By Alejandra Garcia from Caracas on October 30, 2024
photos: Perfecto Romero
On Monday, Cuba marked the 65th anniversary of the disappearance of Commander Camilo Cienfuegos Gorriarán. On this occasion, Resumen Latinoamericano honors the figure of one of the bravest men of the Cuban revolutionary process through the story of a photographer who immortalized Camilo’s life with his camera.
Camilo Cienfuegos never arrived in Havana on October 28, 1959, as planned. The CESSNA 310 No. 53 plane he boarded in Camagüey lost its course halfway and disappeared into the sea, leaving no traces. Two days after the takeoff, there was no news of the commander’s whereabouts. “Camilo is Missing,” blared he headline of the Revolucion newspaper of October 30th. It was like a gunshot.
The composition of the front page of the newspaper had serious notes. On the right: “Lost his plane at 6:00 p.m.”. At the bottom of the page, there is an image of the island, in which the Revolutionary Air Force traced the search for the any sign of the wreckage, dividing the map of Cuba into 25 points, between Camagüey and Havana. On the left, spread out lengthwise, the bearded silhouette of Camilo, wearing his hat and olive green uniform.
During an interview with Granma newspaper, a couple of years ago, Perfecto Romero assured he recognized immediately Camilo’s silhouette, the same one Romero so often caught with the lens of his camera during the last days of the guerrilla struggle and those first months of the new revolutionary government. “I remember, as if it were today, how much I felt the news of his disappearance,” he told Granma.
On Wednesday, October 28, 1959, at 6:00 AM local time, Camilo Cienfuegos left Camagüey airport accompanied by pilot Luciano Fariñas and Sergeant Felix Rodriguez, his personal guard. Two hours later, they should have arrived at Ciudad Libertad, Havana, but this did not happen.
“There were rumors that the plane might have crashed in the area of the Zapata Swamp, in Matanzas, so we went out in desperation to look for him. We sailed for hours and reached Cayo Largo, south of the island, but found nothing, only desolation,” the photographer said.
Romero, winner of the José Martí National Prize for Journalism, had been a silent shadow next to the “Lord of the Vanguard,” as the leader was known. He went with him everywhere during the first ten months of the Revolution. “Wherever he would go, he would take a journalist and a photographer with him, and the latter was almost always me.”
As Romero searched for Camilo in the Zapata Swamp, he could not help remembering that just a few months before he had accompanied him to a meeting with Fidel in the Laguna del Tesoro, located in the same area where he was trying to find him alive this time.
Camilo
From that day in May, when the two friends spent a few hours together, Romero fondly keeps several photos as his most precious treasure. One of the images shows Camilo in the foreground, in profile, with a wet beard and the sun shining on his face. Behind him, Fidel is holding tightly a freshly caught fish, wearing his olive green suit, with a medal around his neck and a lit tobacco… In the next picture, Camilo is all laughter, once again in profile, unconcerned about the camera that follows his every move. “They were such good friends that it was almost impossible to portray him in any other way than laughing when he was close to Fidel,” recalls the photographer.
There is another image of Camilo and the sea taken by Perfecto. “Despite his thin complexion, he was a very adventurous and very strong young man,” Romero said while holding a picture of the mythical guerrilla shirtless, emerging from the depths of Matanzas Bay, with a diver’s mask over his face and a metallic object in his right hand.
“He liked to dive and salvage wreckage from the seabed, or any object he found curious. That April day, he threw several pieces of metal into the tugboat where we were sailing. After a bit, we saw the arrival of the Revolutionary Air Force helicopter in which he used to travel. When the aircraft was close enough, Camilo jumped into the water and scaled it from the sea. He left us all stranded with a boat full of junk,” and he laughs as he shows the photo of the moment he climbs into the helicopter.
Camilo
The last image that Perfecto Romero took of Camilo was two days before his disappearance, on October 26, during his speech before millions of capital citizens, in what used to be the Presidential Palace, today the Museum of the Revolution. “He was so happy!” Perfecto said.
The photo speaks for itself: the Lord of the Vanguard, smiling and in profile, with his right hand waving to the people after his speech, with his olive green shirt pocket full of letters. “People handed him notes wherever he went, both to encourage the Revolution and to ask for solutions to certain problems”.
Camilo read them all, Perfecto assured Granma. Dozens of photos show him sitting next to trees, in the middle of the Sierra Maestra, with a letter in his hands.
After an incessant search for the body of the Hero of Yaguajay, it was determined that Camilo, who had turned 27 years old in February, did not survive that tragic flight. Sixty-five years have passed and Cuba does not forget him.
October 28th has been named after him ever since and thousands of Cubans pay tribute to the Hero of Yaguajay, as they did this Monday throughout the island.
Perfecto Romero
That trip to Camagüey, on October 28, was one of the very few in which Camilo Cienfuegos did not ask Perfecto Romero to accompany him. “I would have gone -he assures-, even when today I know the tragic destiny he suffered. I would have gone, even though my name would have appeared next to his in the Revolucion newspaper”, Romero concluded.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – English