CIA B-26 Invaders at the Bay of Pigs and Other Misadventures

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]In the afternoon of the 15th of April 1954, a large pro-government crowd gathered in a square in Guatemala City to show solidarity with their leaders in the wake of a CIA-backed invasion across the Honduran border.

[00:00:15]As speakers addressed the crowd, the sound of powerful aero engines could be heard in the distance.

[00:00:21]A pair of F-47 Thunderbolts arrived over the city just before 4:00 p.m., swooping in and making a long, low pass over downtown.

[00:00:31]So far, so good.

[00:00:33]But things quickly descended into the kind of farce that often dogged such operations.

[00:00:38]The pilots, with their canopies rolled back, tried to drop a handful of leaflets they were carrying in their cockpits. Unfortunately, the pamphlets were sucked back in as soon as they were thrown out.

[00:00:50]Thwarted, the pilots decided to skip that part of the mission and move on to stage two of their sophisticated regime change plan.

[00:00:59]Roaring over the gathered crowd, they fired their machine guns into the air, causing hot shell casings to rain down on the unarmed civilians below.

[00:01:09]This had some effect, and at least part of the crowd fled in panic.

[00:01:13]The two F-47 pilots turned for home.

[00:01:16]Despite its rather unimpressive opening moves, Operation Success, or more properly Operation PB Success, was judged, well, a success by the CIA in that it led to the overthrow of the democratically elected president of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz, and installed a military dictatorship under Carlos Castillo Armas.

[00:01:39]The side effects of 30 years of civil war and vast human suffering weren't the agency's problem.

[00:01:45]A second batch of F-47s that were supplied by the US after the others were crashed also succeeded in bombing a British cargo ship, resulting in the US having to pay a million dollars in damages.

[00:01:58]But overall, the Thunderbolts that the CIA used alongside less glamorous aviation assets proved their worth in the operation. It was easy to find mercenary pilots willing and able to fly the chunky Republic fighters since so many of them had been made and used in the Second World War.

[00:02:16]And they had some effect. The Guatemalan public apparently dubbed the plane Sulfatos after the laxative whenever they appeared over the capital, the communists got so scared they had to change their pants.

[00:02:29]There were issues with the F-47, though.

[00:02:32]Although big for a Second World War fighter-bomber, it lacked payload capacity. With only a single crewman and rudimentary avionics, long-distance navigation over unfamiliar terrain was difficult. And the Thunderbolts were now very much aging. They hadn't been designed for longevity and most of the aircraft were worn out.

[00:02:51]So, the CIA went looking for an alternative but still deniable platform for their nefarious schemes.

[00:02:58]Their choice was another wartime stalwart, the Douglas A-26 or latterly B-26 Invader.

[00:03:06]Although the main subject of this video is the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the B-26's first use by the CIA was Operation Hike in Indonesia during 1958.

[00:03:16]The CIA felt that President Sukarno's Indonesia was turning communist and something had to be done about it.

[00:03:24]As usual, the CIA chose to use existing opposition groups as a front for their activities.

[00:03:30]Fortunately for them, there was no shortage of opposition to Sukarno's government. Practically from the moment Indonesia had gained independence, various groups around the country had been fighting the government in Java.

[00:03:42]Much of this was a perception that the government put Java's interests first.

[00:03:47]The armed forces were also rather disgruntled because of the drastic cuts that had been made in their budget, many officers felt that the government didn't take enough action against the rebels and they were too soft on the communists.

[00:04:00]So, by 1956, military commanders in some remote areas, notably on Sumatra and Sulawesi, had essentially become warlords. They supplemented their government appropriations by profiting from the export of local produce. In some cases, the amounts diverted from the government were very substantial indeed. Approximately a third of Indonesia's rubber was actually smuggled out of the country.

[00:04:24]In late December 1956, two army colonels announced that they had taken over the administration of Central and Northern Sumatra.

[00:04:32]The situation quickly deteriorated and in March 1957, a state of emergency was declared. Even so, little or no military action was taken.

[00:04:43]But despite the lack of action, the rebels contacted US officials to ask for help. The powers in DC decided to do nothing while fruitless negotiations ground on between the rebels and the government.

[00:04:55]Their attitude began to change when President Sukarno sanctioned the remaining Dutch in Indonesia in an attempt to make them leave. This split the country even more and the communists were quick to take advantage, openly siding with Sukarno.

[00:05:10]Although the rebellion on Sumatra was the largest, there was also a similar movement in Northern Sulawesi known as Permesta.

[00:05:18]And there were other groups with similarly unpleasant views from a US perspective at least, such as the fundamentalist Darul Islam organization.

[00:05:27]On the 10th of February 1958, the rebel leader in Central Sumatra issued an ultimatum to the government in Jakarta to resign.

[00:05:36]Five days later, they formed a revolutionary government, the PRRI, with Padang as its capital. Permesta joined the PRRI on 17th of February.

[00:05:47]Because this was the kind of thing they like to do, the CIA had already spent a great deal of time planning to intervene in Indonesia. Camps had been set up in the Philippines to train rebels. In an operation named Hike, military supplies were then shipped to the PRRI and Permesta. But no Americans were directly involved in Indonesia yet.

[00:06:08]Remembering Guatemala, the CIA decided to assemble some air support. So in late February 1958, two TB-26Bs and one B-26C were taken out of the boneyard at Clark Field in the Philippines and prepared for combat.

[00:06:24]The aircraft were part of a batch of 73 Invaders that were struck off charge by the USAAF at Clark as obsolete between September and November 1957.

[00:06:34]Many of them had been in storage since they'd been returned by the French, where they'd been flown in Indochina.

[00:06:40]Others were former reconnaissance aircraft, target tugs, and hacks retired from bases in Japan and elsewhere.

[00:06:48]The Invaders were fitted with six-gun noses and six wing guns. They were painted black without any markings.

[00:06:55]For the time being, they remained in readiness at Clark. Then during March, three F-51D Mustangs were also received from the Philippine Air Force and stripped of their markings.

[00:07:06]These two were kept at Clark Field.

[00:07:09]Meanwhile, the CIA had begun to assemble the air crews they needed for the operation.

[00:07:14]The original plan had been to recruit Indonesians, but it proved difficult to find pilots with enough experience.

[00:07:21]So maybe half a dozen US pilots were also assigned to the operation.

[00:07:25]Most, if not all, were former Civil Air Transport pilots who had previously flown B-26 missions for, or at least from, Taiwan.

[00:07:35]Eastern European exiles were also brought in to supplement the Americans.

[00:07:39]These pilots were already trained on the CIA's RB-69, a low-level reconnaissance version of the Lockheed Neptune.

[00:07:46]Most of the exiled pilots were Poles who had flown with the RAF in the Second World War, but there were also some Hungarians.

[00:07:54]Some of them had actually flown B-26s and C-47s for the CIA in Greece.

[00:07:59]Once their type conversions were completed, all of these men were put on a DC-6 and they were flown to Clark.

[00:08:05]Out in Indonesia, things escalated on the 21st of March when President Sukarno ordered the Indonesian Air Force, or AURI, to attack the rebel radio stations on Sumatra. The strikes were carried out by B-25 Mitchells escorted by Mustangs.

[00:08:21]They destroyed the two stations without causing any casualties. Soon afterwards, targets in Sulawesi were also attacked.

[00:08:29]On paper, the AURI's strength in early 1958 was 14 Mitchells and 13 F-51s, with further aircraft in storage or used in second-line duties.

[00:08:40]But despite the number of aircraft available, there were only five qualified crews for the Mitchells and at most 10 pilots for the Mustangs, of which only three had any training in air-to-air combat.

[00:08:51]Even so, in emergencies, the AURI could generate about half a dozen strike sorties a day for several weeks.

[00:08:57]This prompted the CIA to deploy their own aircraft and the first three B-26s departed from Clark for Sulawesi on the 12th of April.

[00:09:06]The rebels used several different bases, but the main ones were Manado, Mapanget, Morotai, and Tasikmalaya.

[00:09:14]Apart from the invaders, the revolutionary air force also acquired and operated a number of transport aircraft of various types, as well as a captured Indonesian B-25.

[00:09:25]On the morning of the 13th of April, a B-26 attacked the airport at Makassar on southern Sulawesi, shooting up the runway with machine guns. Further attacks were made against other government airfields and installations on Sulawesi over the next few weeks.

[00:09:40]Then at 7:00 in the morning on the 17th of April, one aircraft attacked Balikpapan on the east coast of Borneo, sinking an oil tanker, bombing oil storage tanks, and badly damaging a C-47 owned by Royal Dutch Shell.

[00:09:53]The following week, various government aircraft were also attacked.

[00:09:57]The legitimate government wasn't idle at this time, and it duly launched an offensive against the rebels on Sumatra.

[00:10:03]A paratroop drop on the 18th of April 1958 was followed up by an amphibious landing near the rebel capital of Padang. The rebel leaders withdrew, some of them fleeing to Sulawesi, which had become the scene of the heaviest fighting during the rebellion.

[00:10:17]Four more Invaders, including two RB-26Cs and a WB-26C weather recon aircraft, were then removed from storage on the 13th of April. They were fitted with eight-gun noses and stripped to a natural metal finish with black engine nacelles. No wing guns were fitted.

[00:10:34]While the B-26s were still being prepared for action, the F-51s departed in late April.

[00:10:40]The rebel setbacks prompted the US to consider more direct action against Sukarno's forces.

[00:10:45]On the 21st of April, the British air staff in Singapore were approached by a US Navy liaison officer who requested permission for US aircraft to use the RAF base at Changi.

[00:10:56]Although the initial preference was to fly missions from Changi, in the end, the base was simply used to stage 22 P2V Neptunes and C-119s through Singapore.

[00:11:07]On the 16th of May, the Oref base at Manado was then raided by three B-25s and two F-51s. The government claimed that three rebel Mustangs and a Catalina were destroyed. Three more ex-Philippine Air Force F-51Bs were delivered to Clark to replace the losses on the following day.

[00:11:25]They quickly had their markings removed for service in the war zone.

[00:11:29]Three additional B-26s were also flown out to the rebels in mid-May. Six further B-26 C's were also taken from storage. Four of them were fitted with gun noses while the last two kept their plexiglass bombardier noses.

[00:11:42]A clash was inevitable.

[00:11:44]And duly, a B-26 flown by Allen Pope made an attack on coastal shipping near Ambon.

[00:11:49]He approached on the deck using the terrain to mask his approach, but he was spotted and the crews on deck shot at him with everything they had available.

[00:11:57]Hit multiple times, Pope attempted to escape, but he was caught and shot down by Captain Ignatius Dewanto in his F-51 Mustang.

[00:12:06]Pope and his Indonesian wireless operator, J. Rantung, bailed out. Pope broke his leg in the landing. Both were captured and flown to Jakarta in a C-47.

[00:12:16]Although the government claimed he had attacked a church, this was just propaganda.

[00:12:20]Operation Haik ground to a virtual halt after Pope was shot down. Morotai was captured on the 21st of May.

[00:12:28]Given that he was a former USAF and CAP pilot, Pope's capture was a major embarrassment to the US government, which was officially not involved in the rebellion. The US hurriedly lifted their embargo on Indonesia, and the CIA operation was dismantled.

[00:12:43]By August 1958, the US had begun regular supplies of weapons to the Indonesian government. Pope was sentenced to death by a military court, but was eventually released in 1962.

[00:12:55]Nevertheless, the two glass-nosed B-26 C's were flown out of Clark on the 26th of May.

[00:13:02]They had only been prepared for a one-time flight, and they were intended solely as a source of spare parts. The fate of the other B-26's is a bit unclear. Pope's aircraft was the only one shot down. Another Invader was damaged on the ground and captured by Indonesian ground troops. One aircraft found at Clark in 1961 was almost certainly a former OR Invader, which indicates that some of the aircraft might have been evacuated after the operation was terminated. The remainder were likely left behind in Indonesia and in all likelihood destroyed on the ground by CIA personnel when they withdrew.

[00:13:35]The five Invaders kept in reserve at Clark Field have their guns removed.

[00:13:40]Their US markings were restored between the 9th and the 13th of June.

[00:13:44]At least four of them departed for Japan in early July 1958. They likely continued their journey to Taiwan for storage with Air Asia.

[00:13:52]Several of these aircraft turned up on the Panamanian civil register in 1961 and three of them eventually returned to USAF charge with project Farm Gate in South Vietnam in 1963.

[00:14:07]The events surrounding Operation Pluto, the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by CIA backed and trained Cuban expeditionaries, read somewhat like a Hollywood movie script. Once again, the B-26 was a player in this drama, chaos and failure.

[00:14:24]Fidel Castro, who came to power in January 1959, the CIA pretty quickly concluded that they weren't big fans and started low-level activities to sabotage his regime in the early months of 1960.

[00:14:37]By September, they had started to actively recruit a Cuban exile force to overthrow Castro, organize the required resources, locate and negotiate for training and operational bases in at least two foreign countries, and train the diverse group they'd assembled to actually carry out a very difficult invasion.

[00:14:54]Whatever I might think of the morals and legality of all of this, Monroe Doctrine or otherwise, this was an impressive effort. In doing it, the CIA leadership drew on their experience in Indonesia and thus the B-26 was included in planning from early on in the process.

[00:15:10]The Cuban air crews that had been located were asked about the types of aircraft they'd been checked out in.

[00:15:16]While it had originally been planned to support the invasion force with Corsairs or Mustangs, it quickly became apparent that the available pilots had very little familiarity with single-engine high-performance fighters of any type, let alone the complex and sophisticated US Some, however, did have twin-engined and more importantly B-26 experience.

[00:15:36]The B-26 was also convenient as two B-26 B's and 16 B-26 C's had been operated by the Cuban Air Force from 1956.

[00:15:45]This would later prove useful to the CIA.

[00:15:49]Based on these contributory factors, the CIA managed to orchestrate the map sale of eight B-26's to Guatemala. These were immediately pressed into service as trainers for the Cuban exile crews.

[00:16:01]Living a stereotype, the CIA created a number of front organizations to expedite the aviation-related portions of the overall operation.

[00:16:09]These included Southern Air Transport, which carried out prodigious feats of aerial logistics, the Double-Check Corporation, which among other things recruited Cuban air crews for the operation, and Zenith Technical Enterprises, Inc., which performed specialized support functions.

[00:16:25]A new, solidly paved, closely guarded airstrip was built on the Guatemalan coast, 35 mi from the Mexican border.

[00:16:32]Located amidst sparsely settled cattle ranches and banana plantations, this remarkable facility was built at breakneck pace by Thompson-Cornwall, Inc.

[00:16:41]450 men worked round the clock on a $1 million contract to build the airstrip and an airport building.

[00:16:48]The essentially broke Guatemalan government somehow million dollars in cash to pay for it.

[00:16:54]They also bought out the Standard Fruit Company, which had used the previous grass airstrip as a duster plane base, and a helicopter company that was also located there. All of these buyouts were done at 8 hours notice, and again, they were done in cash.

[00:17:08]Within 25 days, the 6,000-ft runway and buildings were completed. When the job was finished, new B-26's arrived, along with one C-54 four-engine transport and four C-46 Curtiss Commandos.

[00:17:22]This was Rio base. The other airfield was Happy Valley at Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, which was a 1,400 mi round trip from Cuba.

[00:17:32]Although the Guatemalan Invaders would suffice for training purposes, another batch would be required for operations.

[00:17:39]17 airframes at Tucson and Davis-Monthan were judged to be good enough for restoration to combat readiness.

[00:17:46]They were purchased as surplus by the CIA front operation Intermountain Aviation on behalf of Caramar, the Caribbean Marine Aero Corporation. Some instructors were hired or borrowed from the 117th Reconnaissance Wing of the Alabama Air National Guard.

[00:18:02]The scratch Invader unit's first job was to make long pre-invasion overflights of Cuba launched from Guatemala. These were over 8 hours in duration and involved dropping leaflets and probing the Cuban defenses.

[00:18:16]A B-26 would typically be sent in to fly a particular flight path while US listening stations in Florida and along the eastern seaboard of the US monitored reactions and changes in signals traffic.

[00:18:28]With the first stage complete, it was time for the main event.

[00:18:32]On the 15th of April 1961, nine B-26s took off from Nicaragua and headed for Cuba.

[00:18:39]Their mission was to strike the three airfields that held all of Cuba's fighting aircraft, wiping them out in advance of the invasion on the 17th.

[00:18:48]The idea was for eight of the Invaders to perform the mission while the ninth flew on to Miami, where it was to land with apparent battle damage as a subterfuge to invite US support for the rebels.

[00:18:59]All of the aircraft were decorated in a loose version of FAR markings, FAR being the Cuban Air Force, and with genuine serial numbers.

[00:19:08]They were fitted with the eight-gun noses and equipped with underwing drop tanks enabling fuel loads of approximately 1,590 gallons.

[00:19:17]On their arrival over Cuba, two aircraft made multiple passes over Santiago de Cuba after a low-level ingress. Repeated attack passes were made with bombs, rockets, and machine guns under intense anti-aircraft fire.

[00:19:30]The two invaders destroyed a C-47 transport, PBY Catalina, two B-26s, and a civilian Douglas DC-3, plus various other civilian aircraft. Fuel storage areas and installations were also hit.

[00:19:44]Both aircraft sustained damage, but they returned safely to base.

[00:19:49]The B-26s also attacked two other airfields. At San Antonio, the three attackers destroyed three FAR B-26s, a Sea Fury, and a T-33.

[00:19:59]At the other target airfield, the three attackers destroyed only non-operational aircraft such as two P-47 Thunderbolts.

[00:20:06]One of the invaders was forced to land at Key West. Another diverted to Grand Cayman, where it was interned by the British.

[00:20:13]One was shot down by AAA off Havana killing its crew.

[00:20:18]The CIA estimate had been that the FAR consisted of about 18 invaders, 40 T-33s, and half a dozen Sea Furies on the morning of the 15th of April.

[00:20:27]Fidel Castro subsequently claimed that he had only half a dozen aircraft when the invasion began on the 17th, two of each type.

[00:20:35]The FAR also lost a T-33 as it attempted to attack a diversionary landing on the 15th.

[00:20:40]Another T-33 was made ready within a few days, and modern estimates are that the FAR actually had all of its Sea Furies and its T-33s operational on the 17th.

[00:20:50]Deception was the other part of the mission on the 15th, and to that end, a B-26B in full FAR insignia landed in Miami on the morning of the 15th.

[00:21:00]Before departure, the cowling from one of its engines had been removed by CIA personnel, fired upon, and then reinstalled to give the false appearance that the aircraft had taken ground fire at some point during its flight.

[00:21:11]Some reports have it that the tailplane was also holed with bullets.

[00:21:15]The pilot radioed a Mayday as he approached having feathered the supposedly damaged engine, claiming to have defected from Cuba after strafing and bombing Castro's air force.

[00:21:25]Ambassador Adlai Stevenson showed a photo of this aircraft at the UN and despite Castro's vehement protest to the contrary, few qualified observers took note of the fact that the aircraft that had arrived in Miami was actually an eight-gun nose B-26B without turrets.

[00:21:41]While it carried semi-authentic FAR markings, it was otherwise natural metal finish overall, whereas genuine FAR Invaders were predominantly glazed nose B-26Cs with turrets and painted Cuban olive drab, light gray, or black color schemes.

[00:21:57]According to a CIA officer involved in the operation, the reason for using the wrong B-26 rather than the right B-26C was that it was unclear which version the Cubans actually operated. An agent had photographed FAR Invaders, but reflections from the glazed noses prevented positive identification.

[00:22:15]Does make you wonder whether they realized who had made the Invader in the first place, but there we go.

[00:22:20]The pilot, Mario Zuniga, was subsequently flown out to Guatemala and then to Happy Valley. His aircraft was later flown to Eglin Air Force Base by USAF pilot and then sent to Davis-Monthan for storage.

[00:22:32]On the 17th of April, further B-26 sorties were flown in support of the landings at Playa Girón and Playa Larga.

[00:22:39]Although the overall competency of the invasion was pretty abysmal, leading to the Invaders being generally poorly tasked, the advantage of surprise lay with the B-26 crews and their performance throughout the operation was consistently courageous and tactically competent, and their bravery did allow them to score some successes. They caused heavy casualties when they attacked a Cuban column of 12 private buses, which was leading trucks carrying tanks and other armor. They used bombs, napalm, and rockets in the attack.

[00:23:08]But, the invaders were hopeless in air-to-air combat against the much faster single-engined fighters operated by the FAR, and thus were unable to stop them shooting up the landing zones and ships offshore. This problem afflicted the invasion force from the word go.

[00:23:21]At 06:30 on the 17th, Sea Furies and B-26s protected by T-33s heavily damaged the freighter Houston as it unloaded troops and supplies in the Bay of Pigs.

[00:23:32]Its captain was forced to beach her.

[00:23:34]3 hours later at about 09:30, Sea Furies and T-33s fired rockets at another freighter, the Rio Escondido, which exploded and sank about 3 km south of Giron.

[00:23:46]The ship had 10 days' worth of fuel and ammunition aboard. Having failed to catch the most capable FAR aircraft on the ground, seven ex-FAR B-26s were shot down by Sea Furies and T-33s.

[00:23:58]Confusion over aircraft identification was widespread, with FAR markings contributing to hesitation by Cuban pilots in some engagements.

[00:24:06]Shooting first and asking questions later is always a good policy, though, and they seem to have realized this as well.

[00:24:11]By way of example, the fake FAR 935 was shot down after a prolonged engagement with real FAR aircraft, culminating in a forced landing near Playa Giron under attack by a T-33.

[00:24:22]The pilot survived serious injuries, but the navigator was killed.

[00:24:27]Aerial operations in support of the invasion lasted from the 15th to the 20th of April. Eight of the rebel B-26s were lost, five to T-33s, two to Sea Furies, and one to ground fire. Several US advisers were killed flying combat missions, including four airmen on one day during an operation known as Mad Dog Flight. This was the final air attack of the whole debacle, and it involved five B-26s, which were set upon by a pair of T-33s.

[00:24:56]Two of the invaders were shot down.

[00:24:58]Following the collapse of the invasion, surviving B-26's were withdrawn to Puerto Cabezas. Some were later absorbed into the Nicaraguan Air Force. Others appear to have been returned to Davis-Monthan.

[00:25:10]The whole episode was obviously a major embarrassment, but the CIA learned yet more about the Invader. This being an era in which the agency was deeply attached to air power as a tool of espionage and subterfuge, it was therefore no surprise that they turned to the type once more as their desire to intervene in Southeast Asia grew.

[00:25:31]I hope you've enjoyed this video. Thanks so much for watching.