Cuban Military Aviation Volume 1

In 1910, less than a decade after achieving independence from Spain, Cuba began its first aeronautical activities and by 1913 the Cuerpo de Aviación del Ejército de Cuba (CAEC, Cuban Army Aviation Corps) had been created, well before many other Latin American countries established similar services. Cuban military pilots trained in the United States during the First World War and came close to being sent to the Western Front in France, however, the war ended before this could occur. The CAEC grew over the following years, and as Cuba supported the Allied cause during the Second World War benefited from the US Lend-Lease Program, and in the post-war years from other programs such as the American Republics Program (ARP) and the Mutual Defence Assistant Program (MDAP). These programs provided not only aircraft to the CAEC but also training for its pilots and mechanics. This volume examines the genesis of Cuban aviation, the organisation and evolution of the CAEC, Cuban Military Aviation in the Second World War, the failed operation of the Caribbean Legion in Cayo Confites, Cuban Naval Aviation and the CAEC in the late 1940s and early 1950s and includes a short biography of Fulgencio Batista. Annexes detail all the CAEC aircraft types from 1913 to 1952, when it was restructured to become Cuban Army Air Force (examined in a companion volume), as well as those of the Naval Aviation during the same period. Cuban Military Aviation Volume 1: Organisation and Development of the Cuban Army Air Corps 1913-1952 is illustrated throughout with original photographs and includes specially commissioned colour artworks.