Armed Cuban intervention overseas began on June 14, 1959 with an invasion of the Dominican Republic by a group of fifty-six men, who landed a C-56 transport aircraft at the military airport of the town of Constanza. Upon their landing, the fifteen-man Dominican garrison began an ongoing gun battle with the invaders, until the survivors disappeared into the surrounding mountains. Immediately after, the Dominican Air Force bombed the area around Constanza with British made Vampire jets in an unsuccessful attempt to kill the invaders, which instead killed civilians. The invaders either died at the hands of machete-swinging peasants, or the military captured, tortured, and imprisoned them. A week later, two yachts offloaded 186 invaders onto Chris-Craft launches for a landing on the north coast. Dominican Air Force pilots fired rockets from their Vampire jets into the approaching launches, killing most of the invaders. The survivors were brutally tortured and murdered.