Granma (yacht)

Granma is the yacht that was used to transport 82 fighters of the Cuban Revolution from Mexico to Cuba in November 1956 for the purpose of overthrowing the regime of Fulgencio Batista. The 60-foot (18 m) diesel-powered cabin cruiser was built in 1943 by Wheeler Shipbuilding of Brooklyn NY as a light armored target practice boat, US Navy C-1994 and modified postwar to accommodate 12 people. "Granma", in English, is an affectionate term for a grandmother; the yacht is said to have been named for the previous owner's grandmother.[1][2][3]

Granma Memorial in Havana

Role in the Cuban revolution
The route of Granma from Tuxpan to Playa Las Coloradas

The yacht was purchased on 10 October 1956 for MX$50,000 (US$15,000) from the United States-based Schuylkill Products Company, Inc., by a Mexican citizen—said to be Mexico City gun dealer Antonio "The Friend" del Conde[4]—secretly representing Fidel Castro. The builder, Wheeler Shipbuiding, then of Brooklyn NY, now of Chapel Hill NC, also built Hemingway's Pilar.[5] It is still unknown who removed the light armor and expanded the cabin postwar to convert the navy training boat into a civilian Yacht. Castro's 26th of July Movement had attempted to purchase a Catalina flying boat maritime aircraft, or a US naval crash rescue boat for the purpose of crossing the Gulf of Mexico to Cuba, but their efforts had been thwarted by lack of funds. The money to purchase Granma had been raised in the US state of Florida by former President of Cuba Carlos Prío Socarrás[6] and Teresa Casuso Morín.[7]

Shortly after midnight on 25 November 1956 in the Mexican port of Tuxpan, Veracruz, Granma was surreptitiously boarded by 82 members of the 26th of July movement including their leader, Fidel Castro, his brother, Raúl Castro, Che Guevara, and Camilo Cienfuegos. The group—who later came to be known collectively as los expedicionarios del yate Granma (the Granma yacht expeditioners)—then set out from Tuxpan at 2 a.m.[8] After a series of vicissitudes and misadventures, including diminishing supplies, sea-sickness, and the near-foundering of their heavily laden and leaking craft, they disembarked on 2 December on the Playa Las Coloradas, municipality of Niquero, in modern Granma Province (after the vessel), formerly part of the larger Oriente Province. Granma was piloted by Norberto Collado Abreu, a World War II Cuban Navy veteran and ally of Castro.[9] The location was chosen to emulate the voyage of national hero José Martí, who had landed in the same region 61 years earlier during the wars of independence from Spanish colonial rule.

Landing

We reached solid ground, lost, stumbling along like so many shadows or ghosts marching in response to some obscure psychic impulse. We had been through seven days of constant hunger and sickness during the sea crossing, topped by three still more terrible days on land. Exactly 10 days after our departure from Mexico, during the early morning hours of December 5, following a night-long march interrupted by fainting and frequent rest periods, we reached a spot paradoxically known as Alegría de Pío (Rejoicing of the Pious). –Che Guevara[10]

Batista correctly predicted that the landing would take place, and his troops were ready. Consequentially, the landing party was bombarded by helicopters and airplanes soon after landing. Since the terrain on the coastline provided little cover, the party was an easy target.[11] Many casualties ensued, most of them during battle at Alegría de Pío further inland. The survivors continued to the foot of Pico Turquino in the Sierra Maestra to carry out guerilla war.[12]

Initially, Batista did not know who exactly were among the casualties, and international media widely reported that Fidel had died.[13] This was, however, not the case. Of the 82, around 20 had survived. According to the most credible version, the survivors were Fidel, Raúl, Guevara, Armando Rodríguez, Faustino Pérez, Ramiro Valdés, Universo Sánchez, Efigenio Ameijeiras, René Rodríguez, Camilo Cienfuegos, Juan Almeida Bosque, Calixto García, Calixto Morales, Reinaldo Benítez, Julio Díaz, Rafael Chao, Ciro Redondo, José Morán, Carlos Bermúdez, and Fransisco González. All others had been either killed, captured, or left behind.[14]

Granma yacht expeditioners

The 82 expeditioners were:[15]

  1. Fidel Castro
  2. Juan Manuel Márquez Rodríguez
  3. Faustino Pérez
  4. José Smith Comas
  5. Juan Almeida Bosque
  6. Raúl Castro
  7. Pablo Díaz
  8. Félix Elmuza
  9. Armando Huau
  10. Che Guevara
  11. Antonio López
  12. Teniente Jesús Reyes
  13. Cándido González
  14. Onelio Pino
  15. Roberto Roque
  16. Jesús Montané
  17. Mario Hidalgo
  18. César Gómez
  19. Rolando Moya
  20. Horacio Rodríguez
  21. José Ponce Díaz
  22. José Ramón Martínez
  23. Fernando Sánchez-Amaya
  24. Arturo Chaumont
  25. Norberto Collado
  26. Gino Donè Paro
  27. Julio Díaz
  28. René Bedia
  29. Evaristo Montes de Oca
  30. Esteban Sotolongo
  31. Andrés Luján
  32. José Fuentes
  33. Pablo Hurtado
  34. Emilio Albentosa
  35. Luis Crespo
  36. Rafael Chao
  37. Ernesto Fernández
  38. Armando Mestre
  39. Miguel Cabañas
  40. Eduardo Reyes
  41. Humberto Lamothe
  42. Santiago Hirzel
  43. Enrique Cuélez
  44. Mario Chanes
  45. Manuel Echevarría
  46. Fransisco González
  47. Mario Fuentes
  48. Noelio Capote
  49. Raúl Suárez
  50. Gabriel Gil
  51. Luis Arcos
  52. Alfonso Guillén Zelaya
  53. Miguel Saavedra
  54. Pedro Sotto
  55. Arsenio García
  56. Israel Cabrera
  57. Carlos Bermúdez
  58. Antonio Darío López
  59. Oscar Rodríguez
  60. Camilo Cienfuegos
  61. Gilberto García
  62. René Reiné
  63. Jaime Costa
  64. Norberto Godoy
  65. Enrique Cámara
  66. Raúl Díaz
  67. Armando Rodríguez
  68. Calixto García
  69. Calixto Morales
  70. Reinaldo Benítez
  71. René Rodríguez
  72. Jesús Gómez
  73. Francisco Chicola
  74. Universo Sánchez
  75. Efigenio Ameijeiras
  76. Ramiro Valdés
  77. Tomás Royo
  78. Arnaldo Pérez
  79. Ciro Redondo
  80. Rolando Santana
  81. Ramón Mejias
  82. José Morán

After the revolution

Soon after the revolutionary forces triumphed on 1 January 1959, the cabin cruiser was transferred to Havana Bay. Norberto Collado Abreu, who had served as main helmsman for the 1956 voyage,[9] received the job of guarding and preserving the yacht.

Since 1976, the yacht has been on permanent display in a glass enclosure at the Granma Memorial adjacent to the Museum of the Revolution in Havana. A portion of old Oriente Province, where the expedition made landfall, was renamed Granma Province in honor of the vessel. UNESCO has declared the Landing of the Granma National Park—established at the location (Playa Las Coloradas)—a World Heritage Site for its natural habitat.[16]

Cuba celebrates 2 December as the "Day of the Cuban Armed Forces",[17] and a replica has also been paraded at state functions to commemorate the original voyage. In further tribute, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party has been called Granma. The name of the vessel became an icon for Cuban communism.[18]

References
  1. Fifty years on, Mexico town recalls young Castro, by Frank Jack Daniel, for Reuters. Published November 25, 2006.
  2. Roots of Cuban Revolution lie in the east. Vanessa Arrington, Associated Press July 2006. Accessed 14 January 2007.
  3. Time Magazine 1966 report Archived 2008-12-02 at the Wayback Machine Accessed 3 December 2006.
  4. Frank Jack Daniel (27 November 2006). "Fifty years on, Mexico town recalls young Castro". Caribbean Net News. Archived from the original on 23 November 2007. Retrieved 2007-12-02.
  5. "History - Wheeler Yacht Company". wheeleryachts.com. Archived from the original on 2019-03-23. Retrieved 2019-08-12.
  6. Thomas, Hugh. Cuba : The Pursuit of Freedom. p584-5.
  7. "HUMANISMO. MEXICO CITY: JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1958, NO. 4". Sotherbys.com. Sotherbys. Retrieved 28 December 2016.
  8. Guevara, Ernesto. Pasajes de la guerra revolucionaria. "Una revolución que comienza." A web edition (Spanish language).
  9. "Cuban Revolutionary Collado Abreu Dies". Associated Press. 2008-04-03. Archived from the original on April 7, 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-03.
  10. Ernesto "Che" Guevara (World Leaders Past & Present), by Douglas Kellner, 1989, Chelsea House Publishers, ISBN 1-55546-835-7, pg 40
  11. Kuuban tarina 2016, 24:00.
  12. Kuuban tarina 2016, 25:00.
  13. Kuuban tarina 2016, 26:00.
  14. Bonachea, Ramon L.; Martin, Marta San (2011). Cuban Insurrection 1952-1959. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. p. 107n49. ISBN 978-1-4128-2090-5.
  15. "Lo que brilla con luz propia, nada lo puede apagar". Granma Cuba Si (in Spanish). Retrieved 3 September 2018.
  16. "Desembarco del Granma National Park". whc.unesco.org. Retrieved 12 February 2017.
  17. Expedición del Granma Online at Cuban Ministry of the Armed Forces, accessed 19 November 2006
  18. Enrique Oltuski (29 November 2002). Vida Clandestina: My Life in the Cuban Revolution. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 292–. ISBN 978-0-7879-6658-4.

Works cited

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