236. Informational Memorandum0
Washington, June 22,
1961.
SUBJECT
- Comments by Fidel Castro 14 and 15 June on the Invasion of 17 April 1961
- 1.
- The airborne battalion was dropped in at points too close to the landing beaches. If they had been dropped at a more remote point of the causeways and had cut these, Castro could not have moved in his tanks, motorized artillery and “10,000 rockets”. Apart from lack of air cover, the invadersʼ main errors were this failure to drop the airborne battalion far [Page 609] enough inland and this failure to cut the causeways to Playa Giron and Playa Larga. Also, the paratroopers did not engage the enemy until approximately 0800 on D-Day. Castro was mystified at the delay in entering into action. The invaders did not know of certain special trails by which Castro had been able to infiltrate men (not heavy stuff) into the Cienaga de Zapata.
- 2.
- After the Houston was sunk about five miles south of Playa Larga, the Battalion which it was carrying got ashore and bivouacked. Castro could not understand why it did not march to Playa Larga and join the forces which had been landed and were in combat.
- 3.
- Castro himself was in the second or third tank that advanced from Australia to Parite (which Castro said should be called “Palite”) and the tank in front of him was knocked out.
- 4.
- The invading forces fought very well as long as they thought they had air cover. After it failed, it was an easy matter to get them to surrender.
- 5.
- Castro said 15 June that his air force consisted of four T-33ʼs and two Sea Furies and one B-26. 14 June he had said, “We dispersed my T-33ʼs, Sea Furies and F-27ʼs and we dispersed them very well,” with the apparent intended implication that a second strike would not have gotten all of them. He also said 14 June: “I had a few more aircraft than I had pilots, and I had nine pilots and lost two.” Castro said he was mystified that no additional effort was made to get the planes.
- 6.
- Castro said the Cienaga de Zapata area was “ideal ground” from the military viewpoint and that if the causeways had been cut the invasion force could have accomplished the mission of holding a piece of Cuban territory long enough to establish a base for ships and air and for proclamation of a provisional government which could be overtly supplied. At Parite (“Palite”) at 1500 on 15 June Castro said: “Right here I would have used four or five of the 75 mm. anti-tank guns if I had been an invader. I also would have used a couple of their 81 mm. (4.2 in.) mortars, and the paratroopers, with the 75 mm. anti-tank guns and the mortars could have controlled this entrance, which is where we came through. I could, in the invadersʼ position, have held the place, and at this particular place it would have been almost impossible for us to flank them.”
- 7.
- The invasion had a “good plan, poorly executed”. If the invaders had had good air cover, sent the paratroopers farther inland, and cut the causeways, the story would have been different.
- 8.
- Castroʼs air force concentrated on attacking enemy shipping whereas the invasion force planes engaged in ground attacks.
- 9.
- Castro knew the time but not the place of the invasion. At first he thought it might be near Baracoa where the U.S. Navy was engaged in simulated operations.
- 10.
- On 15 June, on the beach at Playa Giron, Castro said: “Tuesday afternoon 18 April we stood at Playa Giron. We had won after 36 hours of combat.”1
- Source: National Defense University, Taylor Papers, Box 12, Cuba, A Item 8. No classification marking. No drafting information appears on the source text, but it was initialed as seen by General Taylor, indicating that the memorandum may have been prepared in response to the continuing interest of the members of the Cuba Study Group in the subject. The memorandum was apparently drafted in the Central Intelligence Agency.↩
- A note on the source text at this point, in an unknown hand, reads: “He must have been confused as to the date.”↩