The battle of August 20, 1957, was one of the most intense battles fought by the rebel army in the first year of fighting in the Sierra Maestra.
The rebel forces numbered 50 men and fought about 100 soldiers from Company 2 of Battalion No. 1 of the Artillery Regiment of the National Army of Cuba of the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship, led by the same Captain Juan Yillo Moreno Bravoque who had defeated the rebel expeditionary members of the yacht Granma in Alegra de Po.
In Palma Mocha, four kilometers from Ocujal del Turquino and three kilometers from La Plata, on the banks of the river of the same name, in the current municipality of Guamá in Santiago, the revolutionaries captured some weapons and ammunition, causing the death of an officer and wounding seven enemy troops.
In Palma Mocha, the guerrillas Rigoberto Oliva, Eduardo Castillo, Juan José Frómeta, Juventino Alarcón, and Pastor Palomares López fell in battle. The story goes: “This confrontation showed that one can fight an enemy superior in strength and weaponry if one has sufficient morale and principle and is clear about the path that must be trodden in order to achieve ultimate independence.”
Today, the city of Palma Mocha, which belongs to the People’s Council of La Plata, has health and education services, and its economy is essentially based on agriculture.
66 years after the struggle in Palma Mocha, residents of the complex municipality of Guamá pay tribute to those who fell in the heroic act to liberate the country from the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. On this day, there is never a shortage of offerings of flowers to the fallen.
