In 1961 - two years after a revolution in Cuba overran the government of Fulgencio Batista - a group of Cuban exiles (backed by the CIA) landed on the beaches of the Bay of Pigs in an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro from the new government. After three days of intense fighting on the beaches and swamps around the area, the invaders were defeated by Castro's forces and most of them surrendered, while a few managed to escape to the ships. Failures in the plans developed by the CIA and the lack of decision by the Kennedy administration were decisive in a fiasco that became one of the most shameful defeats by a US-backed operation in the 20th century. Among the forces that defended the Cuban Revolution, the Revolutionary Air Force played a key role - despite their lack of operational planes and pilots - sinking the main transport ships of the expeditionary force and forcing the others to leave, while abandoning the invading force on the beaches until they ran out of ammunition. Also, they won the control of the air space over the area - denying their use to the A-26 Invaders of the exiles - and thus leaving the ground forces with no close air support. The exiles fought remarkably against a much more powerful enemy and even won the first round of combat, but the lack of support left them with no ammunition or food, while the enemy forces thrown against them grew more and more as the hours since the landing passed by. In the end, they ran out of ammunition and had to surrender. After more than 50 years, much was written about the invasion, but only ever showing one side of the coin - told by veterans or historians from the Castro side their part of the story (and being highly subjective in the process). This book attempts to show the full picture from an objective point of view - gathering information from some of the few veterans still alive and from information both previously published and never published before.

For many Cubans, Fidel Castro's Revolution represented deliverance from a legacy of inequality and national disappointment. For others—especially those exiled in the United States—Cuba's turn to socialism made the prerevolutionary period look like paradise lost. Michael J. Bustamante unsettles this familiar schism by excavating Cubans' contested memories of the Revolution's roots and results over its first twenty years. Cubans' battles over the past, he argues, not only defied simple political divisions; they also helped shape the course of Cuban history itself. As the Revolution unfolded, the struggle over historical memory was triangulated among revolutionary leaders in Havana, expatriate organizations in Miami, and average Cuban citizens. All Cubans leveraged the past in individual ways, but personal memories also collided with the Cuban state's efforts to institutionalize a singular version of the Revolution's story. Drawing on troves of archival materials, including visual media, Bustamante tracks the process of what he calls retrospective politics across the Florida Straits. In doing so, he drives Cuban history beyond the polarized vision seemingly set in stone today and raises the prospect of a more inclusive national narrative.

"The Rout of U.S.-organized and -financed forces at Girón Beach on Cuba's Bay of Pigs in April 1961 was Washington's greatest military defeat in the Americas. It has marked the course of history for the last fifty years ... is a fast-moving narrative by an author who at the time was a young literacy teacher in the zone where the battle was fought. Painstakingly researched, without caricatures and oversimplifications, it offers one of the fullest accounts yet written. It will satisfy the most demanding of readers, as well as those simply curious to learn the story of the this momentous event."--Back cover.

This account of the disastrous invasion of Cuba funded and directed by the United States is “a readable, accessible introduction to the topic” (H-Net). Perhaps not in casualties but as far as prestige and standing in the world were concerned, the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961 was the worst disaster to befall the USA since the War of 1812 when British forces burned the White House. Badly planned, badly organized, the affair was littered with mistakes from start to finish, not least with an inept performance by John F. Kennedy and his new administration. Supposedly an attempt by Cuban exiles to regain their homeland, the whole operation was funded and equipped by the USA. When things began to go wrong with the landings at Playa Larga and Playa Giron on the southern coast of Cuba, President Kennedy and his advisers began overruling military decisions with the result that the invading Brigade 2506, made up of Cuban exiles, was left with little or no air cover, limited ammunition, and no easy escape. Fidel Castro made great play of his success and American failure at the Bay of Pigs. He, like Nikita Khrushchev, thought Kennedy was weak—and the Cuban Missile Crisis of the following year was almost an inevitable consequence of the disaster. This account tells the dramatic story of this pivotal Cold War event.

Grayston Lynch presents an exceptional portrayal of actual events that led to the betrayal of extraordinary, patriotic, and courageous men. Lynch's unmasking of "Kennedy's Camelot" reveals heart-wrenching facts that continue to stir emotions among Brigade 2506 veterans.

ALSO AVAILABLE TO BUY AS AN E-BOOK. The landings by the Cuban exile Assault Brigade 2506 at the Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961 led to three days of savage but unequal combat. Before they even sailed for Cuba, a White House decision had condemned them to constant attacks by Castro's air force, which sank two of their ships loaded with vital supplies and equipment. Despite stubborn resistance to Castro's troops and tanks, and heroic sorties by Cuban and American B-26 pilots, the Brigade was strangled for lack of firepower and ammunition. Their story is illustrated with rare photos from Brigade veterans, and detailed color plates of the uniforms and insignia of both sides.