In the aftermath of the battle, the rebels would be severely crippled, having suffered heavy casualties, and it would take many months for them to fully recover from the defeat.

[7] To assist the landing, a rebellion organized by the 26th of July movement and planned by Haydée Santamaría, Celia Sánchez, and Frank País occurred in Santiago de Cuba.

However, due to choppy weather, the Granma had landed two days late on December 2, and as a result, the supporting uprising was left isolated and was quickly destroyed.

As the morning approached, they departed the boat and were forced to leave much of their food, ammunition and medicine behind, landing on shore in the mid-morning.

Consequentially, the landing party was harassed by planes firing sporadically into the forests, however they were unable to accurately pinpoint their location.

After two days on December 4, the separate groups had found each other and trekked further inland in the direction of the Sierra Maestra with the help of a local peasant guide.

[10] Shortly after midnight on December 5, the rebel column had halted to rest for the night at a sugarcane field on a plantation the rebels would later find was owned by the sugar baron Julio Lobo, feasting on the sugarcane from the field to replenish their hunger caused by the lack of food, revealing their precense to enemy forces.

The rebels, tired from the seasickness on the overcrowded Granma voyage and with blisters on their feet from marching, decided to rest for the night in an adjacent forest.

[7] Meanwhile, the smaller contingent which was fighting in the forest, including Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos, Juan Almeida and Ramiro Valdes, among others, fared slightly better.