Just month after Fidel Castro and his communist revolutionaries acquire power inCubain 1959 , the United States government in secret begin to plot his ruination . Under President Dwight D. Eisenhower , the CIA recruited Cuban expat in the U.S. to take form a antagonistic - radical US Army at a covert CIA training camp in Nicaragua called " Happy Valley . " The group was known as Brigade 2506 . WhenJohn F. Kennedywas elect president in 1960 , he inherit a convoluted system to invade Cuba using 1,500 of these anti - Castro Cubans train by the CIA .
The mission , known as the Bay of Pigs Invasion , was doomed from the start and is widely regarded as one of America’sworst strange insurance failures . The attack began the sunup of April 15 , 1961 , with what was conjecture to be an aerial bombardment of Castro ’s small air effect . But the CIA - trained pilots , who flew World War II - geological era B-26 bomber painted to look like Cuban plane , failed to demolish all of Castro ’s aircraft .
That ’s when thing really start to unravel , saysJim Rasenberger , generator of " The Brilliant Disaster : JFK , Castro , and America ’s Doomed Invasion of Cuba ’s Bay of Pigs " . Here are five reasons why the Bay of Pigs Invasion go so stunningly wrong .
1. Journalists Spotted the CIA’s Fake Plane
While eight of the B-26 poor boy were air to ruin Castro ’s airfields , a ninth flew straight to Miami , Florida , where " the CIA came up with this cockamamie idea , " says Rasenberger .
The B-26 fender in Miami claimed to be a defector from Castro ’s air force who had risen up with his associate to attack thecommunist authorities . The CIA took striving to make his plane face legit , accomplished with a Cuban air force-out serial bit and a nozzle cone riddled with tonic bullet holes , but savvy journalists on the ground quickly saw through the ruse .
" There was still tape on the grease-gun barrels to keep the dust out and his gun were mounted in the olfactory organ of the plane , while Castro ’s were under the wings , " says Rasenberger . " It gave away the whole game right there . "
Suddenly , with one unsound phony occupation , it was plain to everyone that the U.S. was clearly behind this intrusion . The Soviet PM Nikita Khrushchev was angry and Kennedy was back into a corner . If he admitted U.S. intimacy , he risked set about World War III .
2. Kennedy Canceled the Second Airstrike
With the world observation , Kennedy made a hard decisiveness to cancel a second round of airstrikes planned for the early hours of April 17 . Those airstrikes were supposed to destroy the rest of Castro ’s aviation force and pass a path for the amphibious pre - dawn landing place of 1,500 mankind .
" The moment Kennedy canceled those airstrikes , he doom the invasion , " says Rasenberger . " Castro still had half of his planes left . For the invasion to have any chance of succeeding , those plane had to be take out . "
Rasenberger does n’t retrieve Kennedy have " cold foundation , " as some critics alleged , but rather made a noetic decision that a second airstrike was n’t deserving going to warfare with Russia . Unfortunately , it would prove to be the deputation ’s undoing , leaving the invading effect and provision ships vulnerable to devastating airstrikes from Castro ’s stay airplane pilot .
3. The Landing Site Was Covered With Coral
The CIA had been planning the amphibious landing place on Cuba ’s Playa Girón for calendar month . Spy planes took dozens of aerial photographs of the landing site , but somehow the CIA officers pretermit a major obstruction — an offshore sweep of razor - sharpcoral .
" The aery photos showed something in the water , but CIA expert had explained it away as seaweed , " says Rasenberger .
The plan was for the 1,500 CIA - backed Cuban fighters to slide quiet on to the beach before dawn , unload supplies from support vessels and establish a beachhead before Castro ’s army even woke up . But the coral discombobulate everything into pandemonium , sinking some of the landing foxiness and slowing the amphibian landing place to a crawl .
" By the meter the first light came up , all those man were supposed to be on the beach and the reenforcement vessels out of stack , " says Rasenberger . " The whole affair got totally know up . "
Castro ’s aviation force , still intact after Kennedy ’s invalidate airstrike , strafed the encroachment violence like it was mark praxis , not only killing men , but sinking two of their provision ship and send the rest fleeing to external waters .
" The effect was that all of the supplies for these 1,500 men were remove away , " says Rasenberger . " Medical supplies , arms , vehicles . Everything they needed to pull round on the beach was gone . "
4. There Was No Spontaneous Cuban Uprising
It ’s unclear precisely what the CIA trust would occur after the exiled Cuban fighters secured the beachhead at Playa Girón , but one of the political Assumption of Mary was that once news of the invasion reached Havana , it would enliven a spontaneous revolt from Castro ’s underground enemies .
" That did n’t happen , " says Rasenberger . " By the spring of 1961 , all the anti - Castro Cubans had either left the country or were in clink in Cuba . "
At this point , the survivors of the botched beach landing place were pinned down on Playa Girón while Castro ’s United States Army closed in from the surround swampland . No counter - subversive were going to come out of the woodwork to save them , assuming they could have queer the swampland . But the survivors could still reckon on their CIA backers , right ?
5. A Time Zone Snafu Ruined the Rescue
At this item , the CIA and the U.S. Navy were begging Kennedy to send U.S. Air Force fighters to hit down Castro ’s aeroplane and clear a provision route for the immobilize down troops . Kennedy rejected the thought of direct attacks by U.S. planes , but finally authorized one hour of cover version by six unmarked American Skyhawk jet-propelled plane from the U.S.S. Essex , an aircraft attack aircraft carrier patrolling nearby .
The Skyhawks would n’t enlist Castro ’s plane directly but would allow defensive cover charge for B-26 sub aviate in from Happy Valley . As it turned out , those B-26s were n’t fly by Cuban transportation this time , but by U.S. airmen from Alabama who were in Nicaragua as trainer .
" What befall next was really strange . There was a prison term screwup , " articulate Rasenberger . The meter agreed upon was 6:30 a.m. EST but for some reason the B-26s establish an hour early . The jets immediately flew after them but they could n’t reach the invasion area in time to extend protection .
When the American - piloted B-26s fly over Cuba wait Navy jets to be protect them , they were all alone . Two of the super acid were shot down and four of the American pilot burner were killed . Castro recovered one of the bodies and kept it as proof of America ’s handwriting in the failed plot of ground . Seventy - five percent of Brigade 2506 end up in Cuban jailhouse . They were freed in 1962 in rally for $ 53 million in food and medicine .
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