Bay of Pigs Invasion

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Bay of Pigs Invasion
Part of the Cold War and the Consolidation of the Cuban Revolution
Counterattack by Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces near Playa Girón on 19 April 1961
Date 17–20 April 1961 Location Bay of Pigs, southwestern coast of Cuba 22°03′42″N 81°01′55″W / 22.0616°N 81.0319°W / 22.0616; -81.0319 Result Cuban victory Failure to topple Castro's government All surviving rebels captured Increased cooperation between Cuba and the Soviet Union
Belligerents
United States Cuban DRF	Cuba
Commanders and leaders
John F. Kennedy Robert McNamara Robert F. Kennedy Maxwell D. Taylor Charles Cabell Pepe San Román (POW) Erneido Oliva (POW) Félix Rodríguez	Fidel Castro Che Guevara Juan A. Bosque Ramiro Valdés Raúl Castro Eloy Gutierrez Carlos Franqui
Units involved
CIA Brigade 2506 U.S. Air Force Alabama Air National Guard  U.S. Navy	Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces National Revolutionary Police Force National Revolutionary Militia
Strength
1,500 ground forces[a] 16 B-26 Invader bombers 4 B-26 Marauder bombers 45 F4U Corsair fighters 8 C-46 transport planes 6 C-54 transport planes 5 M41 light tanks Plus artillery, mortars, Jeeps, and trucks 5 supply ships	25,000 Cuban Army[2] 200,000 Militia[2][3] 9,000 armed National Police[2][3][b] 4 Lockheed T-33 jets 4 Hawker Sea Fury fighters 7 B-26 Invader bombers 100+ tanks T-34-85 medium tanks IS-2 heavy tanks SU-100 self-propelled guns Several 76.2-mm and 122-mm artillery pieces
Casualties and losses
Brigade 2506: 118 killed 360 wounded[c] 1,202 captured (including wounded)[d] Hundreds executed[4] 5 B-26 bombers shot down United States: 4 killed 2 B-26 bombers shot down 2 supply ships lost	Cuban Armed Forces: 176 killed 400–500 wounded[e][5] 1 B-26 bomber shot down 1 Hawker Sea Fury shot down 1 patrol ship sunk Unknown number of T-34-85 tanks and SU-100 guns destroyed
class=notpageimage| Location within Cuba

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The Bay of Pigs Invasion (Spanish: Invasión de Bahía de Cochinos, sometimes called Invasión de Playa Girón or Batalla de Playa Girón after the Playa Girón) was a failed military landing operation on the southwestern coast of Cuba in 1961 by the United States of America and the Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front (DRF), consisting of Cuban exiles who opposed Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution, clandestinely financed and directed by the U.S. government. The operation took place at the height of the Cold War, and its failure influenced relations between Cuba, the United States, and the Soviet Union.

In 1952, the American-allied dictator General Fulgencio Batista led a coup against President Carlos Prío and forced Prío into exile in Miami, Florida. Prío's exile inspired Castro's 26th of July Movement against Batista. The movement succeeded in overthrowing Batista during the Cuban Revolution in January 1959. Castro nationalized American businesses, including banks, oil refineries, and sugar and coffee plantations. By early 1960, President Eisenhower had begun contemplating ways to remove Castro, in the hopes that he might be replaced by a Cuban government-in-exile, though none existed at the time.^[6] In accordance with this goal, Eisenhower eventually approved Richard Bissell's plan which included training the paramilitary force that would later be used in the Bay of Pigs Invasion.^[7] Alongside covert operations, the U.S. also began its embargo of the island. This led Castro to reach out to its Cold War rival, the Soviet Union, after which the US severed diplomatic relations.

Cuban exiles who had moved to the U.S. following Castro's takeover had formed the counter-revolutionary military unit Brigade 2506, which was the armed wing of the DRF. The CIA funded the brigade, which also included approximately 60 members of the Alabama Air National Guard,^[8] and trained the unit in Guatemala.

Over 1,400 paramilitaries, divided into five infantry battalions and one paratrooper battalion, assembled and launched from Guatemala and Nicaragua by boat on 17 April 1961. Two days earlier, eight CIA-supplied B-26 bombers had attacked Cuban airfields and then returned to the U.S. On the night of 17 April, the main invasion force landed on the beach at Playa Girón in the Bay of Pigs, where it overwhelmed a local revolutionary militia. Initially, José Ramón Fernández led the Cuban Revolutionary Army counter-offensive; later, Castro took personal control.

As the invasion force lost the strategic initiative, the international community found out about the invasion, and U.S. President John F. Kennedy decided to withhold further air support.^[9] The plan, devised during Eisenhower's presidency, had required the involvement of U.S. air and naval forces. Without further air support, the invasion was being conducted with fewer forces than the CIA had deemed necessary. The invading force was defeated within three days by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces (Spanish: Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias – FAR) and surrendered on 20 April. Most of the surrendered counter-revolutionary troops were publicly interrogated and put into Cuban prisons with further prosecution.

The invasion was a U.S. foreign policy failure. The Cuban government's victory solidified Castro's role as a national hero and widened the political division between the two formerly allied countries, as well as emboldened other Latin American groups to undermine U.S. influence in the region. As stated in a memoir from Chester Bowles: "The humiliating failure of the invasion shattered the myth of a New Frontier run by a new breed of incisive, fault-free supermen. However costly, it may have been a necessary lesson." It also pushed Cuba closer to the Soviet Union, setting the stage for the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

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