Category: War ISBN-10: 1440409676
Type: Fiction
Pages: 360
Copyright: July 27, 2008
ISBN-13: 9781440409677
Destined for Glory, chronicles the life of Carlos Aguilar, a Cuban air force officer who defects to the U.S. at the height of the Cold War. Aguilar, born Karl Adler, is the son of a German Luftwaffe colonel. He escapes from war-torn Europe and reached the shores of Cuba, where he becomes a man. Political machinations force Aguilar to defect. He eventually joins the United States Army. The last chapter of my book details Aguilar/Adler’s heroism in the Republic of South Vietnam.
A sense of duty, devotion to his father, and an unending love of freedom,have been magically forged into a powerful magnetic field, a field that draws our character to achieve his destiny.
The son of a German Luftwaffe pilot, Karl Adler escapes from war-torn Europe, after a perilous journey, he reaches Cuba, where he becomes a man. He joins the revolution against Batista’s government, becoming a guerrilla chief in the mountains of the Escambray. After the revolution triumphs, following in his father’s footsteps, he becomes a pilot in Castro’s air force. He sadly becomes disillusioned with the course that Castro has set for Cuba. He decides to defect to the United States; Adler achieves that by flying his fighter plane to the shores of America.
After weeks of interrogation by American security organs, Aguilar is granted political asylum.Carlos joins with other Cuban exiles, taking part in the U.S.-sponsored invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs; after that debacle, he enlists in the United States Army, where he rises to become a powerful driving force in the new radical strategic concept of coordinated air-ground assault. Aguilar becomes a prime target of the Cuban government as a result of Castro’s humiliation, resulting from Aguilar’s defection; the dictatorship orders his assassination.
At this most inopportune time in his life, he falls in love; this event adds another dimension to his life; filling Carlos’ soul with the love he has always longed for.
Carlos serves two tours of duty in Vietnam, his service is filled with valor and perseverance; he is awarded America’s second-highest military medal for gallantry, The Distinguished Service Cross, as well as The Purple Heart.
Follow our man’s life journey; his escape from Cuba, his return to the swamps of the Bay of Pigs, and his service in the jungles of Vietnam as an American helicopter pilot. Share the adventure of this most unusual man.
Excerpt
Against all orders, six of these men decided to join the battle. Aguilar was conferring with Hank when the six men entered the ready room. Tom spoke for the men.
“Hank, we have decided to go and give our boys a hand. There are planes here, ready to go. We have lost plenty of our comrades. We could not look at ourselves in the mirror in the future if now we do nothing to help. Do not try to stop us.” Orders or no orders, the men were going!
Carlos said, “If these guys are going Hank, I am going along with them.”
Tom said to Hank, “Let him come with us.”
Hank gave the permission, fully knowing that he was placing himself in jeopardy with his superiors in Washington. But his career was secondary to the lives of the men on the beach.
Aguilar needed a copilot, he went to one of the barracks, and asked a young pilot to come along, Felipe Regalado jumped at the opportunity. Preparations began to get the aircrafts ready for take off.
The four B-26s were fueled and armed; the radial engines were being warmed up by the ground crews as the pilots approached. The men quickly arranged their call signs. The phonetic alphabet letter for ‘h’ was selected, the lead plane piloted by Tom and Albert was ‘Hotel One’; Dick and Harry were ‘Hotel Two’; Joe and John were aboard ‘Hotel Three’; and Carlos and Felipe were assigned ‘Hotel Four’.
The aircraft left Happy Valley at 11:30 hrs for the four hour flight to the beachhead. They flew at 10,000 feet in altitude, and arrived at the mouth of the Bay of Pigs shortly after 14:30 hrs. The four aircraft circled over the beachhead twice in order to spot any enemy planes, none were seen. The pilot of the lead B-26 came over the radio and said, “I see black smoke to our north, let’s go and take a look.” He banked the bomber, and the other three aircraft followed. After three or four minutes they were over the smoke. Circling, they spotted armor approaching from the north; these had to be Castro’s troops.
The voice of the pilot of Hotel Two came over the radio. “Let’s get us some.”
“Roger.” was the answer. The four Brigade B-26s commenced to attack the convoy with rockets, machine gun fire, and bombs. The pilots attacked in tandem, flying over the road; it was easy to engage the enemy formation since the road was straight, with no curves at all in this section. Attacking on a south to north pattern, the four aircraft inflicted major damage to the convoy.
As Aguilar let loose on the rockets he was screaming, “Take that, you sons of whores!”
On their second pass over the road, the four B-26s attacked from the north. High explosive, and fragmentation bombs, were let loose; the lead pilot urged the other pilots to make every bullet and bomb count.
Because of the long distance from Happy Valley to the Bay of Pigs landing zones, the B-26s had only about 20 minutes fuel to operate over the target; the pilots were being updated by the copilots of the time left over target every five minutes.
Ten minutes had elapsed; the Brigade B-26s were on their third pass. Aguilar was warning the other pilots to conserve the machine gun ammunition “There are no Rebel planes here now, they must be refueling, but they can be on us any minute.”
The pilot of the lead aircraft was in the middle of a sentence, “We’re down to about five minutes over target, only have time for one more pass.”
He was interrupted. “Bogeys, Bogeys,” cracked the radio, “We have bogeys…” it was Hotel Three.
The pilot of Hotel Three did not end his warning, he had been mortally wounded by 20 mm cannon fire, his copilot’s voice was heard over the radio, “Joe has been hit, Joe has been hit, we have a Sea Fury on our tail, Repeat, Sea Fury on our tail.”
“I see it, I see it, it banked right to my front.” said Aguilar.
“It’s climbing to our 11 o’clock, repeat, it’s climbing to our 11 o’clock.” said another voice over the radio. Hotel Three blew up in mid-air!
The pilot of the Sea Fury knew that he had damaged one of the B-26s on his first pass. He was climbing in order to execute another attack; he turned in his seat to get a look at the damaged aircraft. The Sea Fury was much more agile and faster than the B-26s, all that the pilot of the Sea Fury had to do was position himself behind the Brigade aircraft, he could shoot the rest of them down at will. The Castro pilot saw the B-26 explode; the remaining B-26s scattered in three different directions. The pilot of Hotel One warned his comrades “Do not attempt to climb, repeat, do not attempt to climb, stay close to the ground!”
