The unloading of the Baie of the Pigs was an military operation decided by the administration of Dwight David Eisenhower, and launched by that of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. It aimed at making unload with Cuba, the April 17th 1961, approximately 1400 anti-castristes emigrants (exiled cuban) trained with the the United States by the CIA, to reverse the mode lately established of Fidel Castro.

War of the information and raids gigantic

The intelligence services castrists were in contact with the the KGB which framed them, and had agents infiltrated among exiled which were involved for unloading. At the beginning of the month of April 1961, they know that the unloading is imminent, and they are informed of its exact date (April 17th, 1961) several days in advance.

In order to prevent the population from joining with exiled which unloads, the forces castrists raflent and park under the threat of the weapons more than 200.000 people, of which all noncommunist population near to the zone of unloading and tens of thousands of people in Havana, in closed public places, in particular the stages, the barracks, the courses of school and the theaters.

Description of the unloading

The morning of the Saturday, April 15, six bombers B 26 painted with the cuban colors, come from the Nicaragua, air bases of Havana and Santiago attack (southern).

Five apparatuses of aviation castrist - about fifteen planes in all - are destroyed on the ground. But nine apparatuses which had been dissimulated in preparation for this bombardment remain intact and will play a decisive part afterwards 48 hours.

April 16th, at the time of the burial of the seven victims of the bombardments, Fidel Castro, after having compared the unloading with the Attack on Pearl Harbor, lance: “What the imperialists cannot forgive us, it is to have made triumph a socialist revolution right under the nose over the United States”.

The following day, on April 17th towards 01:15, brigade 2506, unloads in two points, with Playa Larga and Playa Girón. Maybe at the bottom and the Eastern entry of the Bay of the Pigs, with less than 200 km in the south-east of Havana.

For broad, eight cargo liners are intended to consolidate the head of bridge. But the remainder of the aviation of Castro takes off: the Houston touched by rockets is failed and the battalion which it transports will not be able to never unload. The Rio Escondido , in charge of 10 days of ammunition, is cast. The others must take again the broad one not to undergo the same fate.

In the sky, T 33 of Castro cut down two B 26, and four pilots (American…) are killed. On the ground, the effect of surprised unloading is quasi-no one: the invasion was “an open secret”, will say the cuban Minister for the Interior of the time, Ramiro Valdes, and 200.000 militiamans are on the war footing. The combat, baited, will last two days, until April 19th. But, private of air support and the heavy material, the “mercenaries” throw sponge: 1.189 prisoners, 161 died in the rows castrists, 107 in the anti-castristes rows.

Consequence of the unloading

The operation pushed the cuban government to seek security guarantees near the the USSR and is a direct cause of the Crise of the missiles of Cuba the following year. At the time of the payment of the crisis, the United States committed itself not attacking Cuba militarily. It also made lose in the United States part of their credibility (which was a crucial asset vis-a-vis in the USSR at the time of the cold war).

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