Lidia Esther Doce Sánchez and Clodomira Acosta: great friends and comrades in combat. They fulfilled with courage and boldness various missions entrusted by Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara, having the confidence of both leaders.
Lidia and Clodomira were revolutionary fighters, during the war against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, and members of the July 26 Movement. They joined the Rebel Army as correspondents in the Sierra Maestra.
Lidia Esther Doce Sánchez ‘’ La nena ’’ was born on August 27, 1916, in Mir (former Province of Oriente). From the Cuartelazo of March 10, 1952, Lidia showed her rebellion against the tyranny of Batista. Upon the landing of the Granma Yacht, she was already a judicious and responsible woman and decided to join the Rebel Army.
He left for San Pablo de Yao, in the East, where she was found by Commander Ernesto Che Guevara in 1957. According to Che, ‘’ From the first moment she joined the work of the revolution, Lidia did it with devotion. She transferred the most important messages from the Sierra, fulfilled the most risky missions between the plain and the mountains, brought copies of the guerrilla newspaper El Cubano Libre, medicines and everything that she was ordered to transport ’.
Che had just arrived at Las Villas, when he began the invasion. Lidia contacted him, because she should be his main liaison with Havana and the General Command. But she could not carry out the mission, because she was captured in the Capital, fulfilling a mission with her fighting partner, Clodomira Acosta Ferral.
Clodomira Acosta Ferral was born in Cayal, Manzanillo, on February 1, 1936. She was a courageous fighter for the cause of Cuba's freedom during the war against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Although illiterate peasant, she was intelligent and cunning, two weapons she used to circumvent the traps of tyranny, since she joined the Rebel Army with 20 years of age.
Clodomira was an unconditional messenger and a valuable link between column 1 José Martí, directed by Commander in Chief Fidel Castro and the other members of the Rebel Army that operated in the Sierra Maestra and the Llano during the insurrectional struggle.
Although Clodomira had no instruction, she was capable of dangerous missions because she was very cunning. On two occasions she was a prisoner of the regime's soldiers, however, this did not prevent her from taking risks inside Batista's facilities, if she thereby obtained some advantage for the rebels.
Both fighters arrived in Havana as messengers from the Sierra Maestra, first Lidia Doce Sánchez and then, on September 9, Clodomira Acosta Ferrales. They stayed at the house of a clandestine fighter, who was later assaulted by members of the police. On September 12, 1958, they were arrested by the Batista dictatorship; the other revolutionary fighters were killed.
For days they endured the martyrdom of the notorious criminal at the service of the Batista tyranny, Julio Laurenti, who failed in his torture. In the early morning of September 15, already dying, they put them in a boat, in La Puntilla, behind the Chorrera Castle, and in sacks full of stones they sank them in the water and took them out, but as they did not obtain any results, they dropped their bodies into the sea on September 17, 1958.
