BIRMINGHAM AL- A story of heroism was recalled last January
at the 90th Anniversary celebration of Alabama Air National Guard
106th and 117th Air Refueling Wing. Thomas W. "Pete" Ray, AANG pilot, one of
their own, was executed during a top secret Cuban invasion attempt on April
19,1961.
The clandestine mission, the Bay of Pigs Invasion, was so secret not even the
wives and family knew of the CIA plans to bomb Cuba. The details of the squadron,
recruited covertly due to their expertise in post WW II aircraft and with
permission of Alabama Governor, John Patterson- would remain classified until 1998, 38 years after the
fact.
-Thomas W. "Pete" Ray, 1st Lt US Army-
The 30-year-old Center Point, Alabama, pilot was shot to death by one of Fidel
Castro's soldiers when his plane, a B-26, was shot down and force landed. They
also killed his flight engineer, Leo Baker, after the two had bombed targets
near Castro's field headquarters. Two other Alabamians also died when their
plane was shot down during the invasion. They were on a mission that the late
Col. Joe Shannon, one of the few surviving pilots from the group, recalled was"a last-ditch effort". Through its secrecy, it would change the
course of many lives for decades.
Nine-year-old Janet Ray, Pete Ray's little girl, began to
look at newspaper and magazine for stories about the Bay of Pigs. Through
college, she began a campaign from her congressman to Castro with letters,
pleading with them to bring her father's body home. She later discovered her father had been executed, Castro had kept
his body frozen in a Havana morgue, using it as proof that the United
States had been involved in the Bay of Pigs. Although people had told Ray she
would never get her father's body back, she persisted. In December, more than
18 years after Pete Ray was executed, she brought him home. The U.S. government
convinced Castro to return Ray's body in 1979 for a military burial at Forest
Hills Cemetery overlooking the Birmingham airport. Bodies of the other pilots
and crew were not recoverable.
-Courtesy image-
The CIA posthumously awarded the Distinguished Intelligence Cross, its highest award for bravery to the four Alabama airmen killed at the Bay of Pigs, Leo Baker, Wade Gray, Riley Shamburger and Pete Ray, but asked family members not to say anything about how they died. They died for freedom.
Last year at the Guard anniversary, LT Col Scott Grant, Air Refueling Squadron Commander, proposed each year on April 19, AANG members gather at Forest Park by Pete Ray's grave to honor his sacrifice. And afterwards, meet at the nearby Airport Inn, a place Pete and the others went, for a toast in remembrance of the 117th Alabama Air National Guard heroes and their role in the 52nd Anniversary of the Bay of Pigs Invasion. -B Meyer, FMI: Wings of Denial by Trest and Dodd