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Neither Castro nor the exiles put out casualty figures. The best estimate was that of 1,300 rebels landed, possibly 90 were killed in combat. A handful—perhaps 50 men, no more—may haye made it to the rugged Escambray Mountains; another 100 to 200 were evacuated from the beachhead. The rest were captured when their ammunition gave out. Castro's casualties were much higher. Before it was destroyed by Castro's jet fighters, the rebel air force of 14 World War II B-26s wiped out two columns of advancing militia, totaling three tanks, two armored cars, 31 militia-crammed trucks and buses. Castro's militia dead may have run to 2,000 or more.
Compared to the ruin that the invasion brought to the Cuban civilian population, the combat losses were minuscule. Scared passengers arriving in the U.S. on the first planes from Havana told a story of terror unmatched in recent Latin American history. Said one man, landing in Miami: "I have just come from hell." A source inside Cuba smuggled out his estimate that by week's end, 250,000 Cubans had been rounded up and packed into makeshift concentration camps. In Havana alone, some 40,000 people were crammed into the Sports Palace, the cav ernous Blanquita movie theater, the ruins of Morro Castle and in sequestered private homes. One released American reported that he and 157 other prisoners were held in a room that had only five chairs. Said one of the fortunate few who managed to leave Cuba last week: "Families go from one place to another seeking a father, a son, a sister. They gather outside these camps, calling out names in the hope that someone within will hear them."
The trucks loaded with suspected counter-revolutionaries still rumbled through Havana streets, and the papers were full of announcements: "Citizens: Do you know well every occupant of your house? And if that one you doubt is a criminal counterrevolutionary, why do you not denounce him?"
The City of Grief. Watching it all in stunned horror, 65,000 anti-Castro exiles turned Miami into a city of grief. The brick house on Biscayne Boulevard that served as headquarters of the Frente was besieged by hysterical women asking news of sons, brothers, sweethearts in the ill-fated invasion force. In the confusion, no one could be sure which men were dead, wounded, captured, or evacuated.
The exiles leveled bitter accusations at the U.S. and at the shattered Revolutionary Council, whose leader, José MirÓ Cardona, was to have been liberated Cuba's provisional president. Most of the council leaders found it advisable to get out of Miami, spent the week shuttling between New York, Washington and the Caribbean. MirÓ Cardona and the Frente's Tony Varona flew to Vieques Island off Puerto Rico to visit the invasion wounded evacuated to the U.S. naval base there.