The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

by William I. Hitchcock

On April 15 the misguided and ill-conceived affair began. A few aging B-26 aircraft, flown by Cuban pilots from airfields in Nicaragua, bombed three Cuban airfields, doing only moderate damage to Castro’s tiny fleet of combat aircraft but alerting the Cuban government that the invasion was imminent. Castro accused the United States of fomenting the attack and raised the alarm at the United Nations, spooking the Kennedy administration into canceling further air support, lest the U.S. connection be discovered. Meanwhile, late at night on April 16, the invasion force of some 1,400 Cuban exiles jumped into their landing craft and headed toward their target: a swampy inlet on Cuba’s southern coast called Bahía de Cochinos, or Bay of Pigs. The landings were immediately discovered by local militia, and at dawn Cuban aircraft began to fire on the invaders. Their ships were hit, sinking much of their ammunition and equipment, while Cuban forces swarmed into the landing zone, bringing with them heavy tanks. With no air support, the invaders were