This year marks the 75th anniversary American ex-servicemen, pilots and soldiers of fortune attempted to incite a coup with the local populace in the Dominican Republic. This is the little known story of a PBY Catalina aircraft, registration number N 1096 M.
In June 1949, an INS agent, C.W. Fullilove, shared his concerns with Thomas Wright at the American embassy in Mexico City about the smuggling of arms and agents from the U.S. throughout Mexico and the Caribbean. Fullilove noted a certain plane, N 1096 M, was making suspicious flights out of Miami for the purpose, he believed, of exporting munitions. The plane was registered to one Jesse A. Vickers from Miami Springs. During the war Vickers was employed by the U.S. Air Corps Supply; in 1949, he managed the Airparts Sales and Air Marine Radio Services, Inc. at the Miami International Airport.
On June 18, the PBY Catalina flew from Miami to Yucatan, where it was to rendezvous with armed men and other air craft with the intention to invade the Dominican Republic and topple the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. The support never showed. That left the invasion to fifteen exiled Dominicans in the Catalina, which was operated by three Americans — John Chewing, Habet Joseph Maroot, and George R. Scruggs. It landed on the north coast of the DR, in the Luperon Bay on June 19. The three Americans were among those quickly rounded up by Trujillo’s forces, and executed. The Catalina was destroyed.
Vickers, the plane’s owner, claimed to have no knowledge of the incident.
Vickers was more than just a wholesaler of aircraft parts. He was an arms dealer heavily invested in the Caribbean. Indeed, in May 1953 Vickers exhibited a license to transport firearms. 1953 was a difficult year for the 56-year-old and his family. Three years earlier, his son-in-law, an Air Force pilot named Rudolf Ort, crashed on a mission to Libya. He left behind his wife and four children, all of whom were living with Vickers and his wife in Miami Springs. In January 1953, Vickers declared bankruptcy. In April, Vickers met with his associate, Edward (Eddie) Browder, Jr. in El Paso, Texas. In December, Vickers was arrested with Efren Rudolfo Pichardo, Marcus Diaz y Lanz and others in assisting former Cuban president, Carlos Manuel Prío Socarrás in the export of arms in order to topple Fulgencio Battista in Cuba and reinstall Socarras.
Browder, a Canadian, was a close associate of Jesse Vickers, and was an individual with extensive criminal history in both Florida and Cuba. In early 1947, Browder pleaded guilty to theft of U.S. government-owned arms in Georgia; he was indicted in Oklahoma for illegally exporting a P-38 airplane to Havana. A year later, he was sentenced to 18 months for violation of the Neutrality Act stemming from a plot to bomb Caracas, in a revolutionary plot against the government of Romulo Betancourt of Venezuela.
In the early 1950s, based on the testimony by FBI informant Blaney Mack Johnson (Informant “T-2”), Browder and a close collaborator, Jack Rubenstein — better known in history as Jack Ruby — arranged illegal arms exports out of Miami to Castro forces, Johnson stated. Both Browder and Ruby utilized the Florida Keys, where Ruby owned a cottage in Islamorada. The two men contracted through Marrs Aircraft to transport the arms to Carlos Prio Soccaras.
An associate of Vickers extends our example of gunrunning/piloting into the Caribbean from the U.S. Marion R. Finley was one of the fifty waiting at Yucatan for transport to invade the Dominican Republic, but who did not proceed into Luperon Bay. Finley was a de facto liaison from the U.S. to the Caribbean Legion, a military force responding to the political hotspots of the Caribbean. Finley assisted the Magazosa Group (Costa Rican Refugee Group in America) with moving contraband from Mexico to Guatemala, a venture involving those later killed in the Luperon Incident. The agitator of Costa Rica at this time was Jose Figueres Ferrer, also a Caribbean Legion veteran, who later admitted his terror efforts against Latin American dictatorships had the support of the CIA. “I was a good friend of Allen Dulles,” Figueres said. Figueres formed the Inter-American Democratic Social Movement (INADESMO) with Cord Meyer, head of CIA’s International Organizations Division. In essence, INADESMO was a front for laundering money for the kind of activities that preoccupied Figueres.
As for the fate of the PBY Catalina, relatives of the Americans killed in the failed Luperon Bay raid commemorate their memories to this day. The nephew of Habet Joseph Maroot, Herb Maroot, has visited the Dominican Republic where he has taken part in annual celebrations commemorating the Luperon incident. In email discussions with this author, Herb noted the last personal belongings of the three Americans killed, including his uncle, are on display at the Memorial Museum of Dominican Resistance. Recent research by Dr. Aaron Coy Moulton has deepened understanding of the greater context around the incident.
According to Maroot, his uncle Herb, John Chewing, and George Scruggs are considered heroes by the locals. Although the Luperon landing failed as an invasion, Herb Maroot argued it set into motion resistance against Rafael Trujillo. This has been emphasized additionally at the Memorial Museum of Dominican Resistance. Trujillo was eventually assassinated in 1961 by rebels with weapons provided by the CIA.
66 years after the executions of the Americans, in September 2015, remains were exhumed from Luperon. With DNA from George Scruggs’s living son, George Collins, DNA analysis identified the remains of George Scruggs.
Eileen Riego Trejo was the lab scientist who undertook the DNA extraction at REFERENCIA Laboratorio Clinico in Santa Domingo. “I became interested in this work because of its importance for Dominican history,” she wrote in 2017. “To discover the truth regarding all the events that happened and the people involved represents an advance in a better knowledge of that dark era. At the same time, we can learn about the enormous struggles, bravery, sacrifices, abuse, and mistreatment these heroes went through.”
Celebrations commemorating the Luperon incident are again scheduled for June 19 of this year. Herb Maroot is in frequent contact with George Collins and John Chewing, Jr., to determine if they will again journey to the Dominican Republic to join those who continue to remember the memories of their fallen family members.
