BAY OF PIGS INVASION

 

 

Homenaje a los Pilotos de Alabama National Guard.B-26 sobre Giron

Published by the Miami Herald June 3, 2008

The Bay of Pigs Invasion

SHINING MOMENT, DARK TIME

Artist honors exile pilots

 

LOBO FLIGHT: Jeff Bass' artwork shows the lead plane after it dropped its bombs onto a column of Cuban troops.

Gustavo Ponzoa piloted the third B-26 in the formation. Mario Zuñiga, 82, was behind the controls of the fourth plane, while Gustavo Villoldo, 72, was co-pilot of the lead plane.

   The invasion was a disaster," the feisty Ponzoa said, retelling the well known historical facts of how President Kennedy canceled the needed air support for the invasion at the last minute.

"But at least Lobo Flight made puree out of those Cuban forces - it was the only good thing in that entire tragedy," Ponzoa

said.

The Lobo Flight, on April 18, 1961, lasted all of 20 minutes and may have fooled the Cuban forces because the vintage B-26s were painted to look like Cuban planes. Carrying napalm. bombs, the planes swooped down on a long, unsuspecting convoy of Cuban soldiers in military trucks headed for the beach.

 

"We flew right over them I remember thinking, 'I better do this right,' " Ponzoa, said. He dropped his napalm bombs.

Said Villoldo: "It seemed like a lifetime as we dropped everything we had."

So did all the other planes. As many as 900 Cuban soldiers might have been killed, and up to 40 military vehicles disabled.

Lobo Flight, a 40-by-30 inch painting, depicts the moment when lead pilot Connie Seigrist dropped his bombs on a column of Cuban troops..

  

• Cuban exiles who took part in the only successful mission during the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion gathered for the unveiling of a print commemorating their achievement.

BY LUISA YANEZ lyanez@MiamiHerald.com

 

For Bay of Pigs pilot Gustavo Ponzoa, the sting of the invasion's failure 47 years ago is eased by one thing: the success of his main mission, dubbed the Lobo Flight.  The lore of that one aerial attack carried out by six B-26 twin engine bombers - piloted by Americans and Cuban exiles like Ponzoa - has grown in historical  prominence.

 

Late last year, an oil painting commemorating the Lobo Flight battle scene was unveiled and donated for display at a gallery at the city of Langley, Va., headquarters of the CIA, which backed the operation

 

Bass, originally commissioned to do the painting by Compass Bank in Alabama - where some of the American pilots were stationed culled details for his painting from the surviving fliers. The finished work was eventually given to the CIA.

 

"There are no known photographs available of the Lobo Flight mission so the memory of those men was the main thing I had to go on," Bass said.

 

'STILL IMPORTANT'

The Lobo Flight is-credited with keeping down the fatalities to just over 100 for the U.S.-backed forces, Bass said. But by the next day, some 1,200 of the Cuban exiles who invaded the island were captured or wounded by Cuban forces.

The Lobo Flight crews made it safely back to Nicaragua, the staging area for the invasion.

Janet Ray Weininger, of Miami-Dade, whose pilot father, Thomas "Pete" Ray, was shot down on the final day of the invasion, also attended Tuesday's luncheon along with other invasion veterans or their relatives.  "I think it's still important to honor those who fought to free Cuba and also the brotherhood between the American and Cuban pilots who took part in the invasion," she said.

Signed prints of Lobo Flight, which sell for $125, will soon be made available to the public via the Internet.' For now, those interested in purchasing the print can e-mail Bass at jwb412@cox.net or go to his website, www.jeffbass.com.