Today marks the 26th Anniversary of the Cuban fighter plane attack on a Bahamian Defense Force vessel, the HMBS Flamingo. As analyzed by Dion E. Phillips of the University of the Virgin Islands, in a 2002 paper titled, Another Look at the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, No. 189.

“Before 1980, poachers constantly visited the Bahamian territorial waters from Cuba, U.S., the Dominican Republic and Central America (Defender 1990). Some 600 Cuban lobsterers left Cuba after the revolution in 1959 and sought exile in Miami with their boats. These lobsterers made the Miami River their base and the Bahamas Banks their fishing grounds. However, when the Bahamas became independent in 1973, they banned these Cubans from lobstering in their territorial waters

(Manigot, 2000).


It was in this role that HMBS Flamingo, at the time under the command of Lt. Commander Amos Rolle, attempted to arrest on May 10, 1980, two Cuban fishing vessels, the Ferrocem 165 and the Ferrocem 54 for poaching in Bahamian waters.


In retaliation, two Cuban MIG aircraft invaded Bahamas airspace and fired on the patrol boat. The Cubans sank HMBS Flamingo and fired upon marines in distress in the water (Duncan 1980; Smith 1980). Fenrick Sturrup, Austin Smith, David Tucker and Edward Williams, all Bahamian Defense Force marines, were killed in the attack. Fifteen crewman and the Commander made it safely to Duncan Town on Ragged Island, after being picked up by the very fishing vessels they had boarded.


There are two interpretations. One position is that the incident appeared to result from a genuine case of mistaken identity – the four Bahamian marines were thought to be Cuban exile “pirates.” (Duncan, 1980). An editorial in the Havana newspaper, Granma, called the incident “another in a series of events” engineered by the U.S. “We do not blame the Bahamas. The CIA works through agents.”

The other point of view is that the incident was an act of aggression. Not only was the Flamingo sunk without warning but the marines who were killed were strafed with machine gun fire in the water after they had abandoned ship (Smith, 1980).


The poachers were convicted in July, 1980, and Cuba eventually admitted responsibility, paying the Bahamas $10 million in compensation for the incident.