Cuban Bay of Pigs
Captured prisoners of the Bay of Pigs
On April 17,1961 ,1400 Cuban exiles launched a botched invasion at the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of Cuba. The original invasion plan was to have two air strikes against Cuban airbases, and a 1,400 man invasion force would disembark at night with a surprise attack but during the actual attack eight bombers left Nicaragua to bomb the Cuban airfields, with planes painted to look like Cuban air force planes. But the attack failed due to the fact that many of the targets were missed during the airstrike causing attention to be drawn to the attack, and president Kennedy cancelled the second airstrike. Two days later the Cuban-exile invasion force landed at the Bay of Pigs and came under heavy fire. The brigade prisoners stayed in captivity for 20 months as the United states negotiated with Fidel Castro, and on December 23, 1962 two months after the Cuban missile crisis had ended a plane containing the first group of freed prisoners landed in the United States.