Lidia Doce

Lidia Esther Doce Sánchez (August 27, 1916 – September 17, 1958) was a Cuban revolutionary and courier for the July 26 Movement. She became close friends with fellow courier Clodomira Acosta, and she carried messages for Che Guevara.

On September 12, 1958, she was arrested with Acosta while on a mission in Havana. Both women were tortured and killed, and their bodies were dumped into the sea. In the decades since their deaths, Doce and Acosta have been memorialized as martyrs of the Cuban Revolution.

Before joining the revolution Doce was born on August 27, 1916 in the Oriente province of Cuba. She was a mother with three children; they were grown by the time she divorced her husband in 1956. After her divorce, she moved to Havana to work as a domestic servant, but she quickly returned to the Oriente when she heard a rumor that her son had been killed in the revolution. Although he turned out to be safe, she decided to stay in the area anyway.

July 26 Movement

Doce's first contributions to the revolution were sewing clothes and transporting supplies to guerrillas in the mountains. Eventually, she started carrying their messages and working directly with Che Guevara. He assigned her to lead a camp called . Guevara later shared that Doce engendered both "admiration and resentment" from the men, with one of them saying to him: "that woman has bigger [balls] than Maceo but she's going to get us all killed" (brackets in source).

She also became friends with another courier named Clodomira Acosta.

Capture and death

While on a mission in Havana, Doce and her friend Acosta stayed with four other revolutionaries at an apartment in the Juanelo neighborhood of San Miguel del Padrón. In the early hours of September 12, 1958, Batista's forces stormed the apartment and shot their comrades. Doce and Acosta were taken by police, who were under the command of the police chief, Esteban Ventura.

The details of Doce and Acosta's imprisonment, torture, and extrajudicial killing come from the testimony of one of Ventura's subordinates, Carratala, who gave a confession from his prison cell in La Cabaña, where he was facing charges from the new revolutionary Cuban government following the rebel victory in Havana in January 1959. Carratala described how the two women were put in bags filled with sand and repeatedly lowered into the sea until they died. Their bodies were left to sink into the sea. Later, a combatant captured during the Bay of Pigs corroborated this account. September 17 is historically considered to be the day that they died, but at least one source contends that they could have died as earlier as September 13.

Legacy

Doce and Acosta have been memorialized as martyrs and national heroes of the Cuban Revolution. At the founding of the Federation of Cuban Women on August 23, 1960, Fidel Castro honored both women, calling them .

Guevara wrote that Doce was a , and he recalled how she bravely dedicated herself to the revolution and carried his messages on many missions, despite the incredible risk. He also shared that she promised to get him a puppy, because she knew he loved them. This was before her final mission to Havana, from which she never returned. Guevara concluded: .

In present day, locals in Regla, Cuba maintain a museum with exhibits dedicated to the Acosta, Doce, and the rebels who were killed on September 12, 1958.