This Government will do everything it possibly can, and I think it can meet its responsibilities, to make sure that there are no Americans involved in any actions inside Cuba.
So said President Kennedy just five days before the Bay of Pigs invasion. But some Americans did participate in that invasion—and the deaths of four U.S. flyers made belated headlines last week.
The case of the four flyers was brought up by Senate Republican Leader Everett Dirksen, who for weeks had been conducting a personal investigation, and now revealed some of the details. Democratic Leader Mike Mansfield confirmed Dirksen's story, said that he had been told of the deaths in a secret briefing at the time. Since Dirksen had dug up the story on his own, Mansfield no longer felt bound to secrecy. "It is known," he said, "that a few experienced American airmen were employed to train Cuban pilots, navigators and radio operators. Several of these Americans volunteered to fly combat missions. Apparently a decision was made to accept their offer. Several planes were attacked, and four of these Americans lost their lives."
The Job. Actually, the story of the four flyers had been told before; a Birmingham newspaper carried an account on May 4, 1961 that was picked up by the Associated Press. It passed almost unnoticed at the time, and it is a mark of the steadily heightening tensions over Cuba that it should have caused a commotion last week.
All four flyers were Alabamans, residents of the Birmingham area and onetime employees of the Hayes Aircraft Corp. there. Riley Shamburger, 36, was a major in the Alabama Air National Guard and a World War II veteran, with more than 12,000 flying hours. Thomas Willard Ray, 30, was a former Air Force staff sergeant. Leo Baker, 35, had been an Air Force tech sergeant and a flight engineer for Hayes. Wade Carroll Gray, 38, had been a Hayes test pilot.
The four were approached just after New Year's, 1961, by Miami Attorney Alex E. Carlson, 38, head of a firm known as the Double-Check Corp.—ostensibly an aviation procurement company (the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency last week was busily denying that it had anything to do with it). The Alabamans and at least 14 other recruits were given contracts to go to Central America and train Cuban exiles in flying B-26s. As it turned out, they were to do a job that a lot of U.S. citizens wish many more Americans had been involved in.
"Where Is My Son?" The pay was good. Shamburger, as a pilot, got about $2,100 a month; the others received $1,900. The four Alabamans left their homes in mid-January, telling their families that their mission was secret. In proper cloak-and-dagger style, their mail was sent and received through a general-delivery box in Chicago. Most of them returned to Birmingham only once, for a single day in March. The next month came the invasion. According to Mansfield, the four volunteered to replace exhausted Cuban pilots during the Bay of Pigs struggle, and were killed when their bomber was shot down by Cuban T-33 jets.