While the failed CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion by 1,400 Brigade 2506 Cuban exiles in April 1961 is a well-known Cold War fiasco, the much more recent February 2026 shootout between 10 Floridamen on a 24-foot boat and Cuba’s Border Guards is much murkier.
At least until now.
The story, from The Belly of the Beast, includes being recruited on TikTok (welcome to 2026), coordination on WhatsApp, training on a 13-acre farm in South Florida, and packing 25 guns and 13,000 rounds of ammo (none of it loaded into said firearms!) into a 24-foot Pro-Line and blundering right into a Cuban Border post at Cayo Bahía de Cádiz just after dawn, then firing first on said Cuban Border toughs.
Today marks the end of the attempted liberation of Cuba by Brigade 2506 (Brigada Asalto 2506), which landed at the island’s Bahía de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) on 17 April 1961 and, surrounded and cut off, laid down their arms on 20 April, some 65 years ago.
Special Demolition Frogman, Brigade 2506, Cuban Bay of Pigs, by Stephen Walsh, Paratrooper from 1st Bn, and a Brigadista with a MP40
Brigade 2506, Cuban Bay of Pigs, Stephen Walsh
The brigade, 177 airborne paratroops and 1,297 landed seaborne, fought valiantly but, facing upward of 25,000 Cuban troops backed by militia and police, never stood a realistic chance, especially once the Cubans controlled the air over the beachhead.
An estimated 114 drowned or were killed in action, and 1,183 were captured, “tried” before a kangaroo court, and imprisoned.
Exile groups in the U.S. raised $53 million worth of food and medicine in ransom to exchange for the release and repatriation of Brigade prisoners to Miami starting on 23 December 1962.
Four Americans, Capt. Thomas Willard “Pete” Ray, TSgt. Leo Francis Baker, Major Riley W. Shamburger, and TSgt. Wade C. Gray was killed when their Brigade 2506-marked B-26s were shot down over the beachhead. The CIA had recruited all through the Alabama Air National Guard and posthumously earned the Distinguished Intelligence Cross.
The Southern Museum of Flight, joined by the 117th Air Refueling Wing of the Alabama Air National Guard, will assemble in Birmingham on 21 April in solemn remembrance to honor four Alabamians who paid the ultimate price.
