a.m. Both planes were badly damaged and theirtanks were nearly empty. On the front page of The New York Times the nextday, a picture of one of the B-26s was shown along with a picture of one ofthe pilots cloaked in a baseball hat and hiding behind dark sunglasses, hisname was withheld. A sense of conspiracy was even at this early stagebeginning to envelope the events of that week. In the early hours of April 17th the assault on the Bay of Pigs began.In the true cloak and dagger spirit of a movie, the assault began at 2 a.m.with a team of frogmen going ashore with orders to set up landing lights toindicate to the main assault force the precise location of their objectives,as well as to clear the area of anything that may impede the main landingteams when they arrived. At 2:30 a.m. and at 3:00 a.m. two battalions cameashore at Playa Girn and one battalion at Playa Larga beaches. The troopsat Playa Girn had orders to move west, northwest, up the coast and meetwith the troops at Playa Larga in the middle of the bay. A small group ofmen were then to be sent north to the town of Jaguey Grande to secure it aswell. When looking at a modern map of Cuba it is obvious that the troopswould have problems in the area that was chosen for them to land at. Thearea around the Bay of Pigs is a swampy marsh land area which would be hardon the troops. The Cuban forces were quick to react and Castro ordered hisT-33 trainer jets, two Sea Furies, and two B-26s into the air to stop theinvading forces. Off the coast was the command and control ship and anothervessel carrying supplies for the invading forces. The Cuban air force madequick work of the supply ships, sinking the command vessel the Marsopa andthe supply ship the Houston, blasting them to pieces with five-inch rockets.In the end the 5th battalion was lost, which was on the Houston, as well asthe supplies for the landing teams and eight other smaller vessels. Withsome of the invading forces' s...
