RAID ON CUBA

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29830, 24 May 1962, Page 6

RAID ON CUBA

Claim By Exile

Press Assn.—Copyright) MIAMI (Florida), May 23 An anti-Castro , group leader in Miami claims that a Cuban exile commando party landed on Cuba last Friday, killed or wounded 75 soldiers, and destroyed five military vehicles.

Captain Carlos Pertierra said he headed a 26-man raiding party of the “Cuban raider command” which engaged a troop of soldiers on a road 18 miles from Havana. “We destroyed five six-by-sixes (heavy military trucks) of American make and killed or wounded 75 men without loss of life to our party,” Captain Pertierra asserted, the Associated Press reported. He alleged that his party flew from a point outside the United States in two aircraft and parachuted into Pinar del Rio province, south-west of the Cuban capital.

“We encountered some anti-aircraft fire, but saw no sign of Cuban Air Force planes,” he said. Commenting on the success of the anti-Castro underground in Cuba, Captain Pertierra said: “All of the area we went through had been well burnt over. Thousands of acres of sugar cane have been burnt. At night the horizon was bright -with flames.”

He said that after their sortie he and his group stole a small boat and made a rendezvous with an amphibious aircraft. More Attacks

He said the “Cuban raider command” would continue to make tactical strikes, according to A.P. Captain Pertierra claimed that a commando group parachuted into Cuba a week earlier and had radioed that it had suffered light casualties in encounters with troops. It bad also damaged or destroyed eight heavy tanks, three radar installations, and burnt 3000 acres of sugar cane, he said.

Formation of the raider command was announced on May 9 by Captain Santiago Perez, a former Cuban Air Force officer, who said then that the command was in a state of war with Dr. Castro's regime.

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