William T. Smoot, an officer on board the escort destroyer USS Eaton (DDE-510), watched firsthand the covert support provided to the Cuban rebels during the abortive attempt to invade Fidel Castro’s Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961.
(U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive)
He saw the landing craft and the invasion site and listened to voice radio transmissions. On one occasion, Smoot’s destroyer came under fire while in the Bay of Pigs. In this excerpt from his U.S. Naval Institute oral history, Smoot describes being sent ashore in a motor whaleboat to rescue rebels in the middle of the night.
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