The Bay of Pigs Invasion was deliberately sabotaged by the Kennedy Administration.
For a simple overview:
1. The U.S. delayed the recruiting of men because they were on an election year.
2. The U.S. delayed the invasion because a new administration had been elected.
3. The U.S. did not want men with military experience; only 50 out of almost 3,000 were career military men, (1,500 land troops, 200 aviation, 400 navy, the rest support).
4. The U.S. delayed the date of the invasion from 3/10/61 to 4/17/61 because President Kennedy wanted it suspended and the Cuban Exiles left in Central America with a severance check.
5. President Kennedy changed the invasion point at the last week; from Trinidad (an ideal place), to Bay of Pigs (a swamp behind a reef), because "he did not want the invasion to be too visible".
6. President Kennedy insisted that the invasion be done at night even though the U.S. itself had never conducted a night invasion even during W.W. II.
7. President Kennedy suspended the flights of the 24 airplanes (18 bombers and 6 transport), that it had lent to the Cuban Exile force, because he did not want to be seen as "too involved".
8. The U.S. government said that it would give some planes back if the Cuban Exile force could set-up an airfield once they landed in Cuba. The exiles extended an airfield in Giron Beach in 8 hours, but the planes were never given back.
9. The exiles invaded with 8 Cuban ships. There were 22 American Navy ships just over the horizon "watching the show".
10. Six ships managed to land their men with no air support.
11. Only 2 ships (the "Blagar" and the "Barbara J"), were able to land all of their weapons and ammunitions.
12. One ship, the "Rio Escondido", (carrying a major load of weapons, ammunitions and fuel), was hit directly by the Communist air force and exploded with such force (mushroom cloud), that the U.S. Navy ships watching the show thought that the Communists had an atomic bomb and had just droped it over the Bay of Pigs.
13. Another ship, the "Houston", had to be run-aground onto a beach in order to try to unload its weapons and ammunitions.
14. The ships "Atlantico" and "Caribe", were never able to land their weapons and ammunitions. The "Lake Charles" (Operation 40) and "Nino Diaz" (Decoy Operation in Oriente Province), were never able to disembark their soldiers, weapons, and ammunition.
15. The exiles fought for three days non-stop, with only a day's worth of ammunitions.
16. They were supposed to have a kill-ratio of 15 to 1 in order to succeed. They had a kill-ratio of 30 to 1.
17. They lost 99 men in three days of constant fighting, the enemy lost approximately 3,100.
18. The enemy sent two waves of 15,000 militia-men each against the exiles. The first wave suffered over 50% desertion rate. The second wave almost 0% after the word got around that the U.S. was not helping the exiles.
19. After they had run out of ammunition, 1,113 men were captured and jailed for almost two years, 10 were executed, 10 were asphyxiated in a sealed truck, and 12 more died from dehydration as they escaped in a small boat.
20. Months later (January 31, 1962), at the Organization of American States meeting in Punta del Este, Uruguay; Che Guevara thanked the U.S. Ambassador for the "American help" given to the Cuban Exiles.
This information has been collected from all the books ever written about the Bay of Pigs Invasion. I recommend as the best books:
"Decision for Disaster" by Graystone Lynch, 1998.
"Operation Puma" (in English) by Eduardo Ferrer, 1975.
"The Bay of Pigs" by Alejandro de Quesada, 2009.
Frank Resillez
Key Largo, FL.
