More passages from “Guerrilla Prince” by Georgie Anne Geyer:
Always the avid student of military history, Castro had assumed that the first step of the invasion would be an attack on his air force (he well remembered that Nasser's entire air force had been destroyed on the ground in Egypt in 1956), so he had dispersed the planes in his small air force. This one move would come to mean the difference between victory and defeat. In the bombing raids that Saturday, Castro lost five planes, but he was left with four British Sea Fury light attack bombers, one B-26, and three T-33S. It would be enough. ...
...But it was his small air force that really won the battle, before the rest of the fighting even began. The American "plan" had been prefaced entirely on the idea that Castro's tiny air force would be destroyed before the invasion force landed. Indeed, the brigadistas had been told it had already been destroyed. This was the fatal falsehood of the invasion. Castro's little Sea Furies were sent out from their hiding places to sink the invasion fleet of the United States of America. The amazing and unexpected fact is that they did! ...
... The battle was not very old when the surviving American ships began steaming out of the bay, stranding some 1,350 brigadistas, who only the day before had been happily sunning themselves at sea. ...
... The CIA had been so certain that Castro's air force would be destroyed that they had not taken even the basic precaution of placing anti-aircraft weapons aboard the ships. As the last U.S. destroyer sailed away from the Bay of Pigs, one brigadista remarked: "In the wake of that ship go two hundred years of infamy."
Castro's little Sea Furies were sent out from their hiding places to sink the invasion fleet of the United States of America. The amazing and unexpected fact is that they did! ...
... The battle was not very old when the surviving American ships began steaming out of the bay, stranding some 1,350 brigadistas, who only the day before had been happily sunning themselves at sea. ...
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Charlie, I know that these are not your words, and you are quoting the book, ...but the words make me very angry because they are lies.....
The ships were NOT American ships ....They did NOT fly the American flag.
And let me tell you IF those ships had been American ships Fidel Castro's Island empire would have ceased to exist on April 16 1961.....
The US Navy had a fleet of warships about 40 miles from Cuba, which included the Aircraft carrier US Essex .....Several destroyers, and the USS San Marcos ( An amphibious landing ship with combat Marines on board.... The Essex had fighter in the air ( The Blue Blasters) armed and ready.....
If the ships that Castro's planes had attacked had been American ships Castros planes and his Island empire would have been destroyed immediately, and the outcome at BOP would have been entirely different.