Andrés González Lines

A lover of the sea, he managed to enter the Naval Academy of Mariel through competitive examinations, with the aim of becoming a merchant marine officer. Communist activist since 1937.

He was born in the El Calvario neighborhood in Havana, descendant of a modest couple formed by Rogelio González Delgado and María del Pilar Lines Arias, parents of 11 children.

He received primary education at public school # 47 in that Havana neighborhood and later enrolled in the Institute of Secondary Education in Havana. During those years, his revolutionary concerns led him to join the student left. When the Institute closed due to the turbulent situation the country was experiencing, he began working at Droguería Sarrá.

Later he joined the Communist Party of Cuba and entered the Naval Academy of Mariel through competitive examination, with the purpose of preparing himself as a Merchant Marine. When World War II began, there arose the need for students of that specialty to become cadets of the War Navy. In 1942 he graduated as Ensign of Frigate and joined the naval units whose objective was to detect the presence of German submarines near our coasts.

Subsequently, he served as a professor at the naval academy El Mariel.

He married Gladys Planas, from which union 7 children were born.

After the coup of March 10, 1952. Initially he had intentions of resigning but decided to remain in the corps, where he carried out various tasks entrusted to him by the Party, including the production of the newspaper El Centinela clandestine organ for work within the Party in the army and navy.

In his efforts to raise the knowledge of fishermen, that humble sector in our country in those times, as well as in awakening the affection of Cubans for the sea, he constituted the society "Friends of the Sea". By his initiative the society "Fraternity of the Nautical Rose" was also founded, made up of children from public and private schools, who learned to row, fish and practice maritime sports.

Involved in the conspiracy that led to the uprising of September 5, 1957, he was taken prisoner and confined to the Presidio Modelo on the Isle of Pines, where he remained until January 1, 1959.

Already in the capital he participated in the occupation of the General Staff of the War Navy of the tyranny. He was appointed at the head of the National Office of Maritime Affairs, which encompasses the Merchant Marine, Ports and Fishing.

Under his direction private maritime and port companies were intervened, and in their place were created the Mambisa Navigation lines, Mambisa Shipping Agents and Mambisa Terminals. He was the initiator of the creation of the new Cuban merchant marine, for which he managed the purchase of ocean-going vessels. Also organizer of the first fishing cooperatives.

On May 6, 1961, while carrying out a training and patrol mission, the R-43 launch of the Revolutionary War Navy in which Captain Andrés González Lines and 16 other companions were traveling, was the victim of a pirate attack, at the height of Mariel an action in which all its crew members perished.