Life

November 16, 1962

 

Hit and Run to Cuba with Alpha 66

 

By Andrew Saint George

 

While the big questions about Cuba were weighed by the world's states- and peace hung in perilous balance - the small and bitter warfare waged against Castro by Cuban exiles went on. On assignment from LIFE, photographer Andrew St. George, who covered Castro's rise from mountain hideout to takeover in Havana nearly four years ago, recently accompanied one secret anti-Castro group known as Alpha 66 on a raid to Cuba and returned with this extraordinary record, the first report ever on the activities of this seaborne guerrilla force.

 

It begins in the hours after midnight on Monday morning. We sit in a skiff, pretending to fish, less than a mile off the neon-lit Gold Coast of Miami Beach, waiting and watching the garish reflections dance in the tranquil water and listening to the music from the nightclubs drifting out to us. To any casual eye - but more importantly even to a suspicious one - my two companions and I are late Sunday fishermen. Actually we are at a highly secret rendezvous, waiting for Alpha

66 speedboats to pick us up and start the long southward run to Cuba.

 

A little past midnight they come. Two speedboats knifing out of the darkness, then circling to make sure of us. I am half pushed, huff hauled out of the skiff into a speedboat, one of my companions into the other, and we roar away.

 

Not until daylight do I get a chance to examine the boat in which I am riding. She is 70 feet long and every single bit of unnecessary superstructure has been shaved off as with a razor. Two 140-hp marine engines are in the stern. Amidships is the largest obtainable gas tank, the steering wheel and, above that, a gyrocompass. Four additional barrels of gasoline are lashed to the deck, two on each side. A small segment of deck at the bow provides the only shelter on board, enough for two men lying on their backs to keep most of their bodies out of the windblown spray. The boat is not comfortable, but she is fast, maneuverable, able to navigate in shallow waters and almost invisible to endue.

 

The man at the steering wheel wears a rubber skin-diving suit. He is Ricardo, a tall, 35-year-old, heavy-shouldered, curly-haired Cuban who captains the lead boat and also commands the two-boat mission. Each of the boats - ours is Lola and the other is Suzy, the names deriving in both cases from the radio call signs - manned by five men one or two of whom incessantly tend the engines or the pumps.

 

The second-in-command is Joaquin, heavy set, balling, taciturn, his face shielded by a steelworker's hard hat. There is Policarpo a gnarled, dark little fishermen. Two others - Paco, a thin, eager student, and Universo, an even-tempered ex-rifleman of Castro's onetime rebel army - work in the stern. The men also take turns at the helm.

 

I can see that four of them are veterans - they have seagoing tans. But Paco, the little student, is a recruit. He is pale and about to acquire a bad burn as his first campaign injury. Yet Paco obviously doesn't care. "They were telling me that I should sign up with the U.S. Army," he says cockily, "but that's not for me. Too much waiting. The fight is for now, for today."

 

His face blank, Ricardo adds, "Our war goes on, no matter what the U.S. does. Our war is a different war. Our war knows no compromise."

 

We plunge on southward. In the early afternoon, the second boat - a near duplicate of our own but half a fool shorter - develops engine trouble and we lake her in tow. This is worrisome, but as night falls again, the men are happy. They are going to war - their war, one which they believe they are best suited to fight.

 

At 11 on Tuesday morning, a long, narrow rock ledge bobs into sight over the wave crests. It is thatched with grass and stunted sand palmetos, but it looks so forlorn that I am astonished to discover it is to be our base of operations. The link key has many small, calm lagoons. Ricardo throttles down and swings the boat inshore. We anchor off the tiny beach and final our landing raft. Tierra Firme feels great after a day and a half at sea. The crew of Suzy falls to the repairing of her sick engine. Huge, rusty gasoline barrels are unearthed among the rocks and flouted out to the boars on the landing raft. Universo the imperturbable veteran, unwinds a handline and sets to fishing from a ledge.

 

We had eaten very little on the way down except bread, crackers, cold sausage and guava marmalade. The boats, pitching like rodeo mounts, did not help our appetites.  But now we have a meal. Ricardo breaks out tins of spaghetti, beef stew and canned potatoes. While we are eating. Universo comes back, triumphantly holding aloft a string of fish, and soon there is the aroma of frying oil.

 

Lunch ends around three with a hilarious surprise. Universo pulls out a black homemade woman's wig front the boat locker, then a blond one, and brings them both ashore. He adjusts the block wig on his head and, with a mincing curtsy, offers the blond one to Ramon, the commandant of the second boat.

 

Ramon adjusts his hairpiece and wiggles. The men roar. We are suspended in happiness for an instant and then, abruptly, we are serious. The two wig-wearers mount the rocks with two other men and begin to open the weapons stores hidden there. Now I see what the wigs are for - so we will look like a fishing party to Castro's spotter planes if they catch us in the open.

 

One by one, all the weapons are brought down to the boats. There are two Finnish 20-mm automatic cannons, standard NATO-model automatic rifles, a couple of World War II machine pistols known as "grease guns" - much admired by the men because of their rugged construction, a couple of weatherworn Garands, .45 pistols on web belts, grenades, and olive drub tin boxes of ammo.

 

Joaquin goes up himself to bring down a huge object he cradles tenderly. Unwrapped, it turns out to be a fully rigged 20-pound electromagnetic demolition mine.

 

The two cannons are plainly the troops' sweethearts The men float them out to the boats one by one, with infinite care. The bowdeck of each boat is reinforced with planking and the cannons are hoisted atop it, where they stand on the original skis the Finns once used to prop them up for battle against the Russians. Now a reinforced steel tube is run across from the guard rails on either side. The main weight of the cannon rests on the skis but the barrel, as tall as a man, rests on the tubing. A heavy steel spring is attached to the breech and to the deck planking to help absorb the recoil.

 

"Improvisacion criolla." Ricardo says, grinning at me, and his usually impassive face shines with pride at their "native improvisation." It is, in fact, a remarkably ingenious setup The men on Alpha first discovered, from a careful vetting of the weapons market, that these Finnish cannons can be purchased by mail- for a mere $160 apiece, including shipping. Then they worked out the way to convert them into naval guns suited for their light, bouncy craft. With an automatic cannon in its bow, each speedboat becomes a formidable threat - a gunboat in every sense but the legal one.

 

Are the guns shipshape? Joaquin intends to find out.  He fits a magazine to the breech and the lagoon reverberates with the sharp explosions of the trusty old Finnish shells.

 

"The shells were made to hit Communists," chortles Ricardo. "They'll find the nearest one by themselves."

 

The rest of the men are cleaning rifles and pistols with loving care. But Suzy's engines still won't work and, as evening falls, Ricardo decides we will stay at the base overnight, fix Suzy's entrails and then launch our operation tomorrow night. It is warm and clear. We huddle together in the gently rolling boats and, that night, for the first time, we sleep.

 

At 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Ricardo spreads a blue-gray aeronautical chart across Lola's main gas tank and briefs us on our mission. The objective is a bay on the northern coast of central Cuba. The curving shoreline of the bay is dotted with a profusion of fat, inviting targets - a large sugar mill with tall molasses storage towers, nearby a military barracks, and farther west a ship channel.

 

But on the ocean side the bay is protected by a tangle of small and large keys. "That's just why we are attacking here," says Ricardo contentedly. "This bay is so hard to navigate, Castro expects no trouble here. There are no patrol boats, no big shore-defense emplacements. And Policarpo here has lived all his life among these keys. He's a fisherman, a wonderful guide for this zone.

 

"We'll slip through live keys at about 10, cross the bay very quietly and approach the sugar mill front the north. Three men will go ashore in the raft with the big electromagnetic mine, attach it to the largest molasses tower, and then start back. Just before the mine is timed to explode,

we’ll open fire on the barracks at close range - with our cannon, with our rifles, with our pistols, with everything - to cover their retreat and stir up more confusion. When the men return, we'll pull back into the shipping channel and attack any ships we might find en route . . . . It's a very beautiful mission."

 

We set out at dusk. The sea is calm, a gentle breeze comes from the west. Ricardo stands tall behind the wheel of his vessel. Its cannon is directed straight at Cuba some 60 miles away. The two boat captains exchange rapid conversation on the walkie-talkie that serves as our radio contact.

 

Joaquin ducks up from the bow with a roll of masking tape and carefully begins to cover up the small red light of the gyrocompass. Then he takes over the wheel and Ricardo breaks out the electromagnetic mine, which is wrapped in canvas. It looks like a large knapsack with two metal horns protruding front the top and eight shoe-shaped magnets down the side. Universo and little Paco are assigned to carry it ashore. One of the men from the second boat is to go along for cover. Paco's eyes arc enormous in the dark as he listens to Ricardo's careful briefing. I duck under the bow, bring out a camera and infrared light gear, and begin shooting pictures in the soft, sweet, luminescent darkness.

 

The rain comes about an hour later. Fat warm droplets, they are the first harbingers of disaster.

 

A squall rises and quickly blows up into a full, furious nor'easter The waves swell until they tower a full 15 feet over us. To preserve my gear, I retreat under the bow, holding say cameras and lights to my chest. A few minutes after 11, I hear muffled shouts and crawl out of my coffin-like shelter. The flashing beacon of a lighthouse is visible through the whipping curtain of rain and spume. We are within sight of Cuba.

 

The men are working furiously, pumping water, grappling with bits of breakaway gear. After 15 minutes I am jolted by a blow that throws me backward into the hold. I find myself underwater. A huge wave has washed across the stern and flooded the bowl. Pulling and kicking as hard as I can, I surface from the flooded hold. There are cries of "Este se hunde [It is sinking!]" A moment later I see Universo go over the side and start swimming toward the second boat, which has turned on its spotlight. I follow him. I reach Suzy after a 400-yard swim, feel her crew pull me aboard gulping and choking. But Suzy founders, too, in less than five minutes. Now I see what has happened. In the pitch darkness our guide has missed the entrance channel through the keys and the raging sea is clubbing both our boats against a high sandbank. For the second time I throw myself overboard Three or four minutes later, I stand on Cuban soil - shipwrecked.

 

All around us the raging surf flings after us onto the shore our possessions – rifles, gasoline tanks, water cans, cannons and my cameras We stand numb and shivering on the beach. Then I see Ricardo's tall shape and begin to move toward him. In moments we are a group again, and then Ricardo's voice turns us back into a team: "A recoger, rapido [Collect your stuff, quick]!'

It isn't difficult. After the floatsam and jetsam of gear comes Lola herself, our poor boat, hurled ashore by the fantastic force of the water. We dive back into her and come up with odd bits and pieces - a tommy gun, a camera, a toolbox, a flash battery wish its strap torn off.

 

Whatever I can spot of my gear is utterly ruined - the cameras water-logged and smashed, the waterproof film containers sloshing water out of the rents where their handles had been. But the rest of the men are fishing for weapons or hunting for them along the strand, and they manage to gather a half-dozen rifles and tommy guns. Their shouts become firmer.  Unlike cameras, rifles can be put back into commission. And once you have a rifle, you have a chance.

 

That, obviously, is Ricardo's thinking. He raises his voice above the howling wind. "In a single file! Move away from the boats! Everyone! We must move inland and hide!"

 

We form up instantly. Less than 15 minutes after being shipwrecked, we are marching down the beach, the men clutching rifles and the single ammo box they've been able to salvage- marching toward the storm-whipped interior. On the luminous face of my watch, which has miraculously kept going throughout, the hands stand at seven minutes of 12.

 

Daylight comes wet and windy on Thursday. With it comes also the realization that we are trapped on a large Cuban coastal key. "We must find another boat," says Ricardo.

 

Wearing his skin diver's tunic but not the trousers, which he lost during the night, he dangles an automatic rifle from his right hand and looks as calm and purposeful as ever.

Following him silently, we begin to stalk our way through the thick mangrove swamps which ring the key. Fewer than half of us have shoes. The rest struggle along barefoot. All morning we wade hip‑deep among the swampy fingers of the keys, swimming ‑ one by one ‑ underwater whenever the thicket becomes utterly impassable. Towards noon we emerge - dazed by exhaustion, thirst, cold, hunger ‑ at a small clearing. A dozen bamboo shacks stand back from the water's edge. Fishermen.

 

But this tiny cluster of Cuban prop­erty has no boat for us. It has very little of anything at all. If Fidel Cas­tro has ever remembered to do anything for the rural poor of Cuba, he has clearly forgotten these fishermen.

 

We are offered some matches, a wrinkled half‑packet of black, government‑rolled cigarettes, a bucket of drinking water and a few pounds of gofio ‑ flour mixed with half‑refined sugar. A quick look through the wretched huts proves that these fish­ing folk are indeed offering us the very best they have.

 

Hope itself is draining away, leaving my legs hollow. I lie down under a sea grape tree and begin chewing on a small sour‑tasting berry. Ricardo hovers over me, urbane, imperturbable: "There must be a boat around here somewhere. I'll take the guide and Ramon and look down the leeward side of this godforsaken key. Wait for me here with the others un­til we get back."

 

I roll deeper under the sell grape branches I am using for cover and stare at the sky, thinking of the planes that must cone sooner or later. Prob­ably sooner ‑ probably very soon. Our two wrecked speedboats are out on the sand ‑ plain to see from above, plain to see from the ocean. Once anyone in authority spots them, it will be the beginning of the end. First there will be planes. Then the helicopters will come in low, circling incessantly over us, making certain that we are pinned down wherever we may be hiding. Then the first patrol boat, and the second one in the distance ‑ and then the first militia troops will land.

 

We are dispersed in a wide circle, five of us watching the water, three of us the tip of the key. This is no movie scene, no passage from Hem­ingway: there is no conversation. But we are all thinking the same thing ‑ it is plain from the way the men are feverishly cleaning their weapons, disassembling them and blowing tremendous gusts down inaccessible slots and recesses to rid them of clogging sand and salt.

 

There has been no pledge to resist, no declaration of a fight to the death. Everyone of us knows that, if discovered, we are doomed. None of the Alpha men wants to be taken alive.

 

The first of the milicianos heave into sight in midafternoon, their ugly Russian‑style helmets peering over the side of their patrol launch its they chug across the inlet and vanish around the next finger of land. If they see us, they give no sign of it. Joaquin crouches next to me, his automatic rifle in the crook of his thick arm, his face expressionless.

 

"Sons of whores;" he says softly. Then, after a brief silence, he whispers, "Did I ever show you a picture of my children and my wife?"

 

He has a stunningly lovely woman.

 

"She's in Guanajay. Guanajay is the woman’s prison. They gave her 20 years for conspiring against the government ‑ just because I got away. I send her packages from Miami."

 

Time drags as slowly as it must for the condemned. The mosquitoes feast on us in small, blood‑greedy clouds. Huge swamp crabs scurry near. Stretched on the ground, our silent, motionless bodies must look temptingly like carrion.

 

Univcrso, old reliable Universo, sees it first. "Pero que carajo, que carajo clase de bote viene por ahi…”

 

Then I sec it too ‑ a small, old gaff-rigged sloop ‑ sailing toward us across the water, softly, smoothly, unforgettably beautiful. It bumps gently against the mangrove roots less than 100 feet away and Policarpo's hairy, leathery, lovely mug comes up front thee little wooden hut in the stern. Suddenly I realize that Ricardo is getting up from the bottom and stretching himself against the most with it look that is more insouciant than usual, and I hear him announce in a voice of studied calm, "Caballeros, your new boat leaves at sundown."

 

Our jib is in tatters. We have been at sea 17 hours tossing violently in 12‑ to 15‑foot waves, with a howling wind that makes everything aboard scream in anguish. I have counted every hour since we left. My watch somehow ticks on.

 

Our boat, our purloined lady, is an ancient craft about 24 feel long. We talk about her. We wonder about her history as we flee. She has broad gunwales and a deep, open hold. Po­licarpo thinks she was built half a century ago to ferry sacks of sugar and rice among the keys or down the coastline of northern Cuba. Her rudder is it roughhewn wooden tiller mounted on a fall rear deck, which also mounts a tiny wooden hut that serves to shelter the helmsman. But there is shelter for no one else. The rest of us crouch wretchedly in the hold, lashed by the salt spray, flogged by the relentless wind.

 

The trouble is, of course, that we are sailing back again into the raw nor'easter that wrecked our speedboats yesterday. The wind shows no sign of abating and neither do the waves. Our boat mounts the swells with high‑pitched groans, but she keeps on.

 

The seams are giving way. We are shipping a good deal of water over the sides but, even more ominously, we are shipping more and more through the bottom. To bail the boat we have two rusty, quart tin cans and a bucket. At first, Joaquin bails all by himself ‑ with almost trancelike speed, hour after hour ‑ but soon we are taking hourly turns.

 

One by one the men begin to give out, to give up. Young Paco rolls flat on his face in the bow and refuses to answer when his turn to bail is called. As midday turns into dusk, hope of finding help wanes with the waning daylight. Old Universo is next to go. He sprawls next to Paco and appeals to his long‑dead mother in groans of abject agony.

 

Towards midnight, a third man, Ju­lio, another old soldier from Suzy's crew, joins. them. All three shake un­controllably with attacks of cold and fever.

 

We have no compass. By day we navigate by the sun and by what Ri­cardo calls "the color of the water," which tells the depth and direction of the various undersea channels. By night we try to follow the stars when­ever we can catch a glimpse of them across the scurrying clouds.

 

The tiller is far from sound. A man has to stand watch with the helms­man, holding a long plank against the current to protect the rudder. Steering is made even more difficult by the

fact that the jib hangs like a line of tattered distress flags.

 

We cannot be doing more than two knots through these wild waters. Slowly, painfully, we struggle towards the north. Only Ricardo, among all of us, seems confident and unaffected. Twice a day he passes a handful of gofia to everyone able to get up to take it. Though it is painful to swal­low the dry flour with my salt‑blis­tered mouth, I force it down. I am weary and discouraged, and sense in the wind and the sea the rising whistle of death.

 

Sprawled face down on the wet planks, it occurs to me that Malraux's retired old revolutionary was right after all: When you have only one life, you should not try too hard to change the world.

On Saturday the sun rises at 6:47. I note the hour and see it pass into oblivion, a number. I know that un­less something happens today, we are done. No matter how fast we bail, the water in the bottom is slowly rising and our last strength is failing.

 

A few minutes past 7:00, I see Policair­po, smaller and more gaunt than ever, swing forward from the stern. He low­ers the mainsail. A final feeling of defeat spreads through me, for I know what this means ‑ the arthritic steering rig has finally given up the ghost.

 

But I am wrong. Invisible from the deck, the dark‑topped crest of a tiny island is slowly floating into view from the west. It is the British Cay Sal and it is a sight to raise the dead. The sick clamber up and we all cluster in the stern. Our creaking, water­soakcd old lady, her mainsail at half-mast, begins tacking toward shore. In another half hour the sun comes out­ and we can see the Union Jack flutter over the low, whitewashed administration building.

 

Ricardo sits straddling the roof of the helmsman's hut, his long, bare legs dangling happily, and he has the look of a strange creature. He shouts gleefully, "We have arrived!" Then he turns to me and, all at once serious, says, "Andrew, you're one of us. Help us get sonic new boats and we'll go back to Cuba."