SECOND STAGE

“CHÉ, THE COMMANDER”

(Since the Invasion Column No. 8 “Ciro Redondo” entered Las Villas province until the Santa Clara’s Battle - October 16, 1958 – January 1st, 1959)

One of the most known Ché’s photographs – after the famous one that took Korda, where he appears with his dark jacket and his beret with the star – is possibly that one that shows the Commander (long beard, black beret, expression of exhaustion, arm in a sling) during the days of the Santa Clara’s Battle. This image presides the Ernesto Guevara’s Square and the Memorial that keeps his mortal remains (with those of his comrades-in-arms of the Bolivian guerilla) in the capital of this province located in the center of the island. And this image will be the icon of the Second Stage of our journey to track Ché Guevara’s history in Cuba: CHÉ, THE COMMANDER.

We will follow the path to victory. The road has been long, but that small group of men that landed on December 2nd, 1956, is already a strong Rebel Army. The uncertain days, when even the most optimists doubted that victory would be possible, were left behind…

Obeying un order of the Commander in Chief, Fidel Castro, Invasion Columns No. 8 “Ciro Redondo” (commanded by the Commander Ernesto Guevara) and No. 2 “Antonio Maceo”, commanded by another Commander: Camilo Cienfuegos) get prepared to begin the campaign in order to take the torch of Revolution to the western part of the island.

Ché tells “…we began to walk on August 31, without trucks or horses. We expected to find them after having crossed the road from Manzanillo to Bayamo. We actually found the trucks when we were crossing it, but – on September 1st – a terrible hurricane made useless all roads, with the exception of the Central Road, the only one that was asphalted in that region of Cuba, and we were so forced to abandon the vehicles. From that moment, we had to ride or walk. We were carrying a heavy load of munitions, a bazooka with forty projectiles and all that was necessary for a long journey and the rapid establishment of a camp.”

“We were walking along flooded and difficult fields, suffering the attacks of mosquitoes that made unbearable the hours we could rest. We ate badly and poorly; we drank the water of swampy rivers or simply of swamps. Our days began to become longer and really horrible. One week after we left the camp, when we were crossing the Jobabo River, that separate Camagüey and Oriente provinces, the forces were very weakened.”

The journey, calculated to be made in only a week (if we had the motorized means of transportation) was very far from being a triumphal march. The troop was more and more exhausted and, to top it all, they were taken by surprise in Camagüey province. “…On September 9, at nighttime, when we were arriving to a place called La Federal, our vanguard walked into an ambush laid by the enemy, and two valuable comrades died, but the most regrettable result was that we were found by the enemy forces that from that day, gave us no respite…”

From that moment, the encounters with the enemy will be multiplied. Sieges, ambushes, battles like the Cuatro Compañeros combat (on September 14, 1958) try to prevent the guerilla column from climbing the Sierra del Escambray, which was the immediate destination of the invasion columns.

But on October 16, 1958, the partial objective is accomplished: the Column No. 8 establishes its camp in the very heart of the Escambray in Sancti Spiritus. (for more information see – “Anexo. Cartas a Fidel Castro sobre la Invasión” (Annex. Letters to Fidel Castro about the Invasion), in Ernesto Ché Guevara’s “Pasajes de la Guerra Revolucionaria”