It was shortly after the end of World War II and was still in the Navy, standing at the moment on the bridge of our destroyer somewhere off the coast of North Carolina. The skipper walked onto the bridge and calmly said: "We've got orders to go to Gitmo.' I've heard of Gitmo, I thought, and I know it's in the Carribbean, but at that moment I didn't know where. It turned out we did not go, but in the next few days I learned a lot about Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, which was located in Cuba.
Guantanamo has been much in the news lately as the location of the compound where the detainees from the Taliban and AI-Quida are being taken. The United States Naval Base there will be 100 years old next year, and it has stayed put on Cuban soil through all kinds of diplomatic battles simply because the agreement that allowed it to locate there in the first place says that contract can only be terminated by mutual agreement of both parties. The Navy set up Guantanamo, or Gitmo as it became known in the Navy, as a coaling station for Navy ships. Both the Americans and Cubans sort of forgot about Guantanamo through the years. It was just there, supplying the U. S. Navy. We had troops there, and hired a goodly number of Cubans, who came to work in the morning and went back through the fence at night. It was easy living.
Then, in 1959, Fidel Castro ousted Fulgencio Batista, and we had a Communist dictatorship as a thorn in our side. And Guantanamo was a thorn in Castro's side. The U. S. Marines at the Navy base planted mines on our side of the fence, and the Cubans did the same on theirs. Castro shut off water to the base, so we had to build a desalinization plant. We broke diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961, and pulled everybody but combat troops out of there. Since Castro, the relationship has never been comfortable.
For the last 40 years we have had a Naval Base in Cuba, and yet we did not have diplomatic relations with that country. They didn't like us, nor we them. In a way I'm kinda sorry the orders to our destroyer were changed. I'd like to have seen Gitmo.
This is Gordon Sawyer, from a window on historic Green Street.
Monday
August 4th, 2025
12:00AM
