survived the Bay of Pigs and died in the collapsed building in Florida

Sixty years before the Miami apartment building collapsed, Juan Mora – one of the fatal victims of that tragedy along with at least 89 other people – had been one of hundreds of Cuban exiles who enlisted in a prick operation, funded by the CIA, to overthrow the dictatorship of Fidel Castro backed by the Soviet Union.

Mora’s dream of restoring democracy to his homeland took him from military training in a Guatemalan jungle camp to the failed invasion of The Bay of Pigs in 1961, where he was captured and then crammed into a decrepit Cuban prison full of rats for 20 months, now tell his friends who were incarcerated with him.

Authorities on Wednesday identified the remains of Juan A. Mora, 80, also known as Juanito, recovered from the rubble of the Champlain Towers South building in Surfside. Among those killed were his wife Ana and their adult son Juan Mora, who was working in Chicago and was with his parents when the 12-story building suddenly collapsed on June 24.

Mora’s father was a much loved figure in the Cuban-American community in the Miami area, which once actively participated in the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association and the Bay of Pigs Museum it houses, said Humberto López, a member of the Council of administration, museum directive.

Mora “was always trying to help,” organizing events, writing op-eds about the invasion and emailing other members of the veterans group, López recalled.

López said he and the talkative Mora had been close friends for the past decade and called his wife “charismatic.”

Ana Mora had worked as an assistant principal at a prestigious Miami Catholic high school, Belen Jesuit Prep, where the couple’s son had graduated, said another family friend, Johnny López de la Cruz, president of the museum and the veterans association.

Mora Jr. was a director of the road salt company Morton Salt in Chicago, according to close friend Matthew Kaade, who graduated with him from Loyola University in Chicago in 2011.

López de la Cruz said Mora Sr. also had two daughters from a previous marriage. Another friend, Humberto Díaz Argüelles, explained that Mora’s first wife he had died of cancer.

Brigade 2506

Mora Sr. was part of a group of Cuban exiles funded by the CIA towards the end of the Eisenhower administration to help counter Soviet influence and the missiles installed in Cuba. Volunteers were sent to training camps in the jungle of Guatemala in 1960 and early 1961.

The force became known as Brigade 2506, the identification number of the first victim, a man who fallen off a cliff during a training accident, said Díaz Argüelles, who trained in one of the camps with Mora.

They lived in tents, ate food that sometimes rotted and drink river water while learning to use machine guns, grenades, bazookas and mortars.

“We were so convinced of what we were doing to liberate Cuba that nobody complained“recalled Diaz Argüelles.

He said Mora, a radio operator from Battalion 3 of the brigade, was lively and popular and “always talked about any topic you can imagine.”

When training ended in April 1961 and the fighters headed for Cuba, they realized that they did not receive the aid that the US military had promised them, such as air support and a “naval army,” said Díaz Argüelles.

Some 1,400 men were transported from a Nicaraguan port in rusty merchant cargo ships to the Bay of Pigs on the southern coast of Cuba, and then had to descend with ropes in the dark to embark on “ships in sea.” aluminum Sears of 5 meters’ and get to the beach, while they were under fire, because Castro had learned of the invasion in advance.

“There was no time to be afraid,” said Díaz Argüelles, whose boat sank after hitting a reef, forcing him to swim to shore. with a mortar tube and two boxes of ammunition.

President John F. Kennedy, who authorized the mission when he had only been in office for three months, had canceled a second airstrike expected after US support for the April 17, 1961 invasion became known, according to the JFK Library.

After three days of fighting the overwhelming Cuban force, while hiding in the swamps and running out of ammunition, water and food, more than a hundred members of brigade 2506 was dead.

Díaz Argüelles and around 20 invaders were surrounded by Cuban troops and taken to Castillo del Príncipe, a huge military fortress in Havana. There, Díaz Argüelles again met Mora, who, like him, had been captured.

Díaz Argüelles said the prison was dilapidated and full of mushrooms and that they had to sleep on the floor with rats walking on them at night. The meager food they received contained rats and cockroaches, and the contaminated water would break them down and weaken them.

López was also imprisoned there and spent about eight months in the same cell as Mora, who was later transferred to another location in the prison.

Prisoners in exchange for millions of dollars

Near 1,200 prisoners they were ultimately sent back to the United States in exchange for $ 53 million worth of food and medicine, according to the JFK Library. The survivors of Brigade 2506 were flown to Florida just before Christmas 1962 and reunited with their loved ones there.

Díaz Argüelles said that he and Mora both got jobs and they studied at university.

They separated for years, but reconnected after his retirement. Díaz Argüelles recalled that Mora had had a hurricane window and door sales company for at least a decade and said they last spoke a few months ago, naturally about the Bay of Pigs veterans group.

The author is a reporter for the Associated Press

Translation: Elisa Carnelli

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