On April 29, Honors College student Samuel Dotson will be premiering his documentary about the Bay of Pigs, an unsuccessful invasion of Cuba made by the United States government during the presidential term of John F. Kennedy that left many dead. Of the soldiers from America who died, most were from the state of Alabama.
Dotson, a sophomore majoring in biochemistry, decided to do this documentary while taking a documentary filmmaking class during this semester.
“I was taking this documentary filmmaking class and the Bay of Pigs invasion was a choice,” Dotson said. “I also heard whispers of this invasion in my family before, so I thought this would be a good choice for a documentary.”
The Bay of Pigs invasion took place on April 17, 1961, and ended April 19, 1961. The invasion was intended to overthrow the government of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. The brigade of nearly 1,400 Cuban exiles was named 2506. Of the 1,400 exiles invading ,114 were killed and the rest were taken as prisoners or missing in action.
Dotson’s purpose for the presentation of the Bay of Pigs documentary is to tell the story of the Alabama Air National Guardsmen.
“Although this documentary is about the Bay of Pigs, it is interesting to see how Alabama got involved with the invasion and the family involvement after the invasion,” Dotson said. “The CIA did not even acknowledge that America was involved in the invasion until 1974, when the members of the AANG were awarded.”
Pilot Thomas “Pete” Ray, of the AANG was killed and kept frozen by the Cuban government for 18 years, and the daughter of the pilot, Janet Ray, fought for her father’s body to be brought back to the states so it could be properly buried, Dotson said. Cuba was keeping his body as evidence of America’s involvement in the invasion. In 1979, the body of Ray’s father was returned to Alabama along with two medals and the CIA’s highest award for valor, the Intelligence Cross.
“During the making of this documentary, I learned a lot about the Kennedy relationship and the political climate at the time and how the Bay of Pigs ties into almost everything going on during that time period,” he said.
Dotson worked with three other Honors College students on this documentary: Kirsten Bonander a sophomore majoring in business and math; Adam Warnock a junior majoring in computer science and David Moylan, a freshman majoring in microbiology. Dotson also worked with film professor Billy Field. History professors Howard Jones and Lawrence Clayton served as advisors during the project.
“This documentary got me more sympathetic for the Cubans involved and [I felt] the anger they had for the government and CIA,” Bonander said. “I hope people see the fear of communism America had. A lot of people in the interviews knew the importance of fighting and now we don’t have the fear of communism we once had.”
“It’s been very fun and interesting working on this documentary,” Warnock said. “At times, I wanted to go crazy and other parts I would enjoy them.”
The documentary is currently being previewed on YouTube and will be premiered April 29 online at Vimeo.com.
