A sad day for the Homeland.

April 20th, 1957 was a sad day for the history of the Homeland. Cuba lost four revolutionaries, four young men betrayed by the traitor Marcos Armando Rodriguez Alfonso.

April 20th, 1957 was a sad day in the history of the homeland. Cuba lost four revolutionaries, four young men betrayed by the traitor Marcos Armando Rodriguez Alfonso.

Gathered in the basement of a house on 19th Street, in Vedado where the assailants of Radio Reloj had left on March 13th, they were surprised by Batista’s police.

Fructuoso Rodriguez, together with the members of the Board of Directors Juan Pedro Carbo Servia, Jose Machado Rodriguez and Joe Westbrook Rosales were unarmed, when they were surprised Joe moved to the apartment downstairs and asked the tenant to let him stay in the living room as if he were a visitor.

Despite taking refuge he was recognized by the agents and although the neighbor begged for the young man, he was killed by the agents.

Juan Pedro Carbó Serviá, went to the elevator, but was intercepted shortly before arriving and cruelly machine-gunned. His entire face and body were riddled with bullets.

Machado and Fructuoso jumped from a window to the first floor, and fell in a corridor that belonged to a car dealership.

At the end there was a gate with a padlock that prevented them from leaving. As the place from which they fell was too high, Fructuoso lay unconscious on the ground, while Machado struggled to get up without success, as he had fractured both ankles. The policemen introduced a machine gun between the bars and both guerrillas were shot to death.

Young blood, lives interrupted by hatred and evil, Cubans fighting for a free Cuba, a story that, like many others, fills the pages of a book that the world reads with admiration.

Written by Dunia Bermúdez Sañúdo.