Dorta, now a colonel in Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces, was one of the Cuban combatants who took part in the March 22–24 conference here on "Girón: 40 Years Later." Participants in the U.S.-Cuban gathering discussed the April 1961 Cuban victory over a U.S.-organized counterrevolutionary invasion at the Bay of Pigs. The main force of mercenary soldiers surrendered at Girón beach, the name by which the battle is known in Cuba.

Dorta, now retired from active duty, spoke with Militant reporters about the young antiaircraft artillerymen who fought at Playa Girón. Cuban president Fidel Castro, in an early speech that saluted the fearlessness and courage of these teenage fighters, called them Los niños héroes de Playa Girón--the heroic boys of Playa Girón--and that is still how they are popularly known.

There is even a book by that title, consisting largely of interviews with soldiers of the antiaircraft units that took part in that battle. The author, José Mayo, was one of these combatants.

One of those interviewed in Los niños héroes is Manuel Alfredo Abad, today a hotel worker in Havana. "I was 17 at the time," said Abad, who had been closely following the news about the conference on Playa Girón. "It's a very heavy job, and they looked for young people to do it. I was trained to use a cuatro bocas," he added, using the popular term in Cuba for the Czech-made four-barreled heavy machine guns.

The accounts given by Dorta and Abad, like the interviews contained in the book, vividly capture why Cuba, in less than 72 hours, was able to crush a mercenary invasion financed and organized by the mightiest imperialist power in the world. They paint a picture of the workers and farmers who made the socialist revolution in this Caribbean nation--and help explain why four decades later revolutionary Cuba remains a living example to working people the world over.

Abad was 14 years old when workers and farmers in Cuba, led by the Rebel Army and the July 26 Movement headed by Fidel Castro, overthrew the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship in January 1959 and began building the first free territory of the Americas. The revolutionary leadership organized working people to begin to carry out a land reform, a mass campaign to wipe out illiteracy, build housing and schools, eliminate institutionalized racism, and other far-reaching measures.

These revolutionary developments had a deep impact on Manuel, as they did on millions of Cubans who were involved in them. He was also influenced by the example of his mother, who had worked with the July 26 Movement during the revolutionary war in the late 1950s.

In response to a steady escalation of U.S.-backed acts of sabotage and counterrevolutionary terror in Cuba, the National Revolutionary Militias were constituted in October 1959, and Manuel Abad joined them.

In late 1960, as arms purchased from the Soviet-bloc countries began to arrive in Cuba, he enrolled in a course for 12.7-millimeter antiaircraft machine gun operators. He completed his training, which took place at the Granma military base west of Havana, just days before the Bay of Pigs invasion.

Dorta had become involved in political activity before the revolutionary victory. Growing up in a poor farm family in Las Villas province in central Cuba, he got involved in supporting a cigar workers strike in 1952 at the age of 14, and a sugar workers strike three years later. Both actions were savagely attacked by the army and police.

In 1957 he joined the July 26 Movement and helped organize clandestine work in his home town, before joining the revolutionary forces fighting in the Escambray mountains. He was part of the forces under the command of Ernesto Che Guevara that captured Santa Clara, Cuba's third-largest city, on New Year's Eve of 1958 as the dictator Fulgencio Batista fled the country. By that time he held the rank of lieutenant in the Rebel Army.

After the revolutionary victory, Dorta was chosen for the first officer training course under Rebel Army commander Camilo Cienfuegos. When he completed the course he was designated as an instructor, first at the Managua military base and then at the Granma base west of Havana. The Granma base became the main training center for the antiaircraft gunners.

Dorta explained that well before the end of 1960, it was clear that Washington, increasingly hostile to the revolutionary measures that Cuba's workers and farmers were taking, was preparing a military assault on the island. The only question was when and where an invasion would take place.

"Normally, antiaircraft artillery training takes six months," he explained. "But we began the training in October and completed it by January. Our Czech instructors were astounded. They didn't think it could be done. But we knew we didn't have six months."  
 
'If Fidel was a socialist, we were too'
"On April 15, three simultaneous air attacks took place," Dorta said. "The antiaircraft batteries at [the Havana military base] Ciudad Libertad, where one bombing took place, immediately went into action. They shot down a B-26 that fell in the sea near the Comodoro Hotel. Seven Cuban combatants were killed."

The planes were piloted by CIA-organized Cuban counterrevolutionaries. The raid, ordered by U.S. president John F. Kennedy, was an unsuccessful attempt to wipe out Cuba's handful of combat aircraft on the ground, in preparation for the imminent invasion.

The next day, as Cuba's militias, revolutionary police, and armed forces prepared for combat, Castro addressed a huge rally in Havana.

Huddled around their portable radios, Abad recounts, the young artillerymen listened to news of the bombing raids. "We also listened to Fidel's speech at the rally to honor those killed in the attack by the mercenaries' planes," he said. "We all agreed with Fidel when he said our revolution was socialist, because, although we didn't understand well what socialism was, anything Fidel said we supported. Someone declared that if Fidel was a socialist, then we were socialists too, and everyone there agreed with that."

In the early morning hours of April 17, the U.S.-backed invasion force, Brigade 2506, landed at the Bay of Pigs. The militias, army, air force, and revolutionary police were immediately deployed.

"Initially, two antiaircraft batteries were sent rapidly to protect the airstrip near the Australia sugar mill, where the forward command post was established," Dorta explained. "Then I took six batteries of 'cuatro bocas' and one battery of 37-millimeter artillery pieces and we headed to the command post."

At first, Abad said, members of his unit "were concerned because we knew where the other batteries were headed, and we were worried that we'd be left at the Granma base." At 5:00 a.m. on April 17 when they too received their orders to march to the Bay of Pigs, "we were overjoyed, because we were going to fight the mercenaries.

"All along the way, people were telling us to hit the invaders hard. They also expressed surprise to see how young the antiaircraft gunners were."  
 
Determined not to be left out of combat
En route to the Australia sugar mill, the column was ordered to stop and the truck behind Abad's unit accidentally hit their artillery piece, damaging the metal bar used to pull it.

"We were told we had to leave the unit there," he said. But they were determined not to be left behind. "We decided to disassemble the gun and load it onto the truck. We took off the tires, the barrels, and the four wheels, and lifted up that hunk of steel that weighed a ton. As soon as we had loaded it onto the bed of the truck, the caravan of antiaircraft batteries resumed. As our truck moved on, we reassembled the four barrels. By the time we reached the Australia mill it was ready to shoot at the enemy planes or at the mercenaries if necessary.

"It was an enormous effort to take apart the gun, lift it onto the truck, and then reassemble it, but that was a thousand times preferable to remaining behind on the highway and not being able to fight the mercenaries."

Dorta explained that the column arrived at the Australia sugar mill by 5:00 p.m. "Fernández immediately ordered me to take two artillery pieces and advance to Pálpite," he said. Captain José Ramón Fernández was commanding the column of forces coming in from the Australia mill. The town of Pálpite was on the road to Playa Larga, the beach where one of the landings had taken place, and the mercenaries were still holding a well-fortified position.

"We advanced at night as close to Playa Larga as we could get. When dawn came, we realized we were almost on top of the enemy lines!"

When Abad's unit arrived the morning of April 18 in Pálpite, they saw the first enemy plane and immediately opened fire. "Our gun worked just perfectly from the bed of the truck," Abad reported with pride.

While the nighttime assault on the enemy forces at Playa Larga failed to dislodge them, it still had an impact. Despite their favorable positions, the mercenaries abandoned Playa Larga early on the second day of battle and withdrew toward Playa Girón, and the revolutionary forces pressed forward.

On the road from Playa Larga to Girón, the revolutionary troops reached an area where enemy planes had bombed and strafed several buses that carried militiamen from Battalion 123. "I felt grief for the comrades who had been wounded, burned, or killed," said Abad. "But at the same time I felt a deep hatred for the mercenaries who had come to murder Cubans."

Both Abad's and Dorta's units saw further combat over the course of the three-day battle, which ended with the surrender of the main group of invading troops at Playa Girón.

"We entered Playa Girón on April 19 at around 5:00 p.m.," Dorta said, "and we began to round up the mercenaries." While their main leaders had fled into the swamp where they were later captured, almost all the Brigade 2506 troops surrendered.  
 
Invaders wanted return to exploitation
When Abad's unit reached Playa Girón, he said, some of the mercenaries were stunned to see that many of the soldiers who had fought and defeated them were so young.

"When I saw the mercenaries at Playa Girón, I couldn't help feeling an urge to kill them," Abad explained. "Because of them, many revolutionary comrades had died, and even women and children had been killed. And they had done all this to regain their privileges and wealth. They were lying when they claimed they had come to 'save' the Cuban people from communism, as if they had ever been concerned about the welfare of the people. All they were really interested in was exploiting and oppressing them so they and their Yankee masters could live well."

Speaking after the conclusion of the U.S.-Cuban gathering on Playa Girón, Dorta remarked, "I've seen some of the foreign coverage on the conference, and some articles claim that Fidel was directing the operations from the command post at the Australia mill. But that's not accurate. He directed the combat right there on the battle front."

At Playa Girón, when Castro was inspecting some of the .50-caliber machine guns and rockets captured from the mercenaries, he turned to Captain José "Pepín" Alvarez Bravo, head of the artillery units, and asked, "Pepín, are these the weapons from the planes that were downed by the boys of the antiaircraft artillery batteries?"

"Yes, commander. Those are the ones we shot down," Alvarez Bravo replied.

"No, you didn't shoot them down--they did, the boys with their antiaircraft guns!" Castro replied, to the smiles and laughter of all.

"It was the first time I had seen Fidel so close," Abad noted. "The mercenaries were surprised to see him there, because, while their chiefs fled like cowards, our top leader was at the scene of the battle, at the side of the militiamen, soldiers, and police who fought in the battle of Girón."

Ten years later, on the anniversary of the victory at Playa Girón, Castro highlighted the example of the antiaircraft gunners in that decisive battle. From the moment the first counterrevolutionary air attacks took place, he pointed out, "nobody was afraid, nobody panicked. At once they replied vigorously, courageously, overwhelmingly." He added, "Many of the gunners were 15-, 16-, and 17-year-old youths who had never before been attacked by a plane. They were not veterans. They were raw recruits; it was the first time they had fired. Yet they vied with each other for a chance at the guns. It was emulation: Who would get the gun? Who was firing more accurately? There was a tremendous enthusiasm." The same response marked the fighting spirit of the Cuban soldiers throughout the battle, Castro said.

"There was not a single desertion under fire among the young soldiers of our antiaircraft units," Dorta noted with pride.

After the victory, Abad's battery returned to the Granma base, and later was reassigned to the Rebel Army bases in Havana at La Cabaña and El Morro fortresses.

In October 1961, Manuel Abad joined the literacy campaign. He was designated head of a literacy brigade in Calabazar de Sagua, Las Villas province. After the successful completion of the literacy drive, he studied agricultural accounting, while continuing to receive military training.

Dorta remained in the Rebel Army, which became the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba. During the October 1962 "missile" crisis, in which Washington, in its drive against the Cuban Revolution, brought the world to the brink of a nuclear war, he was assigned to the defense of the Santa Clara military airport.

In 1973 Dorta was part of a mission to Vietnam to study the experiences of the Vietnamese antiaircraft units, whose effectiveness and courage during the U.S. war were legendary. In 1983-84 he joined with other Cuban volunteer combatants in Angola to help defend the African nation from the U.S. imperialist-backed attack by the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Today, both Enrique Dorta and Manuel Abad are among the many former Girón combatants who are active in the Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolution. "We talk to young people about our experiences in the revolution. We try to explain to them the importance of knowing our history. Today that is very important," Abad told us.

Both Dorta and Abad were pleased to see the new book by Pathfinder, Playa Girón/Bay of Pigs: Washington's First Military Defeat in the Americas. "I'm going to start reading it as soon as I get home from work," Abad said with a grin.  
 
 
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