I'm afraid not.
The plan to invade Cuba, as originally formulated, was brilliant. And it had a very real chance of successfully overthrowing the regime installed in Cuba. But enough pressure was exerted to change the entire formulation of the invasion plan.
There were two main elements of the plan that were modified before the invasion that made all the difference in the defeat of the brigadistas.
The first modification was a last minute decision to change the landing location. The original location chosen by the military and CIA planners was in the southern Cuban city of Trinidad—a location with many strategic advantages.
On the one hand, it was next to the Escambray Mountains, where anti-communist rebels were already on the ground fighting Fidel Castro's regime. The original site also had docks, which were crucial for allowing obsolete Brigade ships to offload gasoline, oil, communications material, and other vital supplies. Another important benefit of Trinidad was the presence of an airfield for Brigade planes. It had a defensible beachhead and a few roads leading to the city of Havana. The local population, numbering around 26,000, was dissatisfied with the regime and was expected to join and help the Brigade. There were also grocery stores with food and hospitals with medical staff for the wounded.
Instead, the US government decided to move the landing site to the swampy, sparsely inhabited villages of Playa Girón and Playa Larga in the Bay of Pigs—landing points with no real infrastructure, no docks, no local anti-communist forces to help, and numerous other strategic disadvantages. To make matters worse, the treacherous reefs in the Bay of Pigs made landing even more difficult.
And finally, there were no good retreat options and no good way forward. In short, it was perhaps the worst imaginable place to land Brigade troops. Incidentally, moving the landing from Trinidad to the Bay of Pigs is widely seen as one of the main reasons for the Brigade's defeat. President Kennedy told Allen Dulles that he did not approve of the Trinidad landing because he did not want to interfere with civilian life there.
The other modification was the inexcusable order to cancel the overwhelming majority of air missions by Brigade pilots, with the intention of neutralizing Fidel Castro's air forces, his tanks and more.
Reports on radio traffic say that US Navy radios were being bombarded with calls from Brigadiers begging the planes to come. The US government refused to provide assistance.
The original plan was to include five bombing raids using the entire Brigade Air Force fleet. The fleet consisted of 16 B-26 bombers, which were to be used to destroy Fidel Castro's Air Force, its heavy tanks, its trucks, heavy artillery, oil refineries, and other military targets that were crucial to the regime's ability to defend the island.
For the operation to be successful, the original plan needed to be followed through completely—especially considering that the Communist regime had over 200,000 soldiers and militiamen armed by the Soviet Union, as well as a significant Air Force. Instead, most of the Brigade's air missions were ordered not to fly and the number of planes was reduced by 50%, ensuring that Fidel Castro could muster many planes, tanks and more to defeat the freedom fighters.
Another consideration that has to be made in this invasion, the enemy jets T-33, B-26 and Sea Fury sank two of the 2506 Brigade's WWII Liberty class ships. From Varona, one of those present in the invasion was aboard the Houston while sinking. Both the Houston ship and the Rio Escondido ship carrying military supplies, food, gas and oil for the planes, munitions and communications equipment crashed that day. The other ships were driven off under heavy fire. The loss of these ships were of fundamental importance to Fidel's victory.
Another consideration to be made, before the invasion, the New York Times, widely seen as the Pentagon's megaphone and a publication that helped publicize Fidel Castro and his revolution to Americans, wrote articles describing how anti-Castro forces were being trained. in Guatemala by US military and CIA agents, warning Fidel that the invasion was imminent. The press secretary of the JFK White House described that Fidel would not even need to have spies in America, it would simply be enough for Fidel to read the New York Yimes. The invasion took place under everyone's eyes, Fidel was certainly aware of the American plans even before it happened, unfortunately, for the brigadistas, they did not have the surprise effect, which could delay Castro's military reactions for some time.
In short: It was a show of incompetence, and a large part of this incompetence was not from the brigadistas, but from the US intelligence and military summit.
