Fighting for Castro at the Bay of Pigs
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 14 April 2021
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On April 17 1961 a group of Cuban exiles launched an invasion of communist-ruled Cuba in a failed attempt to topple Fidel Castro. After 72 hours of fighting many of the invaders were captured or killed. Gregorio Moreria was a member of the local communist militia who fought against the US-backed invaders. He was injured and briefly captured during the fighting. He spoke to Mike Lanchin for Witness History in 2016.
(Photo: Members of Castro's militia during the US-backed Bay of Pigs invasion. Credit: Three Lions/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless |
| 0:06.8 | searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the |
| 0:11.8 | telly we share what we've been watching |
| 0:14.0 | Cladie Aide. |
| 0:16.0 | Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming. |
| 0:19.0 | Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige. |
| 0:21.0 | And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less |
| 0:24.9 | searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds. You're listening to the Witness History Podcast on the BBC World Service, I'm Mike Lanchin. |
| 0:41.6 | In April 1961, a group of Cuban exiles backed by the US government |
| 0:46.7 | launched an invasion of Communist Cuba in an attempt to bring down Fidel Castro. |
| 0:51.6 | In 2016 I spoke to one of the Cubans who'd fought to |
| 0:56.3 | defend the island at the Bay of pigs. |
| 1:00.9 | Several thousand men landed their boats laden with weapons and even tanks here on this |
| 1:08.8 | small beach in the southeast of the island. The Bay of pigs or Pliohiron. Today the hot sun |
| 1:16.8 | shimmers off the turquoise blue sea, the palm trees blow in the light |
| 1:20.8 | morning wind. It's an idyllic, though remote and deserted spot, a scene |
| 1:26.4 | quite unlike that in April of 1961. |
| 1:30.0 | I want you to get a gala. The sky was covered in lights from flares, red flares. So we got hold of the few rifles we had. We shared them out and we went down to the beach. We realized |
| 1:45.0 | something strange was happening. Gregorio Moreira was a young farmer and a |
| 1:50.1 | member of the defense militia, a local volunteer force organized by the Communist Party. |
| 1:55.0 | There were five or six of us, but not all of us had rifles. |
| 2:01.0 | We took turns being on guard, watching and waiting to see what happened. |
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