Word: 26s
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...stood to reason that, considering how small the landing party was, the success of the operation would hinge on the B-26s' controlling the air over the beachhead. And the margins that the planners accepted were narrow to begin with. The B-26s were to operate from a staging base in a Central American country more than 500 miles from Cuba. The round trip would take better than six hours, and that would leave the planes with fuel for only 45 minutes of action over Cuba. In contrast, Castro's air force could be over the beachhead...
...feelings: Under Secretary of State Chester Bowles and Adlai Stevenson. In deference to these views, Kennedy made two separate rulings which were to contribute to the fatal dismemberment of the whole plan. First, U.S. air power would not be on call at any time. Second, the B-26s flown by "our" Cubans could be used in only two strikes before the invasion-first on D-minus-two-days and again on the morning of the landing...
Dawn of April 15, by the timetable, the B-26s, having flown undetected through the night from their Central American staging base, appeared over Cuba and bombed the three fields on which Castro's ready air was deployed. The attack was, on the whole, highly successful. Half of Castro's B-26s and Sea Furies and four of his T-33 jets were blown up or damaged...
...evening, only some eight hours after Kennedy had given the final go-ahead, the expedition in the first dark was creeping toward the Cuban shore. In Bissel's office, there was a call on the White House line. It was Bundy, being even crisper than usual: The B-26s were to stand down, there was to be no air strike in the morning, this was a presidential order. Rusk was now acting for the President in the situation. Bissell was stunned. He and CIA Deputy Director General Charles Cabell, an experienced air man, went together to the State Department...
...consternation welled up from their men far to the south. At 4 o'clock, less than an hour before first light on the Cuban shore, Cabell went back to Rusk with another proposal. It was manifestly impossible for the Cuban Brigade's small force of B-26s (only 16 were operational) to provide effective air cover for the ships from their distant base. Cabell now asked whether, if the ships were to pull back to international water, the U.S.S. Boxer, a carrier on station about 50 miles from the Bay of Pigs, could be instructed to provide cover...