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By Morning Sentinel Staff 01/04/2008

Jack Hegarty of Dennistown Plantation, in northern Somerset County, was a 21-year-old sailor in the U.S. Navy when he and his mates shipped out for Cuba in April 1961.

The mission, which then-President John F. Kennedy had tried to keep secret, turned out to be the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, an unsuccessful attempt by armed Cuban exiles, funded by the United States, to overthrow the government of Communist leader Fidel Castro.

The failed invasion ushered in the breakdown in relations between Soviet-backed Cuba and the United States. It was further worsened by the Cuban Missile Crisis the following year.

The invasion is named after the Bay of Pigs, where the landing took place.

For his role as a radar controller onboard a military AD5W Skyraider during the invasion, Hegarty, 67, is to be awarded medals today at the office of U.S. Sen. Susan Collins in Augusta.

In a telephone interview on Thursday, Hegarty said he sent a letter to Collins, alerting her to the fact that the men who risked their lives in the covert operation nearly 47 years ago never were recognized for their bravery.

The result, he said, will be a ceremony this morning at the Muskie Federal Building on Western Avenue.

Representatives from Collins' offices in Augusta and in Washington D.C., did not return phone calls for this story.

Reading from his letter to Collins, Hegarty said he was on routine anti-submarine patrol that April when the word came down to gear up for a secret mission.

He said the aircraft carrier on which he served began loading munitions and spare parts for jet fighters at their base in Norfolk, Va.

"We departed Norfolk and headed south on a top-secret mission known at this time to only a few top-ranking officers," Hegarty said.

He said what happened next was history in the making.

"For the first time in naval history, an aircraft carrier was transformed from a CVS anti-submarine carrier to a CVA attack carrier while at sea," Hegarty continued.

Diplomatic relations with Cuba had been severed and the island nation was considered to be a potential enemy, he said.

"This was not a drill and soon our task force went into battle condition one, our highest alert," he wrote.

There was radio silence, dog tags were removed from the men, insignias and numbers of the ships and aircraft were painted over and no flags were flown, all under orders from President Kennedy. Records were either not kept or later destroyed.

The crews were ordered not to shoot unless fired upon, which became the undoing of the planned invasion.

"There is no doubt in my mind that had we been given the green light, the invasion would have been a success," Hegarty said. "We were down there to support the invasion fleet -- we were going to invade Cuba and we never got the word to carry out our mission.

"President Kennedy called it off."

Increasing friction between the U.S. government and Castro's leftist regime led President Dwight Eisenhower to break off diplomatic relations with Cuba in January 1961, according to ThinkQuest.com.

Even before that, however, the Central Intelligence Agency had been training anti-revolutionary Cuban exiles for a possible invasion of the island.

On April 17, 1961, about 1,300 exiles, armed with U.S. weapons, came ashore on the southern coast of Cuba. They had hoped to find support from the local population.

The plans collapsed and local support for Castro became evident.

Kennedy had the option of using the U.S. Air Force against the Cubans but decided against it, as Hegarty notes.

The invasion was stopped by Castro's army.

By the time the fighting ended on April 19, 90 exiles had been killed and the rest had been taken prisoner.

The failure of the invasion embarrassed the Kennedy administration. Some critics blamed Kennedy for not giving it adequate support and others for allowing it to take place at all.

The captured exiles were later ransomed by private groups in the United States.

Hegarty said he was discharged from the Navy in January 1963. He married his high school sweetheart, Katherine, in November of that year. He and his new wife were on their honeymoon when Kennedy was assassinated.

Katherine Hegarty was shot to death by five police officers in the couple's rural Somerset County camp on May 16, 1992, after a confrontation with some campers. She had been armed with a single-shot .22-caliber rifle.

Then-Maine Attorney General Michael Carpenter later cleared the police officers of any wrongdoing. Jack Hegarty later collected a $200,000 settlement in a wrongful death suit he brought against police who shot and killed his wife.

Doug Harlow -- 861-9244

dharlow@centralmaine.com

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