Half a century ago John F. Kennedy’s brief presidential administration began. Afterward it acquired a rosy hue and was dubbed “Camelot,” named for a popular Broadway musical. As celebrated as Kennedy’s term became in retrospect, his national-security team stumbled badly in April 1961, less than three months after he took office.
The nation was then preoccupied by the Cold War. A major irritant was that Fidel Castro had taken power in nearby Cuba in 1959 and moved increasingly into the communist orbit. Getting rid of him became a U.S. objective. Kennedy acquiesced to a Central Intelligence Agency scheme devised when his predecessor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, was in office.
The plan called for training anti-Castro guerrillas in Guatemala and then sending them ashore at the Bay of Pigs, a body of water on the south coast of Cuba. The goal was to inspire other Cuban citizens to join with the invaders and overthrow Castro’s regime. U.S. armed forces were to support the invaders but not take an active combat role.
Among the naval forces involved were the antisubmarine carrier USS Essex (CVS-9), with an attack squadron of A4D Skyhawks hastily put aboard. Also along were five destroyers under the command of Captain Robert Crutchfield, commander Destroyer Division 282. He was embarked in the Eaton (DDE-510), a Fletcher-class destroyer. One of the ship’s officers of the deck was Lieutenant (junior grade) William T. Smoot. Some years later, Smoot recorded his memories of the campaign for the U.S. Naval Institute’s oral history program; the transcript was not released until after his death in 1994.
He recalled the ship being pulled away from antisubmarine duty and sent to the Caribbean with only the commodore, skipper, and the exec knowing what her mission would be. En route, the Eaton stopped for a time at sea so the crew could paint over her name, hull number, and stack insignia. Sometime later, seven scruffy merchant ships showed up to be escorted; these were the CIA-chartered vessels that carried the anti-Castro landing force, ammunition, and fuel.
One night Smoot approached the wardroom for a cup of coffee, but a sentry told him it was off-limits. He managed to get in through another door and saw a doctor performing surgery on an anti-Castro Cuban who had been wounded in a machine-gun accident on board one of the merchant ships—not a good omen.
The invasion in the Bay of Pigs was set for early morning of 17 April. The Eaton and Murray (DDE-576) were in proximity as a series of landing craft ferried the assault force to the beach. Overhead, among the many other things Smoot saw that morning, were Skyhawks from the Essex. They maneuvered against the defending Cuban planes but were not permitted to shoot.
Gunfire started on the beaches as Cuban militiamen reacted to the invaders. Smoot heard a radio transmission as an American voice asked for air-to-ground support from the carrier planes. Time passed, and the pleas became evermore frantic. Commodore Crutchfield finally had to make a last call to the beach and say there would be no air support. President Kennedy had reiterated the decision not to permit U.S. forces to engage in combat. The rickety, quixotic invasion had only a slim chance to begin with; now it was inexorably doomed.
Most of the anti-Castro soldiers who managed to get ashore were killed or captured. (Of the more than 1,000 taken as prisoners, many were later executed.) A few were able to escape and ride barges out to the Eaton and Murray.
After darkness fell on the evening of the 17th, Commodore Crutchfield dispatched Smoot and a shipmate, Lieutenant (junior grade) Dick Kauffman, to take a whaleboat and raft into the Bay of Pigs and attempt to rescue survivors. Under no circumstances, said Crutchfield, were they to leave the boat. But once they arrived, they concluded it wasn’t possible to find anyone unless they went ashore. As Smoot explained in his interview, “We rationalized that being on the beach was not really on the island, because the beach was wet.” On a later trip, they went into a swamp beyond the beach.
All told, that night and the next, Smoot and Kauffman rescued nearly 20 of the failed liberators. (The Murray saved a number as well.) On 19 April, the Eaton and Murray were ordered into the Bay of Pigs, where they were bracketed by shots from tanks on the beach. The ships left without retaliating.
Smoot offered a tantalizing footnote. Commodore Crutchfield hinted that another special operation would have taken place if the invasion had succeeded. Smoot asked what it was, and Crutchfield replied, “That’s something you don’t have to worry about now.” Smoot later learned that if the invaders had overthrown Castro, the intent was to portray their support as having come from the U.S. military rather than the CIA.
Smoot and Kauffman brought back souvenirs from one of their forays ashore: a two-foot-tall palm plant and pocketfuls of sand. When they returned to the Eaton, Crutchfield ordered Smoot to drop the plant over the side. Smoot kept a few palm fronds and the sand as reminders of an operation that many would prefer to forget.