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The Bay of Pigs .. indeed,
as a tactical exercise, it was well devised and daringly and successfully led. But after the strategists at the White House and State had finished plucking it apart, it became an operation that would have disgraced even the Albanians.”1
A View From PriFly
What the public knows as the Bay of Pigs, the White House knew as Operation Zapata, the CIA gave birth to as Operation Crosspatch, and the Navy renamed Bumpy Road. The anti-Castro Cuban Expeditionary Force went ashore under the code name Pluto, god of the underworld.
It was my personal frustration to have participated in the operation. I was the air officer (air boss) on board the IJSS Essex (CVS-9) in charge of flight- and hangar-deck operations. From my station in primary flight control (Primly), Assistant Air Officer Commander Harry W. Swinburne and I had the best seats in the house to watch operations on and off the ship. Much of what we saw has not been reported, or has been reported inaccurately. 1 hope to U(Jd some relevant material to a record that will never be complete or accurate.
Those of us in ship’s company, including the Air Department, operated in a veil of ignorance. We were not apprised of the mission; we knew nothing more than the daily flight schedule, which changed minute-to-minute. We were, nonetheless, eyewitnesses to what was happening on our flight deck and out to the horizon.
We ourselves operated a few aircraft from the Independence (CVA-62), although I have not been able to find any Mention of them in existing writings. On board the Essex, we armed S2F Trackers with 5-inch high-velocity aircraft r°ckets (HVARs) and sent them off under conditions that suggested—to our dismay—a close-air-support mission. 'Wd some planes came back on board with bullet holes. We saw the evidence of combat action in the destroyers came alongside, and in the strange kinds of people (some of whom were wounded) who were transferred through tlle flight deckT The ship’s radio antennas were operating continuously for receipt and transmission of high-priority
c°nimunications traffic. . .
It is not clear from the record on what date the Essex was assigned her mission for Bumpy Road. My first mdi- cation that something was afoot was a summons, in late March 1961, while we were alongside the pier at Naval Opting Base Norfolk. I was ordered to meet with some now-forgotten members of the Commander Naval Air Forces,
By Captain William C. Chapman, U.S. Navy (Retired)
folk with a full complement of antisubmarine warfare aircraft (VS-34 with 12 S2Fs; VS-39 with 12 S2Fs; HS-9 with 16 HSS-ls; and VAW-12 Detachment 45 with 4 AD-5Ws). The commander of Carrier Division 18, Rear Admiral John A. Clark, and his staff were embarked.
April 4 was a unique day in naval aviation. An entire aviation squadron (VS-39) disembarked over the bow at sea and was replaced over the stem by VA-34, a squadron of a completely different type.2 VS-39 air crews departed in their own S2s, but the remaining squadron personnel and gear had to be taken off by carrier-on-board-delivery (COD) aircraft. Similarly, the gear and crew of jet squadron VA-34 arrived via CODs. At one time, approximately 15 CODs—every one on the East Coast—were parked on the bow of the Essex.
VS-39 returned to home base in Quonset Point, Rhode Island, with the explanation that it had been displaced by a jet squadron so that the Essex might conduct a test of
On 4 April 1961,12 A4D-2 Skyhawks from VA-34 (above) flew aboard the Essex, presumably to test the feasibility of deploying an attack squadron to an antisubmarine carrier while at sea. The squadron’s gear and crew arrived in carrier-on-board delivery aircraft (right).
considered a fighter, and that most of the VA-34 pil°ts had never fired the guns on their A4s, only the limited nature of the mission, the presumed weakness of the Cuba13 Air Force, and the proven adaptability of Navy pilots could justify such an assignment. Also, the A4 was the easiest’ if not the only, jet capable of operating off the Essex* which lacked steam catapults. Hunting for the wind and lighting off extra boilers for speed were necessary to geI even the A4s airborne off the carrier’s hydraulic catapult*’ An intensive program of loading drills and conventiona*' weapons training was instituted for the jets and the S2F*’ A4 pilots fired their guns and Aero7D 2.75-inch rock1- pods, in most cases for the first time. The S2s even loads 5-inch HVARs, to have some sort of air-to-air weap011 while they flew cover for the ships of the CEF. (T^ HVARs failed either to fire or to jettison, so the S-s flew cover without air-to-air capability.) The helos wef£ not similarly armed, although all types shared in heavy flight schedules from 5 April to 13 April.
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Atlantic, ship’s maintenance staff. My aviation fuels officer, Ensign William E. (Bud) Arkin, a young “Mustang ’ officer of considerable ability, accompanied me. We were asked what would have to be done if it became necessary to operate a jet A4D squadron off the Essex, without going into port to take the planes on board.
The first problem was fuel. As an antisubmarine carrier, the Essex carried no jet fuel and had a full load of 115/145 aviation gasoline (avgas). Could enough tanks be emptied of avgas and filled with JP-5 so both fuels would be available to service the jets, props, and helos? The issue was not simple; such a major switch generally is a shipyard job. Ensign Arkin proposed an ingenious and unexpectedly simple solution: isolating and changing a single major transfer valve (weighing about 400 pounds) would provide the capability to get rid of the avgas, take on the jet fuel, and get into operation. Ship’s company could do it at sea.
Because the Essex was only a year away from having been an attack carrier operating A4s, one of my division officers concluded that the only jet aircraft support equipment too big to be flown on board were two engine change stands. They were delivered to the ship before we left Norfolk.
On Monday, 3 April 1961, the Essex departed Nor the joint operation of jets and antisubmarine warfare aircraft from a single CVS carrier.
The “Blue Blasters” of VA-34 had been on alert at Naval Air Station Cecil in Florida for a “surprise movement with less than two hours notice” since mid-March- On the morning of 4 April 1961, they received the word to fly to the Essex. The squadron commanding officer, Commander Mitchell C. (Mike) Griffin, brought 12 A4D-2 Skyhawks and 16 pilots on board. (In the Taylor Commission Report of the operation, Griffin consistently has been misidentified as “Commander McGrif- fith”—an indication of the reliability of the official records.) During their 19 flying days on board the Essex* they logged 768 flight hours and 512 arrested landings, averaging 34 per pilot, all accident-free.
One or two days after landing on board, VA-34 pilots received a Top Secret briefing whil£ locked in their ready room. They were told they were on the way to Cuba to take part in a planned invasion. Only the pilots were to know what was going on. Their initial mission was to furnish air cover fof the Cuban Expeditionary Force (CEF) from 0600 local time to sunset on D-1, “t® such a manner that the planes did not appear to be covering the CEF ships- Given that the ^ cannot seriously
D-Day for the Bay of Pigs invasion was 17 April. By dawn on the 14th, the Essex had moved to a position about 300 miles southwest of the Bay of Pigs.
Probably on the evening of 13 April, pilots other than those of VA-34 were briefed on the impending operation. Commander Sam Sparks, commanding officer of VS-34, describes the process: “One evening a meeting was called in the HS ready room for ‘selected’ officers. The top three °fficers [of the carrier division and the Essex] and those Pilots who were required to fly as plane commanders [six , from each squadron] were selected for this Top-Secret briefing. The air group commander was not even included. The briefing was conducted by Admiral Clark and two ClA agents (one 1 judged to be a Marine colonel).’’ The s>x pilot per squadron rule did not hold. By 0900 the next day, there were seven S2s airborne on a search mission ter the CEF, and all but one of the 16 A4 pilots flew mis- | s'ons before the operation was over.
On 15 April, the Essex launched 14 S2 sorties and 1 | AD-5W, keeping S2s in the air until 2007 that evening. There were no A4 flights that day. The record shows that the CIA had required the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to provide U.S. naval air cover over the CEF ships from 0600R (local) to sunset on D-l and D-2 (15-16 April).
As Commander Sparks recalls, “Our mission was to es- c°rt and provide safe passage for a group of transport ships Proceeding from ‘Latin America’ northeast toward Cuba, ^e were to remain undetected, but to search out and detect any air/surface/submarine craft that might threaten the c°nvoy. We were armed but not cleared to make any at- tecks.” The guiding principle throughout, dictated from Washington, was that “support for this operation be undertaken so that the United States may plausibly deny Participation.”
On the first flight on the 15th, Sparks “did not see the c°nvoy or anything else suspicious. But on my last flight ' 'n late afternoon our search leg brought us near the transport ships. . . . We saw the decks were loaded with uni- termed men. . . . The next day we continued the escort operation ... our escort was ended the afternoon of the 16th.”
After the 14th, pilots no longer were briefed and debriefed in their ready rooms, but in Flag Plot by Admiral ^-terk and the CIA representatives—a notable exception
to normal practice. It was clear, nonetheless, that the situation was becoming somewhat frantic.
Communications began to overwhelm other considerations. To talk to Washington from the Essex, it was necessary to erect the deck-edge antennas, which were alongside the catapults. Because the electromagnetic energy from the antennas could “cook off’ ammunition—particularly nearby rockets—combat over the relative priority of launching and communicating became the norm. Communications always prevailed—after the rockets were removed. Running a flight deck with a Washington priority is trying and hazardous. Luckily, no one was killed in the crossfire.
On D-Day, the A4s were assigned an unusual mission: to herd several reluctant ships of the CEF back into the battle. In the absence of air opposition, Castro’s Sea Furies had sunk two of the major ships of the landing force, the Elouston and the Rio Escondido. Following instructions to depart the landing area, the ships of the CEF headed out to sea, purportedly to return at dawn. Two of them, the Atlantico and the Caribe, loaded with ammunition for the landing parties, had a better idea: they attempted to keep going, to get as far away as possible from the Sea Furies. According to VA-34 pilot Ed Grunwald, “We were launched to intercept him (sic) in an effort to convince him that we were with him and would support the invasion all the way. I recall the rendezvous, flying low abeam the ship, rocking wings—then heading toward the beach. I was close enough to wave to hordes of men leaning over the side. The last I saw was the ship did turn north and rejoined the force.” What apparently convinced the ships to turn around was the U.S. Navy insignia on the jets. Grunwald still feels remorse that the promise implicit in the action of the Navy planes that day led a number of patriots to their deaths.
Implicit promises were about all the U.S. Navy pilots were allowed to offer. Instructions from the JCS included these restraints on U.S. participation:
- Carrier ship operation no closer than 50 miles from Cuban territory
>■ Aircraft to operate no closer than 15 miles from Cuban territory
- No more than four aircraft on station at one time
Another bizarre rule of engagement appears in the record: “If an unfriendly aircraft is shot down, every effort shall be made to hide the fact that such action has occurred.”
The first authorization for Navy aircraft to operate closer to Cuba than 15 miles came at 1337 on the 18th, with a directive to Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic (CinCLant), “to conduct a photo and visual reconnaissance using un-
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marked naval aircraft as soon as possible, to determine the situation on the beach." The aircraft were authorized to protect themselves from attack and were to take all precautions to avoid being identified as U.S. planes. Because the Essex had no photo aircraft, the photo mission presumably was assigned to the Independence, which had left Norfolk for Mayport, Florida, 28 hours earlier.
Seventy minutes later, the JCS reacted to reports from the landing area of “four Castro T-33s and three Castro MiGs in action.” At 1449, CinCLant was directed to "prepare unmarked Navy planes for possible combat use. Number suitable in view of the above left to your discretion.” JCS in the same dispatch noted, “We are operating entirely in the dark.”
Only the A4s had their insignia painted out. A sharpeyed observer watching a Cuban film sequence used in a 1988 PBS television series spotted a U.S. Navy AD being fired upon over the Bay of Pigs. The U.S. star and bars insignia is clearly evident, as are the identifying letters AG, of VA-75—the AD squadron assigned to the Independence. The plane was one launched by the Essex.
The last VA-34 flight on the 18th has been described by Richard Pottratz, one of the pilots. "We coasted in on the west side of the Bay of Pigs, turned east at the north
AIRFIELD
side of the bay, and then flew over the areas where the fighting had taken place. Two or three transports wer6 aground in the bay and from what we could see there was nothing left of the invasion force. We were under fire (at1' tomatic weapons with tracers, no AA [antiaircraft]) fron1 the time we rounded the northern end of the bay. No one was hit. We recovered right after sundown.” He notes they were flying at about 1,500 feet.
By noon on D+l, the situation ashore had become deS' perate. Red Beach had been abandoned; Blue Beach was
out of tank ammunition and almost out of small-arms ammunition. During the night of 18—19 April, at the request of the CIA and with the approval of the President, the JCS directed CinCLant to furnish air cover of 6 unmarked aircraft from 0630 to 0730 local time, to defend the CEF against attack from Castro planes. Included was the directive: “Pilots to carry as little identification as practicable. If necessary to ditch, ditch at sea.’ The VA-34 pilots were over the beach 40 minutes before 0630 Romeo, but the CEF aircraft they were to cover had already made their strikes and left.
Later that morning, the brigade commander reported his men were standing in the water fighting, and being massacred—being murdered.” At one point, while he was being attacked by three enemy Sea Furies, he could see four Navy jets high overhead. When he asked that the jets enter the fight and was told that we were doing everything to get permission, his frustration was evident: “God damn it! God damn you! God damn you! Do not wait for permission!” That afternoon the brigade commander sent his last message: “Am destroying all equipment and communications. Tanks are in sight. I have nothing left to fight with. Am taking to the woods. I cannot wait for you.”
The same JCS message that had directed the one hour of air cover also directed CinCLant “to be prepared to conduct evacuation from Blue Beach using unmarked amphibious craft with crews in dungarees and that if evacuation by U.S. ships were ordered to furnish air cover to Protect landing craft.” At 1157R on the 19th, CinCLant "ms directed to fly reconnaissance over the beach, to determine the situation. No ground attack was authorized but active air-to-air combat was. At 1312R, the JCS directed CinCLant to have destroyers “take CEF personnel °ff the beach and from the water to the limit of their capability; use CEF boats and craft as practicable; provide a>r cover; if destroyers fired on they are authorized to return the fire to protect themselves while on this humanitarian mission.”
The A4s were active all day on the 19th; but, given the ' listing rules of engagement, the A4s probably did a lot °f low-level observation of the tragedy in progress. The Pilots’ anger and frustration were evident as they got out ft their aircraft on the flight deck. That evening, the JCS tlirected “No further requirement for air CAP [combat a*r patrol] in beachhead area.” i On the 20th, the only mission for the Essex aircraft was Ibe safe haven of the CEF 15 miles offshore. The flight ^eck was active, however. The operations officers of Lvo of the invading force ships, together with six underwater-demolition team (UDT) men, and the commodore
the destroyer group boarded the Essex to confer with Admiral Clark. The objective was to take the Eaton (DD- 510) inshore to bring out survivors, but the admiral canned the operation.
Captain Jack Caldwell, the HS-9 maintenance officer at the time, has provided details that are not reported elsewhere. Preparations were made to send two helos ashore to deliver food, water, and medical supplies. Their sonar §ear was removed and replaced with metal plates to enhance protection from antiaircraft fire. The commanding
officer of HS-9 asked for volunteers, and every pilot responded. Two helos were spotted forward while the material was being collected. Pilots manned the two planes after dark. In the meantime, the White House requested a guarantee that the helos could do the night mission without betraying any U.S. involvement—a requirement Admiral Clark could not certify in spite of the removal of all personal identification from the crews. The helos had their full U.S. Navy insignia. The mission was canceled. The helo ready room “immediately erupted in violent condemnation of our government.”
The record from 20 April on is not clear. On the 21st, from the logs of Grunwald and Pottratz, one can deduce a moderate level of operations. Given that each pilot flew either two or three hops on the 22nd and the 23rd, a high level of activity is indicated. My recollection is that we had a fairly steady stream of refugees crossing the flight deck. The emotional climate on board built from sorrow and humiliation to anger and frustration toward those who had let this operation be governed by indecision, incompetence, and cowardice in high places.
For the A4s, the 22nd and 23rd were not greatly different. Two or three hops was the order of the day, with a night recovery. My belief is that the flights were to keep the Castro airplanes out of the scene while scouting out survivors, as the destroyer’s whaleboats and the small craft attempted rescue. Grunwald reported that, on one of his flights, he encountered a Castro patrol boat with a machine gun mounted on the bow headed for the beach, apparently to interfere with rescue operations. Two or three high-speed, low-level passes persuaded the gunner to go below as his captain reversed course. Second, while covering the destroyers as they worked their way inshore, he was able to conn one of them through the coral reefs by a combination of radio advice and low level passes over the fair water.
The 23rd brought a development which has not, to my knowledge, appeared anywhere in the declassified records. First, the S2s of VS-34 were sent to the U.S. Naval Air Station, Guantanamo Bay, “to stand by for further orders.” Then, they were ordered to return to the Essex on the evening of 26 April. Presumably, they were sent ashore to provide deck room to handle a detachment of propeller- driven AD Skyraiders from the Independence.
Two ADs of VA-75 flew to the Essex from the Independence, which had transited the Windward Passage between the 20th and the 21st, and on the 23rd was midway between Jamaica and Cuba. The flight leader was Commander Stanley Montunnas, commanding officer of the VA-75 “Sunday Punchers”; his wingman was his operations officer, Lieutenant Commander John H. Carroll. Montunnas and Carroll landed on the Essex and were launched again after a briefing by Admiral Clark’s staff. They were to “locate survivors of the Bay of Pigs fiasco and assist in their rescue.” Their 20-mm. guns were loaded, but that was their only armament on this and subsequent flights.
“We flew at very low altitude,” Montunnas remembers, “using a Thach weave over the beach.” They were covered at 10,000 feet by the Essex jets. He feels sure that
contributions.
There are curiosities in the record of this participation by the Independence aircraft. Both Montunnas and Carroll received Navy Commendation Medals. Carroll had been recommended for a Distinguished Flying Cross,
the U.S. Navy insignia “gave confidence to the survivors to come out of the swamp land. They came to the beach wildly waving at us as we flew by.” Montunnas spotted a number of Castro vehicles in the Red Beach area—“they would have been sitting ducks”—but “our instructions were not to fire our guns unless fired on first.”
On the 23rd and 24th, Montunnas and Carroll flushed out 29 survivors who made it to the UDT teams who were assisting their removal to an unmarked U.S. destroyer close aboard the beach. Other survivors who left their hiding places to seek rescue were pursued by Castro forces. Montunnas requested permission to fire warning bursts over their heads, but was told to “hold—they have to get permission from Black Walnut [the White House command post].” Black Walnut said “Negative!” “So we had to watch the Cubans capture the survivors we flushed out! Like playing Judas—delivering the poor CEF to the Cubans.”
Both Carroll and Montunnas received machine gun hits from ground fire. Montunnas is not sure whether the hits occurred over the mangrove swamp rescue area or over the Isle of Pines, where they had been dispatched to search for the small boat on which the brigade commander had escaped. They also flew close aboard the wrecked Houston, on which the Castro forces had mounted guns. They were tracked by the gunners, but there were no shots fired.
The Independence contributed two more ADs, probably from the 24th to the 26th. The pilots were Lieutenant Harlan C. Parode and Lieutenant (junior grade) Albert D. Mangelson. There is nothing in the record to show their deserving of recognition, but considers that they were pr1' marily of a lifesaving nature rather than a demonstration of superior airmanship.” There is no record of-any individual awards to the pilots of VA-34.
With no more survivors likely to be rescued, the ADS returned to the Independence, and the VS-34 S2s were retrieved from Gitmo. They were safely on board late on the 26th. On the 29th, they flew home to Quonset Point
On the 28th, the A4s were launched for the flight to NAS Cecil Field, completing their participation in Bumpy Road. The ship’s company on the Essex was busy painting back the Navy/squadron insignia—so the JacksonvilR press would not immediately have the photographic evidence to support a broadcast that VA-34 was just back from Cuba. By 29 April, the Essex, too, was back in home port in Quonset Point, bringing home a load of anger, frustration, humiliation, and remorse.
'Charles J.V. Murphy, “Cuba: the Record Set Straight,” Fortune, September 1961' p. 94. The Commandante of the Cuban Brigade 2506, Jose Alfredo Perez Roman, the leader of the expeditionary force, was found dead on 10 Septetnb j 1989, an apparent suicide, according to The Washington Post of 13 Septembe (p. B6). There is nothing in the record that detracts from Murphy’s description “daringly and successfully led” by San Roman.
The Essex, like all CVSs at that time, carried two S2F squadrons (VS-34 and V»" 39). VS-39 was removed to make room for the A4 squadron. VS-34 stayed o board, except that its planes were sent off to Guantanamo from 23 April to April to free up the flight and hangar decks. The helo squadron. HS-9. also & mained on board throughout the operation, as did the four-plane detachment of AD-S-Ws from VAW-12, the carrier early-warning squadron. Further, VA-^ was not a fighter/attack squadron. It was a light attack squadron with a primaO mission of nuclear weapons delivery, a secondary mission of conventional weapo delivery, and only a marginal fighter capability.
This article is extracted from a paper presented at the 9th Naval Academy Nav“ History Seminar in October 1989. A copy of the paper, some 40 pages in leng1 ' is on file with the Office of Naval History.
Captain Chapman, U.S. Naval Academy ‘44, commanded two jet carrier squadrons, was Assistant Naval Attache, Moscow, and retire i from the Navy in 1966. He headed the General Motors Washington o ' fice for some years. His writings have appeared in Naval Reviem Jahrbuch der Luftwaffe, The Hook, and other periodicals.