blotto Litigation Game” work-in-progress — a draft of which is available here — at the Ninth Annual Civil Procedure Workshop (CPW9) at UC Law SF in beautiful downtown San Francisco this weekend. My talk and paper will be dedicated to the memory of my father, Don Francisco Guerra.
To close out the month of May, below are my previous posts on Assault Brigade 2506, on the Cuban Liberation Air Force, and on the Sixth Battalion (my father’s unit) — may he rest in peace and may our beloved Cuba be one day free:
Via Wikipedia: “Saudade is an emotional state of melancholic or profoundly nostalgic longing for a beloved yet absent something or someone.” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudade)
See also this report (via NPR), which is paradoxically titled “An Untranslatable, Undeniably Potent Word”.
You can read the entire list of “23 truths I wish I knew at 23” here, though I especially appreciate item #5.
This is the last installment of my series of blog posts in honor of my late father, Francisco Guerra, a veteran of Brigade 2506, Sixth Battalion.
“The last battle had an epic quality all the more tragic because it was so hopeless. It did not affect the outcome or even add a footnote to history. It was merely another moment when the men [of Brigade 2506] tried against great odds and failed.”
Haynes Johnson, The Bay of Pigs: The Leaders’ Story of Brigade 2506 (1964), p. 163.
***
Wednesday, 19 April (D-Day +2)
On the road from Playa Larga (Red Beach) to Playa Girón (Blue Beach) — what I have called “the road with no name” — the men of the Sixth Battalion prepared for what would be their final engagement with the enemy — a Quixotic battle that would become known as “The Last Stand of Girón“. The previous night (18 April), their new battalion leader, Erneido Oliva (pictured below), had selected a strategic spot where the road curved. (See Johnson 1964, p. 163; see also Triay 2001, p. 80. Recall that Oliva had assumed direct command of the men of the Sixth Battalion on 18 April after their former chief, Francisco Montiel, was wounded.)
According to one account, at around 7:00 AM Oliva positioned his remaining big guns — seven bazookas — by the bend in the road and stationed the Sixth Battalion, armed only with rifles, in front of the bazookas. (See Johnson 1964, p. 163; see also Triay 2001, p. 80.) He then spoke with brigade commander Pepe San Román by radio, telling him that that a major attack was imminent and that he needed reinforcements. (Johnson 1964, pp. 163-164.) “Fifteen minutes later the Second Battalion arrived, and then ten minutes after that three Brigade tanks.” (Ibid., p. 164.)
The fighting began at 9:45 AM, and in the course of battle brigade forces knocked out three enemy tanks and an armored truck. By 12:30 AM the enemy fell back. (Johnson 1964, pp. 164-165.) But the enemy had more men and more ammunition, and they resumed their attack at two o’clock. (Ibid., p. 165.) With precious little ammunition, Oliva’s men now found themselves engaged in hand-to-hand combat. (Ibid.; see also Triay 2001, p. 81.)
Somehow, against all odds, they were able to stop the advance.
Although the brave men of the Second and Sixth Battalions were able to hold the line, they were now out of ammunition. Some men were sent back to Playa Girón (Blue Beach) for more ammo. (Johnson 1964, p. 166.) In the meantime, Oliva had lost radio contact with brigade commander Pepe San Román, so during a lull in the fighting, around 4:15 PM, Oliva went back to brigade headquarters at Blue Beach to confer with San Román. (Ibid., p. 169.) When he arrived at the command post, however, he saw the radio equipment destroyed and the maps burned. The eerie headquarters were all but abandoned. (Ibid., p. 171.) What happened next is heartbreaking:
"Thinking that he and his men had been betrayed by the Americans and abandoned by his own Brigade commander, Oliva, surrounded by three hundred of the Second and Sixth Battalions, tore off his shirt, shook his fist toward the sea and shouted that he would not abandon them; that they would die like men facing the enemy. 'I can still see Oliva standing there, shaking his fist,' one said long after." (Ibid.)
Until the end, Oliva and his men did not know they had been beaten. All they knew is that they had been betrayed.
This is the penultimate or next-to-last installment of my series of blog posts in honor of my late father, Francisco Guerra, a veteran of Brigade 2506, Sixth Battalion.
Tuesday, 18 April (D-Day +1)
The brave men of the Brigade were able to repel a much larger and better-equipped force at the ferocious Battle of the Rotunda on the night of 17-18 April, but they were now running desperately low on ammunition. The Brigade’s remaining supply ships had fled into international waters after her sister ships, the Houston and the Rio Escondido, were bombed by enemy planes on the first day of the invasion.
But not all was lost. In addition to their (alas, short-lived) victory at the Battle of the Rotunda at Red Beach (Playa Larga), the Brigade had also secured a strategic airstrip at Playa Girón (Blue Beach), and Pepe San Román, the overall commander of brigade troops on the ground, was not only able to set up a makeshift military command center nearby; he was also furiously attempting to re-establish the brigade’s supply lines.
With the local airfield now under brigade control, the battle might yet be won. The brigade’s air force, consisting of two dozen B-26 bombers, could now begin airlifting additional men and materiel where they were most needed and change the tide of battle and perhaps the course of Cuban history, but in order to maintain control of the airport, the Brigade would have to defend the 40-kilometer, two-lane road connecting Red Beach and Blue Beach: the road with no name. (See Note #5.)
Note #5: As of this writing (25 May 2024), I am unable to determine if the Brigade had assigned a code name to this strategic road. In any case, at the time of the ill-fated invasion (April 1961), the Playa Larga-Playa Girón road was relatively new and had no official name or route number. According to Google Maps (see here; scroll down to the map below “Ocho Vías hasta Playa Larga”), this scenic road is now Route 11. Other maps, however, such as this one, call it Route 122.
On Tuesday morning (18 April), San Román sent the rest of the Sixth Battalion to defend this road. (See Triay 2001, p. 79; see also Johnson 1964, p. 145. Recall from my previous post that one of the Sixth Battalion’s companies had already marched up to Playa Larga to join forces with Oliva’s Second Battalion in anticipation of what would become the epic “Battle of the Rotunda”.) At some point during the day, the designated commander of the Sixth Battalion, Francisco Montiel, was wounded, so the legendary Erneido Oliva took charge of Montiel’s men and began preparing for their next major battle. (See Triay 2001, p. 79; see also Wyden 1979, p. 281: “On the western outskirts of Girón, along the road to Playa Larga, Oliva, the last Brigade fighter to give up, organized what the Brigade came to call the ‘last stand of Girón.’”)
But without air cover and with dwindling stores of ammunition, time was running out for my father’s dream of a Free Cuba. Moreover, the men of the Sixth Battalion now confronted a dire situation. How could they defend the road with no name with enemy forces now approaching from five or six different directions (see map pictured below), not including the enemy’s unrelenting attacks from the air? Stay tuned, I will retrace the footsteps of the Sixth Battalion (my father’s unit) and describe their last battle — the legendary “Last Stand of Girón” — in my next post …
Welcome to the online home of the IASS
Philosophical thought from an amateur and armchair thinker. No expertise, just speculation.
In Conversation with Legal and Moral Philosophers
Relitigating Our Favorite Disputes
PhD, Jagiellonian University
Inquiry and opinion
Life is all about being curious, asking questions, and discovering your passion. And it can be fun!
Books, papers, and other jurisprudential things
Ramblings of a retiree in France
BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH
Natalia's space
hoping we know we're living the dream
Lover of math. Bad at drawing.
We hike, bike, and discover Central Florida and beyond
Making it big in business after age 40
Reasoning about reasoning, mathematically.
I don't mean to sound critical, but I am; so that's how it comes across
remember the good old days...
"Let me live, love and say it well in good sentences." - Sylvia Plath
a personal view of the theory of computation
Submitted For Your Perusal is a weblog wherein Matt Thomas shares and writes about things he thinks are interesting.
Logic at Columbia University
Just like the Thesis Whisperer - but with more money
the sky is no longer the limit
Technology, Culture, and Ethics
Just like the horse whisperer - but with more pages
Poetry, Other Words, and Cats
prior probability 