Pretoria, May 17, 2022.- In the early morning of April 17, 1961, the mercenary invasion took place, nominated by its organizers "Operation Pluto". They were part of the invading contingent —Brigade 2506—, a total of 1,500 men, who had left Puerto Cabezas aboard five United States warships and escorted by other naval units, also United States.
They landed at two points in the Bay of Pigs (Playa Girón and Playa Larga), territory on the south coast of Las Villas, with the purpose of establishing a beachhead and setting up a provisional counterrevolutionary government that would immediately request and obtain the intervention of the USA.
The combats were bloody and the bombings of the B-26 deployed against the island were criminal, which reported more than 150 deaths and hundreds of wounded, according to witnesses and protagonists of the clashes with the enemy.
Less than 70 hours had elapsed since the invasion when the self-propelled gun in which Fidel Castro was traveling arrived before the last redoubt of attackers in Playa Girón on April 19.
The Cuban forces took some 1,200 prisoners, most of them Cuban exiles, and on April 24, 1961, President Kennedy acknowledged the involvement of his government in the events.
This would be the first great military defeat of US imperialism in Latin America and since then Washington designed new strategies to end the young Revolution triumphant 90 miles from its shores.