Ode to the Sixth Battalion: The Battle of the Rotunda

Posted on May 24, 2024 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

This is part 3 of my series of blog posts in honor of my late father, Francisco Guerra, a veteran of Brigade 2506, Sixth Battalion.

End of Invasion Day (Night of 17 April) and Start of Invasion Day Two (Late Night to Early Morning of 18 April) (D-Day +1)

By all accounts, the first full night of the invasion saw the most intense fighting of the Bay of Pigs invasion at the Battle of the Rotunda, close to Playa Larga (code name: Red Beach). The Second Battalion, led by Erneido Oliva, whose exploits during the Bay of Pigs would become the stuff of legend, had landed on Red Beach, and by late afternoon (1800 hours), Oliva and his men had received critical reinforcements from other parts of the Brigade: a platoon of mortars and an M-1 tank from the Fourth (heavy-weapons) Battalion as well as one company from the Sixth Battalion. (See Lynch 2000, p. 102; Wyden 1979, p. 272.)

Most of the remaining brigade forces, including the rest of the Sixth Battalion, were based in the vicinity Playa Girón (Blue Beach), about 40 kilometers south. Any ground-based enemy attack against them would most likely have to go through Playa Larga. Anticipating just such an attack, Deputy Commander Erneido Oliva and his men set up six mortars and two bazookas in strategic positions around a central traffic circle north of Playa Larga (Red Beach). (Note #4)

Note #4: In Cuba, traffic circles are called rotundas — hence the name of the forthcoming fight of 17-18 April: the Battle of the Rotunda.

Starting at 1930 hours, Brigade forces (now dug-in around the Rotunda) had to endure a sustained and never-ending barrage of artillery fire from approaching enemy forces. This deadly barrage of artillery fire lasted over two hours, inflicting significant casualties: eight or nine dead and 30 wounded. (Lynch 2000, p. 103; see also Triay 2001, p. 77.) In all, over 1,200 rounds of artillery were fired off, but Oliva’s men had maintained their strategic positions around the Rotunda and held their fire, as they had precious little ammunition available to them. (Lynch 2000, p. 103.)

Then, just after midnight (1230 hours), enemy forces finally approached the strategic traffic circle, unaware of the trap set for them, and the ensuing battle lasted over five hours! (See Lynch 2000, pp. 103-104.) When it was all said and done, Oliva and his men had fought and defeated a much stronger and better-equipped force consisting of 2,000 men and 22 Soviet T-34 and Stalin III tanks. (Ibid., p. 104.) But this victory over Fidel Castro and his Communist forces would prove to be short-lived. The Brigade was running out of ammunition, and the enemy still controlled the air.

The rest of the men of the Sixth Battalion (my father’s unit) were still being held in reserve at Playa Girón during these pivotal hours, but they too would soon join the fight. Stay tuned: I will retrace the footsteps of the Sixth Battalion (my father’s unit) and memorialize their futile last battle — the Quixotic “Last Stand of Girón” — in my next two posts …

Graphic Firing Table: Battles That Changed History: Bay of Pigs (Bahia de Cochinos) 1961
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Ode to the Sixth Battalion: The Beachhead

Posted on May 23, 2024 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

This is part 2 of my series of blog posts in honor of my late father, Francisco Guerra, a veteran of Brigade 2506, Sixth Battalion.

Invasion Day, Afternoon of 17 April

As I mentioned in my previous post, the Sixth Battalion landed at Playa Girón (code name: “Blue Beach”) during the pre-dawn hours of 17 April, but their mother ship, the Rio Escondido, was hit by an enemy rocket and sank in the morning hours of D-Day (at approximately 9:30 AM). In fact, the Rio Escondido was actually the second brigade ship that was lost that morning. The Houston, which was carrying the members of the Second and Fifth Battalions (Note #3), ran aground in the Bay of Pigs after she was attacked by enemy aircraft three hours earlier. (See Wyden 1979, pp. 228-229.)

(Note #3: The Second Battalion had already disembarked at its designated landing site on Playa Larga — code name: Red Beach — when the Houston was hit by enemy forces, but most of the men of the Fifth Battalion were still aboard. They just barely escaped with their lives into the Zapata swamp area, a few hundred feet from their lost ship.)

The entire invasion force, however, was able to land ashore and most of the men of the Brigade were able to regroup. I say “most” because the Fifth Battalion never joined the fight. Their cowardly battalion commander, Montero Duque, refused to obey orders from Erneido Oliva to join forces with the Second Battalion at Playa Larga. (See Lynch 2000, p. 98.) Yet, despite these serious setbacks (the loss of two ships and an entire battalion), by sundown of 17 April the invasion force as a whole had made some significant gains: “… the brigade had seized a beachhead forty-two miles long and twenty miles deep, at the cost of less than a dozen men killed or wounded.” (Lynch 2000, pp. 159-160.) But a major battle was about to begin at Playa Larga/Red Beach, just 40 kilometers north from the Sixth Battalion’s trenches at Blue Beach: the Battle of the Rotunda …

Graphic Firing Table: Battles That Changed History: Bay of Pigs (Bahia de Cochinos) 1961
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Ode to the Sixth Battalion: Pre-invasion Preparations and Landing at Playa Girón

Posted on May 22, 2024 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

As I have mentioned previously, I recently discovered that my late father, Francisco Guerra, was a veteran of the legendary Brigada de Asalto 2506. He joined the Brigade in early 1961 at the age of 18, was assigned serial number #4133 upon his enlistment, and was attached to the Sixth Battalion. Now, after reading several books about this heroic band of brothers (my complete Bay of Pigs reading list is posted here), I want to share a few additional facts specific to my father’s unit, the Sixth Battalion:

Pre-invasion: Rendez-vous at Blue Beach

The Sixth Battalion was supposed to land at Playa Girón — code named “Blue Beach”, one of three strategic landing spots for the doomed Bay of Pigs invasion — and would be held in reserve until needed.

For their rendez-vous to Playa Girón, the men of the Sixth Battalion boarded the Rio Escondido (pictured below; see also Note #1), an old and rusty civilian cargo ship secretly leased by the CIA to transport the members of the Brigade and their supplies. (See, e.g., Lynch 2000, p. 69.) But their voyage began with an ominous omen, for there were not enough life jackets to go around: “The 180 men [see Note #2] of the Sixth Battalion who came aboard [the Garcia Line’s Rio Escondido] seemed cheerful enough, but there were no life jackets for them.” (Wyden 1979, p. 133.)

Note #1: In all, the Brigade’s little flotilla consisted of six scrawny vessels: the Atlantico, the Caribe, the Houston, the Lake Charles, the Rio Escondido, and the Santa Ana. (For a detailed description of this aging fleet, see here).

Note #2: According to Peter Wyden, the North American journalist who wrote the definitive account of the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Sixth Battalion was 180 men strong (see the Wyden quotation above), but when I checked the official records of Brigade 2506 (see here), only 140 men are listed as belonging to this battalion.

Continuing with my story, on the eve of their ill-fated invasion the Brigade fielded six infantry battalions — in addition to a heavy weapons battalion, an armored truck battalion, a tank company, a paratrooper unit, a frogmen unit, and an air unit — but since the Sixth Battalion was the last to be formed, the members of this late-addition unit had to complete their training en route to the invasion: “Because of the limited time available before the invasion, the [6th] battalion …. were forced to complete their weapons training while en route to the invasion. They used oil drums, either tossed overboard or towed on a long cable behind [their] ship, for target practice.” (Lynch 2000, p. 25.)

Invasion Day, Pre-dawn Hours: Landing at Blue Beach

When the Rio Escondido arrived at the Bay of Pigs at the appointed hour on D-Day, the men of the battalion began unloading the Brigade’s first batch of supplies and boarded their assigned Landing Craft Utility (LCU) transport vessels, flat-bottom boats used by amphibious forces to transfer equipment and troops from ship to shore, and successfully disembarked on Blue Beach. But then disaster struck. As the men of the Brigade were about to discover, Fidel Castro still had several deadly single-propeller “Sea Furies” as well as some supersonic Lockheed T-33s at his disposal. The enemy would control the skies above the beaches because President Kennedy had cancelled the Brigade’s scheduled D-Day air strikes at the last hour.

Invasion Day, Morning Hours: Sinking of the Rio Escondido

After the sun went up, the Sixth Battalion’s mother ship, the Rio Escondido, was attacked by an enemy Sea Fury aircraft screaming down from 5000 feet: “On Blue Beach, the LCUs had landed the 6th Battalion from the Rio Escondido. They were returning to the ship to remove its deck cargo of drums of aviation fuel when a Sea Fury came screaming down from five thousand feet.” (Lynch 2000, p. 113.) According to Grayston Lynch, a CIA operative who was on the scene, the enemy aircraft fired four of its rockets at the mother ship: “Three of the rockets overshot the ship and exploded harmlessly in the water.” The fourth rocket, however, struck the forward deck of the ship. (Ibid.)

The explosion caused by this direct hit was massive: “… the Rio Escondido exploded in a huge, mushroom-shaped fireball. The mushroom spread until it was over a mile in diameter and several thousand feet high.” (Lynch 2000, p. 113.) All of the ammunition aboard the Rio Escondido, along with the Brigade’s critical communications van and life-saving medial supplies, were lost at sea in the explosion: “The Brigade suffered a major blow later that morning: Castro’s planes, unrelenting in their attacks, hit the cargo ship Rio Escondido with a rocket off the shore of Blue Beach.” (Triay 2001, p. 75.)

While this disaster was unfolding in real time, the men of the Sixth Brigade were en route to help unload the ammunition and other vital supplies from the Rio Escondido. Now, there was nothing for them to unload. Stay tuned for my next post. It gets worse …

The Rio Escondido on its last visit to the Port of New Orleans before sailing to its demise at the Bay of Pigs. (Photo Credit: Capt. James McNamara)
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Homenaje a la Brigada 2506

Posted on May 21, 2024 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

As I have mentioned in some of my previous posts (see here, here, and here), I recently learned that my late father, Francisco Guerra, was a veteran of the legendary Brigada de Asalto 2506, an idealistic group of mostly young men who fought to liberate their beloved Cuba in April 1961. Among other things, I discovered that my dad joined the Brigade in early 1961 at the age of 18, was assigned serial number #4133 upon his enlistment, and was attached to the Sixth Battalion. Now, after reading several books about this heroic band of brothers and their ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion (spoiler alert: they were betrayed by men at the highest levels of the U.S. government), I can share a few more facts — not only general information about the overall composition of the Brigade; but also some details specific to my father’s unit, the Sixth Battalion:

  1. Demographic composition of Brigade 2506: The Brigade represented a broad cross-section of Cuban society: “… [Fidel] Castro would speak disparagingly of the Brigade as mercenaries, war criminals, and sons of the jaded rich who were coming to regain their vast holdings at the expense of the workers. In reality, Brigade 2506 was a cross-section of Cuba. The men ranged in age from sixteen to sixty-one, with the average age of 29. There were peasants and fishermen as well as doctors, lawyers, and bankers. A large percentage of the men were married and had children: and there were a number of father-and-son pairs aboard the ships.” (Johnson et al. 1964, p. 98; see also Triay 2001, pp. 13-14.)
  2. Military composition of Brigade 2506: The actual Cuban invasion force was composed of eight battalions in all, along with a tank company, a paratrooper unit, a frogmen unit, and an air unit: “The concept of this brigade was one of a cadre or skeleton force. *** It was composed of six infantry battalions, a heavy weapons battalion, an armored truck battalion, and a tank company.” (Lynch 2000, p. 24.)
  3. Commander of the Sixth Battalion: The Sixth Battalion was under the command of Francisco Montiel Rivera, who had been a captain in the Rebel Army before becoming disillusioned with Fidel’s dictatorship: “To head the 6th Battalion, the CIA, in August 1960, recruited and brought from Mexico City Francisco Montiel, a former Rebel Army captain with Raul Castro’s column in the Sierra Cristal mountains ….” (Lynch 2000, p. 25; see also Johnson et al. 1964, p. 149.)
  4. Formation of the Sixth Battalion: The Sixth Battalion was the last to be formed and thus received limited training: “Montiel’s battalion was the last to be formed. Because of the limited time available before the invasion, the battalion received the least training. They were forced to complete their weapons training while en route to the invasion. They used oil drums, either tossed overboard or towed on a long cable behind [their] ship, for target practice. Despite its late start and short training period, the 6th Battalion did well in combat, thanks principally to Montiel’s combat experience ….” (Lynch 2000, p. 25; see also Johnson et al. 1964, p. 99: “… most of the men [of Brigade 2506] had no previous military training or experience. Indeed, some had never held a weapon until that weekend aboard ship [on the invasion flotilla] because the Fifth and Sixth Infantry Battalions were not recruited until the end of March [1961], and some arrived at [the Brigade’s training camp, Base Trax in Guatemala] just as the Brigade left for the Trampoline base [in Nicaragua].” See also Triay 2001, p. 39: “The Sixth Battalion, the last to be formed, would land at [Playa] Girón and would be held in reserve.”)
  5. Combat mission of Sixth Battalion: The Sixth Battalion was supposed to land at Playa Girón — code name: “Blue Beach” — and would be held in reserve until needed: “Three landing points were selected. *** The center landing, at Playa Girón, designated as Blue Beach, would be composed of the main body of the brigade. This force included the 4th and 6th Battalions, the heavy weapons battalion, the armored truck battalion, the tank company, and the brigade headquarters.” (Lynch 2000, p. 41; see also ibid., p. 42: “Brigade headquarters at Playa Girón would hold the 6th Battalion and one M-41 tank in reserve …. While in this reserve position, the 6th Battalion was to be kept busy as stevedores on the beach, unloading the cargo ships and setting up the brigade supply depot ….”

So, how did the Sixth Battalion actually perform during the fateful invasion? I will pick up where I left off in my next post …

2506 Brigade Flag | International Spy Museum
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Who betrayed the men of Brigade 2506?

Posted on May 20, 2024 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

“As time went by …, the exile community realized that the one true chance they had to overthrow the dictator and ensure democracy in Cuba had been on the beaches of the Bay of Pigs in April 1961. The image of the betrayed freedom fighter faithfully awaiting promised air support remains very powerful and poignant among Cuban Americans.”

Victor Andres Triay, Bay of Pigs: An Oral History of Brigade 2506 (2001), p. 183.

“Many have called the Bay of Pigs Invasion a fiasco. It was not a fiasco — it was a tragedy. For the first time in my thirty-seven years, I was ashamed of my country.”

Grayston L. Lynch, Decision for Disaster: Betrayal at the Bay of Pigs (2000), p. 132.

***

Ten days ago, I mentioned how I discovered that my late father was a veteran of the heroic Brigada de Asalto 2506, which fought to liberate Cuba in April 1961. I compiled an extensive list of reading materials (see here) to learn more about this remarkable and awe-inspiring aspect of his life, this little corner of Cuban-American history. It suffices to say that I have now finished the fourth of four excellent books on the Cuban Brigade and the Bay of Pigs disaster and am ready to begin reporting my findings …

(As an aside, before proceeding, my favorite book by far was Grayston Lynch, Decision for Disaster: Betrayal at the Bay of Pigs (2000), though the most meticulous and comprehensive history of the doomed invasion is Peter Wyden’s Bay of Pigs: The Untold Story (1979), a must-read by any measure. Also, for more personal accounts of the ill-fated invasion from the perspective of the main Brigade leaders as well as some of the rank-and-file members themselves, I recommend two additional tomes: Victor Andres Triay, Bay of Pigs: An Oral History of Brigade 2506 (2001), and Haynes Johnson, The Bay of Pigs: The Leaders’ Story of Brigade 2506 (1964).)

So, why did the Bay of Pigs invasion end in defeat? Alas, the men of Brigade 2506 fought valiantly and beat back a stronger and better-equipped army for three days … until they ran out of ammunition. These brave men, my father among them, were betrayed by one man and one man only: President John F. Kennedy. In summary, the invasion to liberate Cuba was supposed to have been launched at the sandy Bay of Casilda at dawn with dozens of simultaneous air strikes carried out by a squadron of two dozen Brigade aircraft — not at the swampy Bay of Pigs in the middle of the night without any air cover — but a young and inexperienced president, surrounded by a small cohort of soft New Frontiersmen like Arthur Schlesinger, watered down the original amphibious invasion plan that the CIA had drafted and presented to the White House in January of 1960.

Under the original plan, the Brigade would have landed at dawn on the soft, sandy beaches of Casilda, Cuba, less than five kilometers south of Trinidad, where opposition to Fidel Castro was strong. Simultaneous with the landing at Casilda, Brigade pilots were to launch a series of surprise air strikes against Fidel’s three main military airfields to knock out his small air force in one massive blow. With complete control of the air, the Brigade would be able to establish a safe and secure beachhead, unload their ammo and other supplies at Casilda’s deepwater port, encircle the historic colonial city of Trinidad (a huge symbolic victory given the history of Trinidad as Cuba’s oldest city), and invite the leaders of the Cuban Revolutionary Council, which was led by former prime minister José Miró Cardona, to establish a new democratic government in opposition. (The last piece of the plan was for the U.S. to extend diplomatic recognition to the Cardona government in Trinidad and overtly support the Brigade’s efforts to overthrow Fidel with extra men and materiel.)

President Kennedy, however, concluded that this plan was “too spectacular” (Wyden 1979, p. 100) and then had it postponed and watered down for purely political and aesthetic reasons. He changed the invasion site to a remote area called the Bay of Pigs, ordered the invasion to be done at night (an unprecedented undertaking in the annals of military history), ordered a reduction in the number of initial air strikes (from 22 B-26 bombers to just six), and then cancelled the remaining air strikes altogether — a fateful decision that many of his advisors called “criminally negligent”. In short, it was JFK (not the CIA) who bungled the operation. The invasion was not only doomed to fail because of his decisions; the brave men of Brigade 2506 were betrayed by the very man who sent them to the shores of Cuba.

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Sunday song: *Where angels fear to tread*

Posted on May 19, 2024 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol
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Jose Marti Plaza, Echo Park, Los Angeles

Posted on May 18, 2024 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol
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Why the Bay of Pigs still matters

Posted on May 17, 2024 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

“Until April 1961, the United States had never lost a war, and above all had never deserted a friend.”

–Grayston Lynch, Decision for disaster: betrayal at the Bay of Pigs (2000), p. 26

In other words, before the USA lost the Vietnam War, the war on terror (“Operation Enduring Freedom” in Afghanistan), and the so-called war on drugs, we lost Cuba.

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Goodbye Dad

Posted on May 16, 2024 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Yesterday (15 May) was my father’s burial. As I mentioned previously (see here), he was a veteran of the heroic Assault Brigade 2506, which fought to liberate Cuba in April 1961. I will have more to say about the Brigade (especially the 6th Battalion, my father’s unit) in the next day or two …

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Posted on May 15, 2024 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol
List of black flags - Wikipedia
Requiescat in pace
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