Marauders y el tren blindado

Curious about the battle, I found out that the Battle of Santa Clara was "the only major military engagement in the whole Cuban revolution." Source

It's importance lay in that: 1) it showed Batista that he could not stay in power if a ragged band of 300 poorly armed rebels could overcome his most important line of defense outside of La Habana. 2) the weapons captured made Che's men the best armed in the island. Hence, Fidel took over La Habana without a struggle.

One of the first acts of the rebels was capturing el tren blindado. The taking down of the armored train before attacking Santa Clara gave the rebels a large amount of weaponry including anti-aircraft guns.

It follows then that the antiaircraft gun that ended up en la azotea del Mariban was one of those captured in the armored train. (History meets real life to my amazement.)

This source has an exciting story of the battle (starts p. 244). According to it, the planes bombing us is Santa Clara were the Martin B-26 Marauders. The Cuban B-26s were provided by the U.S. - the Batistiano pilots were also U.S. trained. The video shows a bombing raid from the viewpoint of the bomber crew.



At one point in the battle, the Marauders escalated to 500 lb bombs but, luckily, the antiaircraft guns drove them away.

After learning this, I can't any longer view objectively the twisted remains del tren blindado.