Apartment collapse victims fight in failed Bay of Pigs invasion

Sixty years ago, when Juan Mora’s apartment complex in Florida collapsed, killing him and at least 89 people, he was one of hundreds of Cuban exiles who signed an agreement issued by the CIA. The funded secret operation aimed to overthrow Fidel Castro’s Soviet-backed dictatorship.

Mora’s dream of restoring democracy in his hometown led him from military training in a jungle camp in Guatemala to the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, where he was captured and then stuffed into a dilapidated, rat-filled Cuban prison for 20 months. Friends once Be imprisoned and told the Associated Press along with him.

Authorities on Wednesday confirmed the remains of the 80-year-old Juan A. Mora, also known as Juanito. The rubble of the Champlain Tower South In Surfside. Other victims include his wife Ana and their adult son Juan Mora Jr., who worked in Chicago and lived with his parents when they built the 12-story building. Suddenly pancakes June 24.

Mora Sr. is a very popular figure in the Cuban-American community in the Miami area and has been active in Bay of Pigs Veterans Association As well as the Bay of Pigs Museum where it is located, the museum board member Humberto Lopez said on Friday. Lopez recalled that Mora “always tried to help,” organizing events, writing editorials about the invasion, and sending emails to other members of the veterans organization.

Lopez said that in the past ten years he has been close to the nagging Mora and described his wife as “very attractive.”

Another family friend, Johnny Lopez de la Cruz, president of the Museum and Veterans Association, said that Anna Mora had served as an assistant to the principal of the Belém Jesuit Preparatory School, a famous Catholic high school in Miami, and the couple’s son Graduated from the school.

According to a close friend, Matthew Kaade, Jr. Mora is the manager of the salt business at Morton Salt Road in Chicago. He graduated from Loyola University in Chicago in 2011.

Lopez de la Cruz said that Mora Sr. also had two daughters in his previous marriage. Another friend, Humberto Diaz Arguelles, said that Mora’s first wife died of cancer.

The story goes on

Mora Sr. was a member of a group of Cuban exiles funded by the CIA in the late Eisenhower administration to help counter the influence of the Soviet Union and the missiles deployed in Cuba. In 1960 and early 1961, volunteers were sent to training camps in the Guatemalan jungle. This unit was later known as the 2506 Brigade-the ID number of the first casualty, a man who fell off a cliff in a training accident, Diaz Aguiles said, who was in Mora’s A camp training.

They live in tents, eating sometimes spoiled food, and drinking river water because they have learned to use machine guns, grenades, bazookas and mortars.

“We were very convinced of what we did to liberate Cuba, and no one complained,” Diaz Aguiles recalled.

He said that Mora, the radio operator of the 3rd Battalion of the brigade, was lively and popular, “always talk about every topic you can think of.”

Diaz Arguelles said that when the training ended in April 1961 and the fighters went to Cuba, they realized that they had not received the promised help from the U.S. military, including air support and the “naval fleet.” Approximately 1,400 men were transported on a rusty merchant ship from the port of Nicaragua to the Bay of Pigs on the southern coast of Cuba, and then had to climb down the ropes in the dark to board the “18-foot aluminum boat from Sears” and reach the beach-and Under attack because Castro knew the invasion in advance.

“There is no time to be afraid,” said Diaz Acquiles, whose ship sank after hitting the reef, forcing him to swim ashore with a mortar tube and two boxes of ammunition.

President John F. Kennedy approved the mission after only three months in his term, and cancelled the second planned airstrike after the US support of the April 17, 1961 invasion came to light. Kennedy Library.

After three days of fighting with the overwhelming Cuban army, hiding in the swamp, running out of ammunition, water and food, more than 100 members of the 2506 brigade were killed. Diaz Arguelles and about 20 invaders were surrounded by the Cuban army and taken to Castillo del Principe or Prince’s Castle, a huge military fortress in Havana. There, Diaz Aguilers met Mora again, and he was captured just like him.

Diaz Aguilers said that the prison was in dilapidated condition, with fungus everywhere, they had to sleep on the floor, and rats ran around on them at night. There are rats and cockroaches in their meager food, and contaminated water makes them sick.

Lopez was also detained there, and spent about eight months in the same cell as Mora. Mora was then transferred to another part of the prison.

According to the Kennedy Library, nearly 1,200 prisoners were eventually sent back to the United States in exchange for $53 million in food and medicine. On Christmas Eve in 1962, the survivors of the 2506 Brigade were flown to Florida and reunited with their families there.

Diaz Aguilers said that he and Mora both found jobs and worked hard to finish university.

These people have been estranged for many years, but reconnected after retirement. Diaz Acquiles recalled that Mora had owned a company that sold hurricane-proof doors and windows for at least ten years, and said that their last conversation was a few months ago, naturally about the Bay of Pigs veterans organization.

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