Saturday, August 16, 2003



Here I stand near Nickajack where Alabama,Georgia and Tennessee intersect. Please send all suggestions and other unwanted comments to robertoreg@hotmail.com.


Muchas gracias a mi buen amigo, babbs, para el t-shirt. Git yur skypilotclub t-shirt @ http://www.skypilotclub.com




The Spanish Colonial town council, also called the Cabildo, met weekly in this second story room known as the Sala Capitular. This room was the site of ceremonies transferring the Territory of Louisiana from Spain to France and later from France to the United States in 1803. (Credit: Louisiana State Museum)

From Hanna:

Two years prior to Spain's relinquishment of the Floridas (1819), officials of that government removed to Havana more than 730 bundles of government records relating to the Spanish provinces of Louisiana, West Florida, and East Florida. Immediately preceding the transfer of the provinces an agent was sent by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams to effect the return of the documents. This commissioner, Colonel James Grant Forbes, arrived in Havana April 22, 1821, and after receiving authorization from His Excellency Nicolas Mahy, captain general and governor of Cuba, to Colonel Jose Coppinger, governor of East Florida, to transfer the sovereignty of the Florida provinces to Jackson, remained there six weeks in a futile effort to secure, also, the archives.

Hanna's bio of Forbes:
James Grant Forbes (1769- 1826), native of St. Augustine, was the son of the Rev. John Forbes, first clergyman licensed to officiate in Florida during the English period. He was educated in England and was active in business in Santo Domingo before returning to the United States. He married Francis Blackwell, daughter of Joseph Blackwell of Blackwell's Island, New York, in 1804. He entered the United States Army and became a lieutenant colonel in the War of 1812. He served as marshall of West Florida and from August 21, 1821 to October 23, 1822, as mayor of St. Augustine.

The Louisiana Purchase: August, 1803
From: Robert Register
email: robertoreg@hotmail.com
Date: 8/16/03
Time: 5:30:12 PM
Remote Name: 68.62.131.101


Comments
On August 12, 1803, Jefferson wrote John Breckinridge, Senator from Kentucky and later (1805) Jefferson's attorney general, that "We have some claims to go eastwardly to the Rio Perdido, between Mobile and Pensacola, the ancient boundary of Louisiana. These claims will be a subject of negotiation with Spain; and if as soon as she is at war we push them strongly with one hand, holding out a price with the other, we shall certainly obtain the Floridas, and all in good time."
Later in the same month on August 25, 1803, Jefferson wrote to his Secretary of State, James Madison, that he was "satisfied our right to the Perdido is substantial, and can be opposed by a quibble on form only."

Friday, August 15, 2003

Nedra Innerarity Creamer - Aug 8, 2003 Viewers
Attached To: About Scotland The Brother of James

In our Feb. Issue we covered one of the two somewhat famous brothers that first came to America. This month we will attempt to cover the highlights of John Innerarity Jr.'s life. John is the son of John Innerarity Sr. and Henrietta Panton. He was born November 11,1783 in Aberdeen Scotland. John's Father moved into the field of merchant occupation so shortly after John's birth, his family moved to England. It was in London that John received his education. By the time John was eleven years old, his Father was working for his brother-in-laws firm, Panton, Leslie and Company in Florida. At eighteen years of
age, John joined his Father and older Brother in Pensacola Florida and assumed a position with the firm of Panton, Leslie and Company. His uncle, William Panton had recently died and John assumed control of the Pensacola office. John married Dona Victoria De Villers in October 1806. Victoria is the daughter of Don Marcos De Villers and based on this marriage, John requested Spanish citizenship due to the political uncertainty during the war of 1812. Their children were:
Maria Henrietta Innerarity ; married Henry Wilson.
Melanie Innerarity; married Dr. Isaac Hulse
Victoria Innerarity; married her cousin, William Panton Innerarity.
Henry Innerarity; no record of marriage.
Albert Innerarity; no record of marriage.
(The last two are still being researched.)
Although John applied for Spanish citizenship, Andrew Jackson appointed him in 1821 to serve as an alderman (a member of a governing body) John also served as the French Consul. This shows his higher education. He was fluent in both Spanish and French. Sometime after the death of William Panton, John moved into the Panton mansion. A fire distroyed the mansion in 1848 and the company warehouse was converted into a new house, supervised by John's son-in-law Dr. Isaac Hulse It was a massive house with three stories. John built this large home so there would be room for children as well as grandchildren. John's daughter Victorine, as she was called, and her husband William Panton Innerarity lived in Cuba for while. William's brother Santiago Innerarity had taken over the operations in Cuba so Victorine and William moved back to Pencacola. There is documents to show they were in Pensacola in the year 1843.
John died July 28,1854 at the age of 70 years old. His personal estate was considered modest. A total of $18,360.47. Over $15,200 of his estate were slaves. They were;
Nancy age 55, Phyllis age 53, Millicent age 50, John age 39, Joseph age 35, Edward age 30, Maria age 30, Thomas age 28, Adolphe age 27, William age 27, Andrew age 27, Nelly age 25, Pamela Age 25, Charles age 25, Martin age 21, Alfred age 20, Richard age 19, Adele age 18, Cora age 15, Ezekiel age 15, Clara age 9, Eulalia age 8, Ermantine age 6, Thomas age 6, Oscar age 5, Henry age 3 and Lawrence age 11 months. John De Villiers Innerarity, the grandson of John almost drown in the well when he was a child. It was Nancy and Adolphe who found him and saved his life. John De Villiers was killed in the Civil War. Shortly after the Civil War started, John DeV (his shortened variation) wrote the following letter to Dr. John Forbes Innerarity. The letter was written about 2 miles west of Lynchburg while he was in camp. There is no date. The letter is as written.
Dear Uncle
With nothing to cover me overhead and to lay my paper on but the hard ground I sit to write you a few lines. I suppose John (John W.G. son of John Forbes.) has aquainted you, ere this with the particulars of our voyage from Mobile to Montgomery. We remained in Montgomery until Monday morning at 8 O'clock when we took cars (railroad) to west point on our way further. All the way we were cheered by men, women and children (colored---) on arriving at West Point we were taken out of the cars to be presented to our Major who began adressing us but he had not more than got half through when all of a sudden a bevy of young ladies were seen coming towards us with slips of paper and large bouquets and wreaths of flowers, they handed the papers to the Major for him to read and what do you think they continued cheers and encouragment telling to go forth and fight the common enemy. The flowers were thrown or handed to us according to the distance from the fair donors. Ours was picked by the young lady who presented me with mine for the (sic) she walked through the crowd with the wreaths in her hand past all the other boys all the time looking at me until she got to me when she handed to me. Forgive this little piece of vanity for it is so. All through Georgia we were threated in the same manner at places you would think for over a hundred miles around you could not pick up 50 men hundreds of young ladies would turn out to meet us with bouquets with mottoes or some word of cheer. In Tennessee we were cheered for the most part we met nothing but scowls until we got to Bristol which is a town half in Tennessee and half in Virginia. There we recieved a thousand ovations. We were invited to take supper and I can declare to you it was a scrumtious affair. As there was not room enough in one hotel to accommodate us and there but one hotel in Bristol, Virginia half of our company at there and the other half in Bristol, Tennessee where there was another hotel. By the bye I forgot to tell you that the citizens of the place prepared the meal for us. After we got here they wouldn't let us pay for anything and furnished us with everything. I tell you that they don't know how to treat soldiers at home. You can't imagine what kind of people furnished us with best smoking and chewing . Fishermen with the best fish --- with five Virginia hams and fresh beef. We buy eggs 12 1/2 cents a dozen and in fact we live like princes but our officers talk to us like dogs. This morning I saw Mr. Blackford, introduced John to him. He invited to tea with him tomarrow evening. It was very hard for him to get Woodruff's consent to let us go. I send you a specimen of the slips of paper that were pinned to the bouquets that were given to us in Georgia. It was given to me by a very pretty girl. Give my love to Aunt Fanny, Eliza, --- Fanny in fact the whole family. Tell Ma that I am sorry to leave her for such a long time as a year but not to think of it and the time will soon pass. Love to sisters H & H and to Albert. We are all eager for the fray --- who would not fight when he has such pretty girls to back him.
The drum rolls I must to drill
Yours.
John DeV
John Innerarity Jr. was buried in Pensacola, Florida. In his obituary, F.W. Hoskins wrote, "We knew the deceased well. He was one of the most extraordinary men we have ever encountered. Born in Scotland, and receiving in Great Britain a finished, collegiate education, he came to America nearly sixty years ago and, repairing to Florida, associated himself with the distinguished commercial house of Panton, Leslie & Forbes Company of which he was the last surviving member." The Pensacola Gazette reporting on the death of John Innerarity, "one of the most worthy and vererable citizens of Florida. Mr. Innerarity was struck suddenly with death, while seated at the table in the mist of his family. He suffered no firey pain, nor cold gradation of decay, but was snatched from life without a warning, and seemingly without pain." The family was apparently quite large. The 1850 U.S. census shows that three families were living in the house in Escambia County. John and Victoria, the William Panton Innerarity family and the Henry Wilson family. John's daughter Henrietta was married to Henry Wilson and had seven children. So there were seven adults and twelve children living in the main houae plus there were seventeen adult slave with their ten children living on the property. (Not sure if some slept in the main house or all slept in the quarter separate from the house. The census also indicated that John's profession was Consul and his real estate valued at $10,000. John and Victoria were both 68 years of age. There has not been much found on Victoria as yet but research will be under way later unless any of you readers have some information to contribute.

Tue Apr 15, 05:40:57 PM . robert register


Send all suggestions and other unwanted comments to robertoreg@hotmail.com
Since people are finally reading this stuff, I guess it's time to say a little about my experience with Cuba over the Internet. This all started in the year 2000 when I actually paid to have an Internet server at our house in Northport, Alabama. Three things immediately happened. Bill Casari, the curator of the FORBES COLLECTION in New York City contacted me about a possible article in FORBES about the Forbes Purchase papers which may still await discovery in Cuba. I also met Rich Chartrand and Ken Kesey over the Web. Rich Chartrand's great-great grandfather owned a plantation in Matanzas Province along the Canimar River near Limonar.The plantation was named Ariande. This was the house where William Rufus King was inaugurated Vice President of the United States. Rich emailed me photos of the Canimar River and the ruins of Ariande. I met Ken Kesey through his website intrepidtrips.com. He wanted to take his bus, Further, to Cuba and I had referred him to some Cuban websites so he wanted me to get him Castro's address so he could write FIDEL a letter requesting permission to bring the bus to Cuba. I gave Ken all I had which was the Cuban Interest Section address in the Swiss Embassy in D. C.
That's a pretty good introduction to my interest in CyberCuba but, of course, it's not the whole story.
The words of Bob Dylan come to mind....
TIME WILL TELL JUST WHO HAS FELL AND WHO'S BEEN LEFT BEHIND, WHEN YOU GO YOUR WAY AND I GO MINE.
Mon Apr 14, 05:05:32 PM . robert register


Send any suggestions to robertoreg@hotmail.com
Rich Chartrand was in Matanzas a couple of weeks ago and met Professor Carlos Chacon Zalvidar who heads the history department at the University of Matanzas. Rich asked Chacon Zalvidar about the Forbes Purchase law suits that may be archived in Matanzas. The professor didn't know anything about Forbes. Rich is a real resource because of his frequent trips to Matanzas. His great-great grandfather was Colonel John Chartrand who owned the Ariandne Plantation near Limonar in Matanzas on the Canimar River. This was where William Rufus King of Dallas County was inaugurated Vice President of the U.S. in 1853. Rich has emailed me photos of the ruins of Ariandne and of the banks of the Canimar River. Thanks a lot for all the help, Rich.
Sat Mar 01, 01:04:58 PM . robert register


Today I begin my endeavor to explore the connection between Alabama and Cuba. I have already burned up most of the afternoon but I have made some incredible discoveries. Ariande, Canimar, Pantonia, and Heloisa. These are plantation names from the Canimar River area of Matanzas,Cuba. Pantonia is my latest discovery. It may have been an Innerarity family plantation in Cuba. It is mentioned in the Innerarity Family Papers at the University of West Florida in Pensacola. Another important discovery which occurred this afternoon was the history of the land title to the city blocks on Mobile's waterfront which now contain the Adam's Mark Hotel, AmSouth Bank and the City of Mobile parking garage.Benito Caro's family lived in Pensacola, Mobile and possibly Cuba. When he died in about 1814 or 1815, he owned most of downtown Mobile from Royal Street to the river. Caro's son in law, Daniel Duval, bought this property from Caro's widow and heirs in 1821. When Duval died in 1824 he owned the area bounded by Royal Street on the west, by the Mobile River on the east, by lots belonging to Lewis Jordan on the north and on the south by lots owned by James Innerarity, John Innerarity and the estate of John Forbes( all three of these men left heirs and plantations in Matanzas). After Duval's death in 1824, his widow Catherine Caro Duval had four illegitimate children by Mobile businessman, Philip McLoskey. Around 1828, McLoskey sent Catherine and his four illegitimate children to Cuba. These children,born between 1824 and 1830 were James McLoskey, John McLoskey, Victoria McLoskey and Phillip McLoskey. The irony here is that James Innerarity also had illegitimate children in Cuba. James' Cuban plantation was named after his first wife, Heloise. He may have married Laura Manuella Centenno, a Cuban. Their son, Frank Innerarity was born in Cuba in 1832. The other four children Innerarity had with Laura were born in Mobile. These children did not inherit from Innerarity.
I also found the Forbes Purchase case, Mitchel vs. United States(1835), on the Web. Click on http://www.utulsa.edu/law/classes/rice/USSCT_Cases/MITCHEL_V_US_1835.HTM
This concludes my first installment of Cuba, Alabama. Robert Register

Thursday, August 14, 2003

" Folks: I have dedicated my life to myself alone and I do not regret it, for most people I've come to know are simply not worth the least amount of trouble. My name is not important, but what I know should be. I have decided to squeal on The Beast because I find much foolishness in the world, particularly amongst the people of my native land, who live indisposed with a particular bend for persuasion and dogma.

" I knew Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz since we were children. Don't let him deceive you, he's always been a wicked clown.

" Fidel and I spent our childhood years in a small town of eastern Cuba killing birds with the sling shot, poisoning stray dogs with strychnine, catching lizards to make them fight, killing cats with small-caliber guns or setting hunting dogs on them... This may sound a bit heartless but, in the country side, the only other plausible alternative for well-to-do young men like us at the time was boredom. We also wandered to nearby towns to stage erotic scenes (cuadros) with Black whores (putas de color), fished in the rivers, swam in the ponds and rode horses all over the place. I saw Fidel rape a hen to death, climb on a rock to be able to copulate with a young mare and even clutch amorously a sow, trying to endear the animal so it would perform properly.

" Fidel always ignored those who attempted to give him advice. I mentioned to him once that, having one or two young maids in the house to enjoy the coitus, it seemed rather perverted to favor bestiality. He insulted me. To him, the most disdainful thing is wisdom when it comes from someone other than himself.

" After a certain time, when Fidel thought that he had learned manners in the schools he attended, he began to show revulsion for the way his mother spoke at the table with her mouth full of rice and beans. I don't particularly like to indulge in gossip. It must be said, however, that Fidel's mother was a maid and a cook in his father's household and, as it was customary in Cuban society, she became her employer's mistress --his first wife was still alive.

" Fidel also experienced embarrassment in front of his "learned" friends at his father's ignorance about the stuff taught in schools --old Angel Castro was an uneducated Spanish immigrant who had made a fortune in the sugar business. By the time Fidel was in his teens, the teachers of the expensive Jesuit school he attended had already messed up whatever sanity he had been born with. I believe that the Spanish priests' minds were warped by celibacy.

" Fidel liked sports, but he was never the athlete he wants others to admire. He was trouble, but not very brave --always preferring to remain in the background when others fought. His self- aggrandizement, nonetheless, knows no limit: he claims to have swam ten miles in waters infested with sharks --a lie--, and he exaggerates broadly when he brags about the "numerous attempts made against his life by police and gangsters," and he concocted the hoax of having become the "instant leader" of rioters in Colombia, and he distorts the truth royally when he alleges to have been always on the thick of the action in Havana during the years of violence. Fidel Castro is a buffoon who yearns for his own legend.

" It wasn't uncommon for a person born in 1926, when Russian communism was new, to conclude that liberal democracy was decadent. Fidel, the self-promoting Cuban, would make a career of his struggle against democracy. I know that he turned into an enemy of suffrage after his failure to muster enough support among his fellow students to become the University's Law School president. He could not work with others and was disliked by most.

" Somehow, in a very short time, Fidel managed to graduate from the University of Havana with titles in Law, Social Sciences and Diplomatic Law. At the time, it was commonplace to acquire university degrees in Cuba through bribes, influence, or even at gun point.

" In 1952, a mulatto sergeant led a coup that ousted an elected president whose administration had been marked by corruption and disorder. Among the educated, many rose against the half-breed dictator at once.

" Fidel recruited poor workers from Havana and nearby localities and directed them against several Army barracks in the eastern part of the island, killing nineteen of the enemy and losing sixty-nine of the newly-enlisted patriots. He failed to acquire weapons from the Army to start an uprising and was apprehended before he could reach the mountains, but he became a recognized leader of the anti- dictator opposition.

" At the ensuing trial, Fidel undertook his own defense, mounting an attack on the dictator. He was given a sentence of thirteen years in prison but served only seven months. During Fidel's revolutionary struggle, his wife had been on the government's payroll. He could not fathom that, while he was dreaming of revolution, she had climbed into someone else's bed. He divorced her and she remarried. I wonder what kind of animal he had wanted her to become.

" In acceptance of the colored dictator's unpopularity, Fidel was eventually released from prison. I saw him in Miami, where he was demanding that every Cuban living and working in the United States donated one day of his monthly wages to help free the motherland -- again! Later, he moved to Mexico, always keeping in touch with those who were to create an uprising in Cuba at the time of his landing.

" After a faulty landing in eastern Cuba, Fidel managed to get to the hills with twenty men and a few weapons. He launched his revolution with the taking of a five-man garrison. Concurrently, other acts of rebellion were taking their course on the island. Fidel dreaded, more than anything, the removal of the mulatto dictator by means of a military coup by the armed forces, which would make him wholly irrelevant.

" The Cuban Army did not fight on behalf of the dictator and Fidel won. Even before coming down from the hills, he approved a law that would turn over to tenants, renters and squatters the land they worked. He was always willing to give away what wasn't his! He began entertaining eerie talks about some kind of revolutionary justice based on moral conviction and not on legal precepts --he had been a lousy lawyer. He was encouraged by the fact that no real democracy was possible for the poor and the hungry and began to exploit class and racial distinctions straightaway. If Nobel would have established an award for trouble making, Fidel would have won it.

" In his capacity of Máximo Líder (a title that had never been written into the Cuban Constitution) Fidel confiscated American businesses and President Eisenhower announced that the United States would not buy any more sugar from Cuba. He nationalized American banks and the USA began supporting every counter- revolutionary organization in Cuba. Later, he expropriated all foreign companies as well as Cuban industry, farms, commercial companies and, eventually, even coffee shops and taxicabs. The Kennedy administration stopped all trade with the island of Cuba.

" The United States' Central Intelligence Agency recruited disaffected Cuban nationals and planned an invasion of Cuba. It failed due to the inability of the small expeditionary force to secure a beach head from where American recognition and military assistance could be obtained. This made Fidel so happy that he boasted about his "victory over the United States" for thirty-five years. The highest point of his life, however, came when he let the Russians install nuclear missiles in Cuba to the strong objection of the United States and, on his account, the world was at the brink of an atomic war between the two superpowers. He would have liked to cause a major war so much! Years later, he still let the Russians establish a nuclear-submarine base in a Cuban port.

" Being so ruthless and mistrustful, Fidel has successfully met all challenges to ouster him. He desires power for the sake of power and he'll stop at nothing to be on the spotlight. Regardless of the failure of his economic policies and the fact that so many have left or want to leave the hell he has created, he will not part with the high command till death. He thinks of no one but Fidel. He watches his revolution deteriorate and blames others for the mess.

" Fidel knows his people well. He understands that his foes are greedy, unprincipled men like himself. He sees many other monsters- to-be looming in the horizon, and he laughs. He knows that those who oppose him most vehemently are envious men, just like he was before seizing power.

" Unfortunately, the Devil's work has already been done. Fidel has corrupted the thinking of the people with a morbid sense of equality, a shortage of accountability and an estrangement from reality. Since he is not very likely to be punished in life for his sins, let us ravage his memory with the truth.




My mom was photographed in front of this large Cuban flag on display in Havana in 1959, days into the triumph of Castro's revolution. My parents returned to New York and their lives here shortly thereafter. They attempted to visit the island once more in early 1962, but upon arriving in the Havana airport, they were interrogated about their departure in January of 1959. Although they explained that they had been on vacation and had never intended to stay, the airport militia gave them a choice. They could come into the country by denouncing their residency in the US and stay on the island or return on the next airplane without seeing their relatives. With family visible through glass partitions, my parents were escorted onto an airplane and flown back to the US that same day. My parents vowed never to step on Cuban soil again until Castro and his cruel regime were gone forever. I was told this story many times because I came just that close to being born on Cuban soil since my mother was pregnant with me at the time of this trip.
http://www.marlen.20m.com/Family/gomezpita.html



Supposedly a picture of Fidel's mother who gave birth to the murdering S.O.B. on August 13, 1926.

Wednesday, August 13, 2003



In honor of Fidel's 77th birthday, August 13,2003, I am giving Cuba a rest and looking at Kesey stuff on the Web. Check it out at http://www.lib.virginia.edu/speccol/exhibits/sixties/list.html


babbs, kesey and friends

Janet:
Contacted some of my childhood friends from Dothan (all of whom have DEEP Rort Fucker, uh, I mean Ft. Rucker Roots), emailed the curator of the museum there, left a voice message at the Southern Museum of Flight at the B'ham airport and emailed the webmaster for 117th Army Air National Guard Refueling Unit in B'ham. I asked the same question to everyone: What was Pete Ray's family's address in '60/'61?
I talked to a buddy today who served with a bunch of Cubans in Special Forces. He said everyone of 'em told him they knew where their families had buried their treasure before they refugeed out. What a cottage industry that will be!!!! Looking for buried fruit jars in Cuba!
My friend agreed with me about something this afternoon. Your Dad was probably the first "Vietnam Veteren Casualty". This whole relationship between the Kennedys and Dean Rusk and then LBJ kills me . Dean Rusk needs to be examined. Didn't they realize we were in a war for survival? Did they learn NOTHING from Korea? It's not hard to imagine your Dad chuckling up in Heaven when those Twin Towers came down.
I was in the USIA library (a.k.a. CIA headquarters and secretarial school) in Guayaquil,Ecuador the night we found out Nixon was going to step down. I was listening to Armed Forces Radio through an earphone during the meeting because that morning I'd heard that Walter Flowers, Congressman from Tuscaloosa, was gonna vote for impeachment. I knew that was curtains for Nixon because he had not pushed integration in Tuscaloosa at Flower's urging as part of the Republican Party's "Southern Strategy" and I knew that spelled doom for "Tricky Dick". We were listening to a slide show by the psychiatrist who basically wrote all of the Columbian, Ecuadorian and Bolivian drug laws. When I raised my hand, he wanted to know what my question was about the material he was presenting. I took the earphone out and said " Oh, I don't have a question, I just wanted to tell ya'll I'm now listening to Armed Forces Radio and they just said Nixon will resign tomorrow morning." Every joker in that room turned white as a sheet and left by every available exit. That was the end of the meeting and it was sho' nuff the end of the CIA in South America. Carter didn't give a shit what happened to world. He was getting ready to meet Jesus while he "never told a lie."
saludos,
roberto

Tuesday, August 12, 2003

Much mo' from Hanna:

Trist (newly appointed U.S. Consul at Havana who returned to the U.S. three months after his arrival in 1834) had placed John Morland, a New Englander who had been a merchant in Havana for 30 years, in charge of the consulate when he left Cuba. Again Robinson's problem was complicated because Morland, fearing to jeopardize his personal business, refused, according to Robinson, to ask Tacon (succeeded Ricafort as Captain General and Governor of Cuba) to authenticate copies of documents Robinson had had made. Robinson regarded Morland as pro-British and was outraged by his intimacy with Mitchell. Another shock that came to Robinson at this time was the discovery that a large number of archives which he, Payne, and Calderon had examined at the Government House in 1832 had been removed to the Convent of San Domingo where they remained unlocked, unguarded, and open to public spoliation.

Mo' from Hanna:

As Robinson delved more deeply into the intracasies of his mission he reported his conviction that intrigue was not limited to the wily foreigner(Colin Mitchell). An acquaintance from Key West brought him the disconcerting news that his own work was being scathingly criticized by Colonel Joseph M. White in his campaign for re-election as delegate from Florida to congress against Robinson's long-time friend, General Call. White published a statement that Robinson was receiving a salary of $4,500 per year, in return for which he was doing nothing, and that the development of Florida was being seriously retarded. White asserted this was due to delays in decisions on land claims because of Robinson's inability to discover the necessary documents. One explanation of White's attitude lay in the fact that he was Mitchell's attorney and that Call was one of opposing attorneys in the Mitchell case.

Mo' from Hanna:

It was Mitchell's connection with the Florida trading house of John Forbes & Company that gave Robinson acute concern in his search for the Florida archives. This company was the successor of Panton, Leslie & Company which William Panton, a Scottish Tory, who had been outlawed by the Georgia provincial congress, had reorganized in Spanish Florida, and he had conducted it extensively and successfully, by means of a virtual monopoly of the trade with the Creek, Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Choctaw Indians. Robinson's patriotic ire was aroused when he learned that through this company the Spanish government had secretly supplied the Indians with goods, arms, and munitions of war, that with the connivance of officials of this company a spirit of hostility had been fomented against the aggressions of Georgia backwoodsmen, and that as a result many of his fellow citizens had been killed. He was apparantly gratified to observe, however, that the way of the transgressor against the United States, at least in this instance, was hard, that the Company's trade had been demoralized as a result of European wars, that competition of the United States trade with the Indians had become overwhelming, and that isolated outposts had suffered disasterously from robberies(i.e. Bowles's seizure of the Wakulla Store in 1792 and the establishment of the Negro Fort at Prospect Bluff in 1814) As Robinson peered farther into the dark recesses of land entanglements, he noted that John Forbes and his partners (among whom were the Inneraritys) in the Company had demanded indemnification for the various losses sustained, one of which soared to the estimated high total of $100,000. It was further revealed that vast tracts of Florida lands had been given to this Company to compensate it for alleged losses. It was pointed out in confidence to Robinson by Calderon, one of the Spanish commissioners, that such transfers of land were illegal, first because Indians, according to Spanish regulations, did not possess the right to dispose of large tracts of land; and, second, because foreigners and non-Catholics such as Panton, could not legally become possessed of such extensive areas. Calderon's inference was that at least forgery had been practiced to complete titles to such lands.
Following Call's instructions to seek, in particular, for papers relating to Mitchell's claim to the approximately 1,250,000 acres purchased from John Forbes(deed of cession executed by James Innerarity at Chiskatalofa in present-day Houston County, Alabama on May 25, 1804) in 1817 for the use of the attorney general in trying this case before the supreme court, Robinson reported:

Each day furnishes additional evidence, amounting to mental and moral conviction, of collusion between the former Governors and Intendents of Louisiana, the Floridas and Cuba, and the British mercantile house of Panton, Leslie & Co., and John Forbes & Co., late of Pensacola, proof whereof may possibly be obtained and transmitted to the Department of State.

More from U.S. Diplomatic Missions to Cuba by A. J. Hanna concerning the Forbes Purchase:

As he(Robinson- last of six U.S. commissioners sent to Havana[1833] to retrieve the Spanish Archives of Florida) observed their (the Spanish commissioners,Payne and Calderon appointed by the Captain General of Cuba Ricafort) procedure and as the investigation progressed, Robinson received the impression that Ricafort was "stupid", "ignorant", and the "dupe" of Payne and that the latter was secretly acting in the interests of Colin Mitchell (business partner of John Forbes who bought the Forbes Purchase) because he owed Mitchell money.
Mitchell was, according to Robinson's observations, the powerful evil force at work to prevent the accomplishment of the archive mission. A partner in John Forbes & Company, Florida traders, Mitchell maintained a large trading business in Havana, could claim British protection by virture of his birth in Scotland, was entitled to the privileges of a citizen of the United States by naturalization, while according to Robinson, his residence of twenty-five years in Cuba [robertoreg note: This would place the commencement of his business at around the year 1807 or 1808- the years I have speculated were the years English speaking Protestants {i.e. John Forbes} were first allowed to do business in Cuba. I need to research this some more] and marriage to a Spanish woman, together with letters patent, constituted him a subject of Spain. When his overtures to Robinson were coldly rebuffed, he became vindictive, according to Robinson, spread malicious rumors, and used his money and influence to frustrate efforts to secure the Florida papers. Robinson and Cleveland (U.S. vice consul to Cuba) soon became convinced that Mitchell had bribed Spanish functionaries to forge and alter records to assist him in his suit (Colin Mitchell et al. v the United States, 9 Peters, United States Supreme Courts Reports 711-763 and 15 Peters, 52-92) before the supreme court of the United States.




As always I usually forgive but NEVER FORGET!!!!
Please send all suggestions and other unwanted comments to robertoreg@hotmail.com

Monday, August 11, 2003



FAR-917" (probably ex USAF 44-34429) was the last operational B-26C with the Cuban Air Force. Flown by the Chilean instructor Legas, the aircraft was underway for its last sortie on 18 April, when hit by ground fire: Legas was forced to make an emergency landing with four 250kg bombs still aboard!



Fake "FAR-931", the B-26B flown by Capts. Ponzoa and Pujol as "Gorilla 1" on the morning of 15 April 1961, during the strike against Puerto Cabezas. (all drawings Tom Cooper)





http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_99.shtml

Sunday, August 10, 2003

CIA Sent Alabamans to Invade Cuba at Bay of Pigs



The unforgotten soldier
By Meredith Cummings
Staff Writer, Tuscaloosa News
May 28, 2001


Many people, including some in the United States government, wanted Janet
Ray Weininger to forget her father and what happened to him.

But in the end, her determination triumphed.

As a nation celebrates Memorial Day today and pays tribute to the fallen
soldiers throughout America's history, Weininger has her own painful
memories.

"I can remember the feel of him, the smell of him, but I can't remember his
voice," Weininger said of her father, Thomas "Pete" Ray, of Birmingham, who
was killed when she was 6 years old.

Ray was one of four Alabama Air National Guardsmen who died at the Bay of
Pigs in a covert operation that was a secret to even their families. It was
a controversial incident in U.S. history that soon was overshadowed by
Vietnam. Yet for Ray's daughter, the episode wasn't so easily eclipsed.

>From 1961 to 1978, Fidel Castro kept the preserved body of Ray on display
in Cuba, both as a propaganda trophy and proof of U.S. involvement in the
Bay of Pigs. In 1979, through the work of his daughter, Ray's body finally
was returned to his family.

Ray's wife, Margaret, first received the news of her husband's death in
1961. It was relayed to her in a string of lies.

"[Government agents] had come and told her that he was missing and told her
not to say anything to anybody," Weininger said. "They told her he died
while flying a cargo aircraft and that all four Alabama boys had been
together in the airplane."

Now the real story can be told. Ray was shot down in his plane but survived
only to be executed. He was shot six times - once in the head at close
range.

After nearly four decades of government denial, the deeds of the four
Alabama Air National Guardsmen who died at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 finally
have been made public and their names memorialized at the CIA's Wall of
Honor in Langley, Va.

But of the four downed guardsmen, only Ray's body has been retrieved.

With the release of a new book, "Wings of Denial," Alabama's connection to
the Bay of Pigs is gaining more attention.

The Alabama Air National Guard's involvement was not acknowledged officially
until 1999, when related documents were declassified. And members of the
117th and 187th wings gathered in Birmingham just this year for a
declassification briefing. Even as a child, Weininger sensed there was more
to her father's death than people were telling her.

"As time went on, I realized more what was going on, but no one would allow
us to talk about it . and no one would bring up my father's name," said
Weininger, who now lives in Miami. "It was kind of like he disappeared. Our
family was very patriotic. If the government said don't speak about it, you
didn't speak about it."

After the mission was made public, and through many trips to Havana and
Nicaragua, Weininger finally brought her father's remains home and buried
him on a Birmingham hillside in 1979 in a full military funeral. It was that
year that the FBI officially identified her father's body, found
refrigerated in a Havana morgue.

"There was a very special bond between my dad and I, and I said, 'I have a
right to know my father and I have a right to bring him home,'" she said.
"It was a very lonely and painful time. My family was against it, and very
few people supported what I was doing."

On one of her many trips, Weininger met with Lino Gutierrez, then-U.S.
ambassador to Nicaragua, a Cuban-American who was raised in Tuscaloosa and
was instrumental in Ray's return.

"I walked in there, and there was a big photo of Paul 'Bear' Bryant on his
wall in the U.S. embassy in Nicaragua," Weininger said, laughing. But most
of her trips were not filled with talk of Alabama football. She was mocked,
scoffed at and even laughed at by government officials who told her she
would never get her father back.

Weininger also fought for years to help recover the remains of two Cuban
soldiers, Crispin Garcia and Juan Gonzalez, who finally were buried in Miami
with full military honors last November. She also founded Wings of Valor
(http://www.wingsofvalor.org/), a humanitarian organization dedicated to
rebuilding lives torn apart by war, poverty and disaster.

'The Alabama boys'

Warren Trest, who was the senior historian with the U.S. Air Force and
co-wrote "Wings of Denial," called the Alabama involvement "one of the
best-kept secrets of the Cold War."

"I think it's fantastic because it's the first time that the role really
comes out from the Alabama boys' side," Weininger said. "There's so much
written about what Cuban pilots experienced; it's nice to see the stuff come
out about the Alabama boys and what they did."

The four guardsmen flew with a group of Alabama volunteers to secret CIA
bases in Guatemala and Nicaragua to train Cuban exiles to fly B-26 bombers
in support of invasion forces. When the small group of exhausted pilots
could no longer sustain the air battle, seven Alabama guardsmen flew with
them into combat on the final day of the invasion in a futile attempt to
stave off defeat at the embattled beachhead.

"These were real heroes of the Cold War. They just got neglected because
they were tied up in a CIA covert operation," Trest said. "They had not
gotten the recognition they deserved."

Donald Dodd, who collaborated on the book with Trest and is assistant
director of the Southern Museum of Flight in Birmingham, said the book's
title gets to the core of the matter. As he and Trest wrote in the book,
President John F. Kennedy wanted the operations carried out secretly so that
the U.S. government could "plausibly deny any involvement."

"It was a small war, but it was Alabama's war," Dodd said, adding that about
60 men from Alabama participated in the Bay of Pigs. It was difficult to
track them down, since the Guard kept no records of such a secret operation.
The majority of the men were from the Birmingham and Montgomery areas.

"These people were not identified or recognized until this book came out,"
Dodd said. "Back then they were all given fake IDs. They went down there to
train the Cubans . but they ended up doing more than that. This was a
volunteer basis. They did this on their own."

On April 19, 1961, seven Alabamians flew out of Puerto Cabezas. Only three
returned. The men went, having been promised air cover from the U.S. Navy
Carrier Essex, but because of a mix-up, the air cover did not arrive in
time.

Shot down by Cuban forces, Alabama Guardsmen Wade Grey and Riley Shamburger
went down with their planes, while Thomas "Pete" Ray and Leo Francis Baker
survived their crash, only to be killed by Cuban soldiers.

According to "Wings of Denial," Leo Baker's body had been dumped into a
common grave with other Bay of Pigs corpses because his Latin features made
him look like an apparent Cuban exile. Grey and Shamburger's plane crashed
somewhere off the Coast of Cuba, and their remains may never be found, even
though Weininger says she is devoted to bringing home the remains of the
other Alabama boys.

Guardsmen Joe Shannon, Billy Goodwin and Carl Sudano and civilian James
Vaughn survived.

"The Bay of Pigs was a fiasco," Dodd said. "If they had everybody flying ...
they probably would have knocked out Castro's air force."

Dodd said many of the men did not want to talk about the ordeal, and many
simply did not know it had been declassified and refused to talk about the
days when they "went south."

"I interviewed all of them that I could find. But I suspect more of them
will come out of the woodwork when they see that we treated them fairly and
they're not in jail for talking to us," Dodd said. Since the book was
published, other men have come forward with their own Bay of Pigs stories.

"These men had not talked because they were sworn to secrecy," Trest said.
"They were military men in the best tradition, and they just didn't talk
about it."

Dodd, who worked on the book for more than a decade, said that after it was
published, a Cuban man living in America came forward and said he witnessed
Ray's execution.

"We don't know if this is true or not," Dodd said. "We're checking it out."

Pieces of the puzzle

In October 1960, Air National Guard Brigadier General Reid Doster was
visited secretly in Birmingham and asked by a CIA man to round up a group of
men to go to Cuba, according to "Wings of Denial." It was an
Alabama-football-weather kind of day, and Doster, a UA fan, was invigorated.

"Nothing me and my boys would like better than to go down and kick Castro's
butt," the book quotes Doster as saying to the CIA representative.

Around the same time, Weininger remembers Doster sending a plane to pick up
her father from Fort Rucker.

"I thought my dad must be so important because the general was sending a
plane to pick him up," she said. "But that was to pick him up to bring him
for the first initial meeting from the Bay of Pigs."

Weininger remembers eating banana sandwiches in the kitchen with her father
not long before he died. Her mother was doing the dishes, and her father was
home from work unusually early. Weininger said she recalls noticing
something strange. Just below the line of her father's shorts, a dark tan
line peaked out from the usually pale skin of Ray's leg.

"Daddy, where have you been to get such a dark tan?" his daughter asked him.
The room suddenly went silent.

"All of a sudden my mom stopped what she was doing and my dad looked up at
her and he looked at me, and he just got up and walked away, put on some
pants and came back. He kept eating his sandwich and never said a word about
where he was. For my father not to answer me . I knew then something was
wrong. I had asked the wrong question."

Later, after her father was killed, her mother delivered the news to
Weininger.

"She sat my brother and I down on the bed and she said, 'Your dad will not
be coming home. He's been killed in a plane crash.' I didn't believe it
because we had a memorial service for him, but there was no body or no
coffin."

Weininger recalled an overgrown cemetery in Birmingham where she played as a
child, where she would pick blackberries and once, witnessed workers digging
a grave. A curious child, she asked what the men were doing. They let her
help dig the grave that hot, muggy day, then let her put dirt on top of the
coffin. She knew what a funeral was supposed to be like. It was supposed to
have a body and a coffin.

Putting the past together has been a lifelong puzzle for Weininger. She
still has the bullets that killed her father.

A fall without football

Ray, who knew the men he flew with at the Bay of Pigs from his days at
Tarrant High School in Birmingham, grew up in a house near the Alabama Guard
and loved to hang out with "the boys" near the airport when he wasn't
studying or playing sports. He would fly on a Guard plane to Alabama
football games. The rules were different back then.

Dodd described the men from Alabama as being like Ray, with similar
personalities. They came from the same place, so "nearly everybody knew
everybody."

But it was too late for the four boys from Alabama, who wanted nothing more
than to feel the crisp fall Alabama breeze on their faces again, to watch a
football game, to spend time having beers and spinning yarns at the Airport
Inn, their local Birmingham hangout.

"These are a bunch of good old boys," Dodd said.

"They were nonjudgmental and live-and-let-live. [The Alabama guardsman was]
a good guy to have a beer with. If he got too much to drink, he wouldn't
fight you. He wouldn't hit on your best girl. If he had a job to do, he had
a responsibility and he did it."

WHAT WAS THE BAY OF PIGS? The Bay of Pigs was an unsuccessful invasion of
Cuba by Cuban exiles, supported by the U.S. government. On April 17, 1961,
an armed force of about 1,500 Cuban exiles landed in the Bah?a de Cochinos
(Bay of Pigs) on the south coast of Cuba.

Trained in Guatemala by members of the Central Intelligence Agency with the
approval of the Eisenhower administration, and supplied with arms by the
U.S. government, the rebels intended to overthrow the Communist regime of
Fidel Castro. The Cuban army easily defeated the rebels and by April 20,
most were either killed or captured.

The invasion provoked anti-U.S. demonstrations in Latin America and Europe
and further embittered U.S.-Cuban relations. Poorly planned and executed,
the invasion subjected President Kennedy to severe criticism at home. Cuban
leader-in-exhile José Mir? Cardona, president of the U.S.-based National
Revolutionary Council, blamed the failure on the CIA and the refusal of
Kennedy to authorize air support for the invasion.

In December 1962, Castro released 1,113 captured rebels in exchange for $53
million in food and medicine raised by private donations in the United
States.



AN EXAMPLE OF A B-26 FLOWN BY CUBAN EXILE AND ALABAMA AIR NATIONAL GUARD PILOTS IN THE BAY OF PIGS INVASION

On the same day also few aircraft from the USS Essex – with all their markings removed – were sent into reconnaissance of the area, as well as a single USAF C-130 Hercules transporter, which started from the Kelly AB, in Texas, which was to drop some supplies in the night. Due to different factors, the Hercules never reached Giron. Meanwhile, the situation of the Brigade 2056 on the ground became critical as well. The two last undamaged merchants, Atlantico and Carribe, have left the area without off-loading most of their loads, and the troops were now very short with ammunition.

For the morning of 19 April, one last large air attack was permitted to be flown by the Cuban counter-revolutionary pilots, which agreed to fly it, but only if covered by the Skyhawks from the USS Essex. After this request was turned down by Washington, however, again only the US advisors showed ready to take off. So it came that the US pilots William Goodwin, Thomas W. Ray, Riley Shamburger, and Joe Shannon, together with the Cuban pilot Gonzalo Herrera, manned the five B-26Bs readied for this mission. The bombers took off from Happy Valley at 0330hrs, and closing to the Cuban coast even saw four Skyhawks of the VA-34. But, the USN fighters were only on a recconnaissance flight and not to get involved: as soon as they spotted the arriving Invaders, they turned away. Namely, the USS Essex has got a secret order to dispatch several Skyhawks for the escort of counter-revolutionary bombers, but these missed to meet the B-26s due to communication problems. The US crews attacked nevertheless.
Thomas W. Ray, underway under the call-sign "Mad Dog 4" with navigator Leo Baker, bombed Castor’s HQ in the "Central Australia" sugar factory, but was then shot down by Maj. Enrique Carrera-Rolas, which piloted the T-33 "709". Ray and Baker bailed out safely, but were then executed by the communists. The other four bombers managed to hit their targets as well, but then another T-33A, "711", this time flown by Capt. Alvaro Prendes, catched the leading Invader of the "Mad Dog" formation, flown by Maj. Rilley Shamburger, with navigator Wade Gray, and shot it down.

Conclusion
For all purposes, the battle was now short of being over: on the ground, no less but 1.189 troops of the Brigade 2056 were were meanwhile captured – or would be catched in the following few days - whiile 114 others were killed. The CIA dispatched another transport to drop supplies on the same evening, but the Operation Pluto was then cancelled. The remaining 50 Cuban pilots and mechanicians were then flown to Miami, and all the bases used for the operation closed. The Invaders left behind at Happy Valley languished for some time before being taken over by the Fuerza Aérea de Nicaragua; few examples were even flown back to the USA, and ended at Davis-Monthan.

For the FAR, its first combat campaign was a complete and undisputed success. According to official and inofficial Cuban sources the – in part young and mainly inexperienced – FAR pilots claimed a surprisingly high number of air-to-air kills against the counter-revolutionary aircraft. Even if under a closer look most of these proved as overclaims (some Cuban sources claim no less but 16 counter-revolutionary aircraft as shot down by FAR pilots), their achievements nevertheless deserve a full credit, especially as most of the FAR pilots had no combat experience at all, and the aircraft they flew would probably be declared non-operational in most other air forces. Their achievements are even more significant if the one considers, that the official Cuban sources claimed the ten available FAR pilots to have flown no less but 70 combat sorties, while the counter-revolutionary sources indicate everything else but a confirmation for even 50% of this claim to be truth. Consequently in a very small number of combat sorties the FAR delivered the decisive blows to the counter-revolutionaries, sinking two transport ships and shooting down seven B-26B Invaders (an eight example was shot down by the AAA), thus assuring their enemy not to be properly supplied with ammunition, and left without any air cover. For all purposes, the Fuerza Aérea Revolucionaria was thus instrumental in spoiling the Operation Pluto.

The most-successful FAR piliots were:

- Maj. Enrique Carrera-Rolas, for which two kills were claimed in only seven sorties flown, and which not only indeed shot down two B-26s, but also sunk one transport ship,

- Capt. Alvaro Prendes, for which three kills were claimed (two confirmed) in – supposedly – 14 combat sorties, and

- Lt. Rafael del Pino (which in te mid-1980s defected – flying his whole family in a small aircraft – to the USA, after also leading the Cuban contingent in the war in Angola), for which it was claimed to have shot down two B-26s (only one confirmed) in ten combat sorties,

The counter-revolutionary pilots fared at least as well. However, with their slower and less maneuverable Invaders they could simply not win the air combats against the faster Sea Furies and T-33As of the FAR. Left without the promised support from the USA, and after suffering heavy losses in repeated air combats, it was not surprising that they finally gave up in frustration. Their fate illustrated perfectly how heavily dependable on posession of air superiority the operations of this kind were.

For the CIA, the Operation Pluto became a classic synonyme for a military disaster, which caused the agency to be comprehensively reorganized. The times when it was organizing clandestine para-military operations all over the world were largerly over, and the CIA – subsequently put under the direct control of the US Senate – was largerly turned into an intelligence-gathering organization. This remained that way right until the end of the 20th Century, and was changed only after severe criticism for ist inactivity in the face of increasing activity of Islamic extremists.

Douglas A-26 Invader
Bay of Pigs
Within only a few months after the success of the Castro-led revolution which overthrew the Batista government of Cuba in January of 1959, it became clear that his new regime was going to take on a definitely Communist flavor, with nationalization of private industries, one-party rule, suppression of dissent, and the export of leftist revolutions elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere all being promised. Not about to stand idly by and let a Communist regime take hold only 90 miles from American shores, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) began a series of efforts to undermine the new Castro regime in Cuba.

By September of 1960, a decision was made in Washington by the Eisenhower administration to recruit a force of anti-Castro Cuban exiles and supply them with arms so that they could invade Cuba and overthrow the Castro regime before it could consolidate its power. A group of Cuban exiles plus some American "advisors" were assembled under CIA sponsorship at secret bases at Retalhuleu in Guatemala and at Puerto Cabezas in Nicaragua. The governments of Guatemala and Nicaragua were more than willing to look the other way. Anxious that the upcoming invasion be perceived as an indigenous uprising of the Cuban people rather than as an American-sponsored attack, the CIA created a number of "front" organizations to disguise its role in the sponsorship of the affair -- among these were Southern Air Transport, the Double-Check Corporation, Intermountain Aviation and Zenith Technical Enterprises, Inc. Since a number of the Cuban exile recruits already had some B-26 experience, the decision was made to acquire about twenty surplus B-26s out of USAF surplus stocks at Tucson, Arizona. These aircraft would be used to provide air support during the upcoming invasion. These Invaders were primarily solid-nosed B versions. These planes were "purchased" by the CIA front organization Intermountain Aviation and immediately sent to the launching sites in Guatemala and Nicaragua. Since Castro's air force was also equipped with Invaders, the exile Invaders were painted in FAR colors and were provided with fake FAR serial numbers in the hope that when the operation took place, it would be perceived as a strictly local uprising within Castro's own air force and not an American-led invasion. However, it seems that the CIA was unaware of the fact that most of Castro's Invaders were transparent-nosed B-26Cs rather than solid-nosed B-26Bs. At the same time, a group of B-26Bs had separately been provided to the air force of Guatemala, and these planes were used for training of the exile group.
The invasion began on the morning of April 15, with an attack by two exile B-26s on the Santiago de Cuba airfield. Other B-26s hit the Libertad airfield and the base at San Antonio de los Banos. One exile B-26 was shot down during the attack on Libertad, and two exile B-26s were damaged severely enough that they had to divert to emergency airfields at Key West, Florida and on Grand Cayman Island. As part of the deception campaign at the beginning of the attack, a Liberation Air Force B-26B painted as FAR serial number 933 and equipped with fake battle damage landed at Miami, claiming that it was a defecting Cuban aircraft which had strafed and bombed some of Castro's air force as it escaped.
Still other B-26s supported the Bay of Pigs invasion itself, which began on April 17. Unfortunately, there was no fighter cover provided during the invasion, and a group of FAR Sea Furies immediately attacked the landing fleet and sunk one of the ships. There was even a situation in which a FAR B-26 and an invasion B-26 briefly exchanged fire, marking one of the few occasions where Invaders actually fought against each other.

Actual invasion fleet B-26 losses were eight in all, one to AAA during the initial attack on Campo Columbia and the remainder destroyed by FAR fighters. Castro's force of T-33 jet trainers proved particularly effective during the fighting, shooting down no less than five of the attacking FAL B-26s. Two more were shot down by FAR Sea Furies. Deprived of air support that could have protected the attacking force from Castro's T-33s and Sea Furies, the invasion was quickly defeated and those troops unable to escape were forced to surrender. This was a humiliating defeat for the new Kennedy administration in Washington which had inherited the invasion plan from the previous administration but nevertheless had opted to go ahead with it.

After the failure of the Bay of Pigs operation and the withdrawal of the survivors, the remaining Liberation B-26s were left to languish at Puerto Cabezas. Many of these aircraft eventually joined the ranks of the Fuerza Aérea de Nicaragua, although some were apparently returned to Davis-Monthan where they were put back into storage.

A single B-26B is on display in an open-air museum at Playa Giron to commemorate the Castro victory at the Bay of Pigs. It is painted as FAR serial number 933. However, this aircraft is probably a war prize returned to Cuba from Angola and painted to commemorate the events of 1961.

The following is a list of serial numbers of Invaders which served with the Liberation Air Force during the Bay of Pigs attack. Most of these planes were actually solid-nosed B-26Bs.

44-34336/34338 Douglas A-26B-55-DL Invader
- 34338 participated in Bay of Pigs invasion
44-34414/34416 Douglas A-26B-55-DL Invader
- 34415 participated in Bay of Pigs
invasion, later to N5002X
44-34587/34617 Douglas A-26B-61-DL Invader
- 34590 participated in Bay of Pigs
invasion, later to N5000X, may have
been the deception aircraft "FAR
933"
44-34618/34753 Douglas A-26B-66-DL Invader
- 34730 participated in Bay of Pigs invasion
44-35358/35557 Douglas A-26C-35-DT Invader
- 35411 participated in Bay of Pigs invasion
- 35420 participated in Bay of Pigs invasion
- 35554 participated in Bay of Pigs invasion
44-35564/35655 Douglas A-26C-40-DT Invader
- 35574 participated in Bay of Pigs invasion
- 35641 participated in Bay of Pigs invasion
44-35656/35782 Douglas A-26C-45-DT Invader
- 35698 participated in Bay of Pigs
invasion, later to N5001X
- 35714 participated in Bay of Pigs
invasion, returned to USAF at Hill
AFB in 1962
- 35732 participated in Bay of Pigs
invasion, now at Museum of Aviation,
Warner Robins AFB
- 35782 converted to B-26B, participated in
Bay of Pigs invasion, returned to
USAF at Hill AFB in 1962, converted
to RB-26L, sent to Vietnam 3-63
under Farm Gate, terminated
at Tainan
44-35783/35937 Douglas A-26C-50-DT Invader
- 35789 participated in Bay of Pigs invasion
- 35821 participated in Bay of Pigs invasion
- 35830 participated in Bay of Pigs invasion
- 35839 participated in Bay of Pigs invasion
- 35845 participated in Bay of Pigs invasion
- 35896 participated in Bay of Pigs
invasion, returned to USAF at Hill
AFB and rebuilt as B-26K 64-17640 in
1964

Source: Dan Hagedorn and Leif Hellstrom, Foreign Invaders: The Douglas Invader in Foreign Military And US Clandestine Service, Midland