On April 21, 1961, troops of Cuban exiles, supported by the United States, attempted a coup against the regime of Fidel Castro. The operation had already begun on the 15th with a bombing of several airfields.
A few days earlier, on April 17, more than a thousand Cuban exiles grouped under the name Brigade 2506 and trained by the CIA, attempted to invade the island of Cuba via Playa Giron in the Bay of Pigs at less than 200 kilometers from Havana. "We could therefore expect incidents and violence at any moment in Cuba," Nicolas Châtelain, the correspondent of Le Figaro in Washington, writes. "Since coming to power, Fidel Castro has not yet succeeded in eliminating the numerous maquis that have been created on the island.'