The Air Base of San Antonio de los Baños

The Air Base of San Antonio de los Baños was linked to the events that took place in the waters of Mexico’s Gulf during World War II. In 1942 the German submarines attacked the ships that transferred sugar from Cuba towards the United States for the allied troops, for that reason a military agreement was signed to install in San Antonio de los Baños a Special Training Center for aviation and war operations against submarines.

The inauguration of this military base brought important economic and social benefits to San Antonio, generating a source of employment, sale increase, streets and highways repair and population growth. On the other hand appeared bars and cabarets where prostitution and drug use had a wide space; sad memories of that time. At the end of the war the Air Base passed into the hands of the Cuban Air Forces but it continued responding to the interests of the United States; only after the triumph of the Revolution it acquired purely national character.