After the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959, the United States Government obstructed all efforts by the Cuban Revolutionary Government to acquire any type of military equipment, including weapons and ammunition.
England stopped selling Sea Fury combat aircraft, and the Italian authorities also yielded to pressure from the U.S. government. Belgium was the only Western European country that maintained the agreements made prior to the Revolution because, in a timely manner, a commission of the Revolutionary Armed Forces had revalidated them.
As a result of these agreements with the Belgian authorities, in October 1959 the ship La Coubre arrived in Havana with a shipment of FAL rifles intended for the leadership of the Revolutionary Armed Forces to strengthen the defense of the Revolution.
Coinciding with La Coubre’s stay at the Pan American Docks, Melvin Beck, a professional American spy and head of the Latin America Task Force in the CIA’s “USSR Division” of the Directorate of Plans, was visiting the Cuban capital. His mission was to verify the arrival of a Soviet cargo ship at the port of Matanzas and to seek intelligence information related to the presence of other ships in Cuban ports.
At the same time, another CIA officer named Rudolph Gomez, deputy chief of the Western Hemisphere Division in the Directorate of Plans of the CIA, was visiting Havana for three days to oversee the work of the local Station and its efforts to increase espionage activity.
On January 16, 1960, during its 53rd voyage, the steamship La Coubre went to repair the refrigeration system of Hold VI at the port of Norfolk, Virginia, where coincidentally the Central Intelligence Agency Headquarters was located. Coincidentally, this hold would be where the deadly explosion would occur at the port of Havana two months later.
On February 9, La Coubre began its 54th voyage with a new crew under the command of Captain George Dalmas and 38 sailors. The next day, in Hamburg, Germany, 441 tons of general cargo were loaded. Later the ship departed for Belgium, headed to the port of Antwerp, where it arrived on the 13th to pick up 783 tons of various products and merchandise for several countries. On this occasion, it included 1,492 boxes of military cargo from the National War Arms Factory in the city of Herstal, in Liège, Belgium.
As a NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) signatory, this military industry was obliged to strictly comply with a series of protection and security measures for the weapons they produced, which, before being sent to their clients, were rigorously examined, checked, and verified in their boxes to prevent any kind of accident.
The military cargo from the arms factory was divided into two loads, complying with the strict safety measures established for their proper transfer and loading. One part of the cargo consisted of 967 boxes of 7.62-millimeter caliber ammunition weighing approximately 43 tons, which was transported by rail from the factory to the Scheldt River dock in Antwerp, where La Coubre was anchored between February 13 and 14.
A second shipment, consisting of 525 boxes of anti-tank and anti-personnel grenades for FAL rifles (25,000 grenades), weighing approximately 32 tons, was loaded onto a train from the factory to the town of Kapellen, where it was transferred to two trucks that headed to the loading dock in the town of Lillo. Later, from there, they were moved to a barge that took them to the Liefkenshoek anchorage, where it was held under the custody of the Figille company, awaiting the ship’s arrival.
During this period of time, some irregularities occurred. On the early morning of February 15, due to an alleged “flu attack,” the two guards of the barge were replaced by “unauthorized personnel.” It became evident that at that moment the security system of the aforementioned security company had been compromised.
The explosion, which occurred on March 4, 1960, cannot be forgotten even by those who only know it through history. Photo: Archive
The next day, while loading the shipment of grenades into the first compartment of Hold VI, the stevedores noticed that there was not enough space for 50 boxes of grenades, so they moved them to the adjacent compartment within the same hold, where 2.4 tons of cheese that had been shipped from Hamburg destined for the city of Miami were stored. It is important to note that due to its texture and color, the cheese closely resembles the explosive C-4.
When the two refrigerated chambers of Hold VI were sealed, part of the crew requested to receive extra pay (hazard bonus), arguing that the demand was due to the workers having handled explosives with risk to their lives. The General Transatlantic Company immediately responded that this request was not justified, as the preventive safety and protection measures had been respected. This request did not succeed because the authorities of that entity were confident that no one was in any danger.
On February 17, La Coubre arrived at the port of Le Havre, France, where additional tons of general cargo were loaded, including another 200 kilograms of cheese. Here a new irregularity occurred because the security seals on the refrigerated hold were broken. This cheese was stored alongside the 50 boxes of grenades and the 2.4 tons of cheese already on the ship.
On February 18, around five in the afternoon, violating the navigation rules established for a cargo vessel, two unusual passengers boarded at the port of Le Havre: the Dominican friar Raoul Desobry and the American journalist Donald Lee Chapman. The former was traveling to Mexico, and the latter was headed to Florida. In exchange for these two passengers, two French crew members had to disembark from La Coubre.
It is striking that Donald Lee Chapman was slim, with a wheatish complexion, and wore a thick black beard, which would allow him to go unnoticed as if he were just another Cuban, in a city where bearded men in the style of the Sierra Maestra still roamed.
In the early hours of February 19, La Coubre set sail for Cuba with an Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) calculated for March 2, but due to adverse weather conditions, they arrived at their destination on the 4th.
According to the ship’s itinerary, from Havana it would continue to Port Everglades in Florida, then to Tampico and Veracruz in Mexico, arrive at Kingston, Jamaica to refuel, then proceed to Port-au-Prince in Haiti, before returning to Havana to load cargo and set course for Europe with an ETA of April 7.
This itinerary could not be fulfilled because on March 4 at 3:10 pm, the first explosion occurred on La Coubre at the Pan American Docks in the Cuban capital. About thirty minutes later, when hundreds of workers, sailors, police, firefighters, and FAR fighters were aiding the victims, a second explosion took place causing additional casualties but greater material damage than the first. In total, 101 people were reported dead, including 33 missing, and more than 400 injured, with material damages valued at 17 million pesos.
Immediately, a commission from the FAR, led by then-Captain José Ramón Fernández Álvarez, tested the safety of a sample of the FAL grenades, when an aircraft dropped two boxes of grenades from heights of 400 and 600 feet over an unpopulated area and none exploded. Furthermore, two grenades were handed directly to Fidel while he was delivering his historic speech on March 5 during the mourning farewell for the victims, and nothing happened. It was proven that the possibility of an accident or mishandling could not have caused the explosion.
After these events, Donald Lee Chapman was detained by Cuban authorities while taking photographs in the disaster area. His involvement in the incident could not be proven, so he was released and left Cuban territory. Over time, it became known that this individual had been a naval photographer for the Navy in Pensacola and acknowledged that such an explosion could not have been caused by an accident.
Belgian, French, and American specialists also participated in the investigations carried out by Cuban authorities.
On June 7, 1960, at the theater of the Central Workers' Union of Cuba, where three months earlier the remains of the martyrs of La Coubre had been displayed, our Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, visibly moved, expressed: “For each one of us, individually, the slogan is: Homeland or Death!, but for the people, who will ultimately be victorious, the slogan is: We will win!”
Fidel, alongside Osvaldo Dorticós, Che Guevara, and other leaders of the Revolution during the burial of the victims of La Coubre.
About fifty years later, a friend of Cuba went to the archives of the maritime foundation “Association French Lines,” where the complete investigation file conducted by the General Transatlantic Company, owner of the La Coubre steamship, is kept. He requested access to documents related to this event, and after the necessary inquiries, he was informed that all the documentation was classified with an access prohibition of up to 150 years, and that one of the file collections contained information prohibited for unlimited time. This is further evidence that something very important is being hidden from the international public opinion.
Regarding this event, the United States government has maintained absolute silence, has not declassified any documents related to the investigations carried out, nor has it released any information whatsoever about this incident.
Fidel repeatedly urged the American authorities to declassify any information they possessed, but so far no response has been received. The fact that one of the most powerful intelligence services on the planet refrains from revealing what it knows also constitutes a signal to be taken into account.
At a moment like the one our people are currently experiencing, it is valid to recall events such as the sabotage of the steamship La Coubre, because it once again demonstrated what our enemies are capable of doing. It is also important because throughout history it has been shown that each of the main aggressions has contributed to strengthening the unity of all Cuban revolutionaries, and even more, it has prepared us to continue defending our economic, political, social, and cultural project at whatever cost is necessary.
