Two a.m., on the morning of November 25th, 1955, 82 men board the "Granma". 

With our lights extinguished, we left the port of Tuxpan, amid an inferno mess of men, and all sorts of material. Fidel's words began to take on reality. In 1956 we shall be free or we shall be martyrs. 

 

This course was revolution in Latin America, and next objective was Cuba, to liberate Cuba. And He had ceased to call himself Ernest Guevara, he had become Che. 

 

27-year-old Che Guevara has joined Fidel Castro and 80 others on an armed expedition to overthrow Cuban president Fulgensio Batista. On November 25th, 1955, the small army boards an old boat named the Granma and heads for Havana. 90 miles off the Florida Coast, the island of Cuba is enjoying benefits from its booming tourist industry. 

 

Havana was the whorehouse of the Caribbean. It was a place where Americans went on dirty weekends, there were a lot of sex shows, show girls, it was full of prostitutes, drugs. 

It was a kind of Havana atmosphere to which a lot of American tourists thought. And there were some very positive aspects . But there was another Cuba. And the other Cuba was, a Cuba that was basically run militarily by the dictatorship. 

 

Although the Einsendhower Administration supports Batista, most Cubans consider him a ruthless dictator. Fulgensio Batista was as much of a thug as ever governed a Latin American country. He was somebody who was considered beholden into U. S economic interest, to the interest of the U. S mafia in Cuba. 

 

The 7-day passage aboard the Granma has been turbulent. Entire boat to kind of an aspect both ridiculous and tragic. Men with anguished faces, holding their stomachs, some with their heads in buckets, others lying in the strangest positions, immobile, unclothing, sores with vomit.

 

It was an unmitigated disaster. They lost their bearings. They lost the men overboard--later saved him, when they eventually reached the coast of Cuba--they landed in the wrong place. 

 

They arrive in Cuban 2 days late in a broad daylight. As the old boat approaches the Las Coloradas Beach they hit a sandbar. Foundered and had to stumble ashore into a marsh. Before the troops have a chance to regroup, Batisga's air force attacks, and sends Che and the rest of Fidel Castro's men flee. 

 

They are able to evade and re-forces for the next 3 days. But on December 5th, their luck runs out. In a matter of seconds a hurricane of bullets. And soon the attitude of Dantesque and grotesque scenes around us. Start to get yelling and trying to hide behind a single stalk of sugarcane. And another without really knowing why, crying out for silence in the midst of a tremendous uproar. 

 

More than 2/3rd were massacred immediately. Che was wounded in the neck. He had to make a split -second choice between taking with him his rifle ammunition or the first-aid kit. He left the first-aid kit and took the ammunition.