CHURCHILL’S SPANIARDS : CONTINUING THE FIGHT IN THE BRITISH ARMY 1939-1946

By Sean F. Scullion

Helion & Company. 368 pages. £29.95. ISBN  978-1-804515-33-4

Reviewed by Jim Burns

Spread across the front and back covers of the American poet Philip Levine’s The Names of the Lost there is a photo of a ragged column of soldiers carrying whatever they can carry and escorted by a French gendarme. It is a record of remnants of the Spanish Republican army crossing into exile and internment  in France in 1939. Who were these men, and what do we know about them? Very little, if the truth be told. Like most soldiers in most armies they were mostly anonymous. Some officers and a few other ranks wrote memoirs or gave interviews later in their lives, but it’s probable that many of them, if they survived, disappeared into obscurity.

According to Sean Scullion, 450,000 people, both military and civilian, joined the exodus to France. Among them were 5,000  who had served in the International Brigades, but who were unable to leave Spain when the Brigades were withdrawn in late-1938. German and Italian volunteers were in especially difficult circumstances. None of them could return safely to their own countries. Quite a few were communists, and even if they weren’t, the fact of their having fought for the Republican side in Spain would be enough to ensure their imprisonment and most likely execution.

We know that conditions in the internment camps were terrible, and that the invasion of France by  Germany persuaded a number of Spaniards to enlist in the French Foreign Legion as a means of avoiding capture by the Nazis. Those who stayed were rounded up and sent to concentration camps, or in some cases handed over to Franco. Some did escape and became active in the French Resistance. Both Germany and Italy had supported Franco with troops, arms and aircraft during the Spanish Civil War. Though it never happened, it had been hoped by Hitler to bring Spain into the war as an ally of Germany and Italy. If that had come about he would have been in an ideal position to take over Gibraltar and so have a major impact on British naval operations in the Mediterranean.

The assistance provided to Franco had been a major factor in the defeat of the Republicans. They had been subject to a non-intervention policy operated by Britain, France and the United States, and struggled to obtain the necessary supplies of equipment. Only Russia and, to a lesser degree, Mexico were willing to send aid to Spain. And aid from Russia came at a price, in more ways than one. This isn’t the place to go into the political aspects of events in Spain, but the subject has been investigated by historians and there’s no doubt that political attitudes and prejudices had a major influence on what happened in the 1930s.

That brief outline of the situation at the start of the Second World War might help to explain how it came about that around 1300 one-time Spanish Republicans served in the British Army. It wasn’t a straightforward  transition from one uniform to another, and in many ways it often depended on individual circumstances. This is where Scullion’s book is of great value. By focusing on the involvements and activities of specific personalities he is able to demonstrate the very real dedication of just about every one of the Spaniards who opted to don khaki for the duration of the war. There were a few misfits, including one man who can be seen as a traitor to the cause his comrades believed in. He was very much an exception to the general rule of loyalty to both the British Army and the dream of a return to Spain to liberate it from Franco’s dictatorship. It might give an indication of how the Spaniards generally felt when Scullion tells the story of how a unit of them, having served with the French and been disillusioned when France capitulated, refused to join the Free French forces in Britain and said they preferred to be with the British. They even went so far as to refuse to obey the command to present arms during a visit by De Gaulle. Instead, they dropped their weapons to the ground and sat down.

Many of the Spaniards were directed into the Pioneer Corps, the regiment responsible for a variety of services, ranging from felling trees, digging trenches, and guard duties  to clearing mines, and light engineering tasks. They were also used as infantry when needed. However, individuals were often seconded to other units, in particular those involved with operations behind enemy lines, like the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), the Special Operations Executive (SOE), and the Special Air Service (SAS).  Spaniards were frequently experienced fighters and used to forms of guerrilla warfare which involved night attacks, ambushes, and similar operations. Scullion quotes a British sergeant from the Middle East Commando who reminisced about blowing up an “Italian ordnance depot with an airfield.....about fifteen or sixteen Spaniards who were very good with the knife. They were excellent people to dispose of sentries”.  They  were also “very good” at foraging for food: “They used to go out on these raids and kill sheep and bring them back to camp and skin them and cook them over a fire”.

There are also the memories of an officer who recalled a fight with Italians : “Tom Garcia  who hails from Toledo rushes at an Italian officer and with a curse what makes the blood freeze in one’s veins plunges his bayonet into him. This is not an ordinary fight between soldiers of opposing powers. This is a fight full of hatred, nursed for many years in exile.......Garcia, the former Republican captain and corporal in the Pioneers sighed: ‘I have been looking forward to this meeting for three years’ “.

Spaniards were on Crete when it was taken by the Germans in 1941. Scullion says that “Spaniards made up a full troop of 50 men in B Company” of 50/52 Middle East Commando. When British resistance on Crete began to collapse an order was given to move to the coast for evacuation. But B Company was among troops instructed to cover the retreat. He then quotes a Captain Bob McGibbon : “This meant marching headlong into fleeing British troops – most of them had not an officer to be seen anywhere and damn few SNCOs. It wasn’t a retreat but a rout....It was hard to explain to the Spaniards why British troops wouldn’t stand and fight.......we took up our position.....Shortly after a platoon of New Zealand Maoris came through us...commanded by a 2^nd Lieutenant. All were carrying not only their own weapons but also German weapons. They asked if they could join us - for a chance to fight the Germans. They stayed and later I sent them on a bayonet attack”.

Later, when a decision was made to surrender, the troops were told that anyone who wished to “ break the German cordon and go into the mountains or escape by boat could do so”. It was then that one Spaniard, Francisco Geronimo, headed for the mountains and managed to survive for eleven months before he was captured. But he escaped again and made his way to North Africa. The Spaniards who were being taken into captivity by the Germans were in danger of being identified as Spanish Republicans. Luckily, a British officer, Captain Archie Cochrane of the Royal Army Medical Corps, was with them. He had been a medical student in the 1930s and went to  Spain to work in hospitals with the International Brigades. He told the Spaniards to say they were from Gibraltar and therefore British subjects. It worked and the Germans accepted them as such.

I mentioned earlier a Spaniard who betrayed his fellow-volunteers in the British Army. He was Fernando Casabayo who, says Scullion, “sold his secrets to the Franco Regime”. He had fought in the Spanish Civil War and after internment in France had enlisted in the French Foreign Legion. He was involved in the joint British/French Narvik operation in Norway in 1940, and after arriving in Britain he joined the Pioneer Corps. Casabayo was selected for training as an SOE operative with particular relevance to a possible mission in Spain should one be necessary. I’m abbreviating Scullion’s account, which includes marriage to an English woman.  Casabayo appears to have become dissatisfied with his situation and asked to be sent to a British unit in the Middle East. He then went AWOL (Absent Without Leave), but was eventually tracked down and arrested. It would seem that, at some stage, he had visited the Spanish Embassy in London and, in return for money, had given “a great deal of information about his training with the SOE and talked about the special company made up of Spaniards that would operate in Spain should they be deployed”.  He was sent to prison and only released in July 1945. Despite having told the Spanish Ambassador that he wanted to return to Spain he stayed in England and died in 1973.

Casabayo’s behaviour was unusual and, though there were incidents of indiscipline, most Spaniards were happy to serve in the British Army. It’s of interest to note that many of them changed their names, if only as a means of hiding their Spanish origins should they be captured. Justo Balerdi became Robert Bruce, for example, though someone who wanted to use the name  Francis Drake was denied permission to do so. Balerdi/Bruce was killed in action in an SAS operation in Italy in 1945. Around the same time another Spaniard, Rafael Ramos, was awarded the Military Medal for his part in an SAS attack on a German headquarters. The official citation read : “During the very fierce fighting which ensued in the house, Ramos was always in the forefront, killing at least six German officers on the spiral staircase. In an attempt to ascend the staircase in the face of intense fire, a British officer was seriously wounded. Ramos picked him up and carried him to the door, returning afterwards to the fight”.

There were other Spaniards who distinguished themselves as British soldiers. Josep Vilanova won the Military Medal for his actions while serving with the Queen’s Royal Regiment  during fighting against the Germans in Italy. Alfonso Canovas parachuted into France to work with Maquis groups, many of which had Spaniards in their ranks. His citation spoke of his “great coolness and courage”. Lucio Sauquillo Echevarria “was killed a few days after D-Day as a member of 12^th Parachute Battalion in the area of Breville. He had already lost two brothers in the Spanish Civil War”. Marcel Fernandez died as a member of the Irish Guards as they attempted to link up with the paratroops in Arnhem.  And ‘Joe’ Maria Irala “died of his wounds during fighting at Arnhem in September 1944”. Scullion quotes what Lieutenant John Marshall said of Irala ; “I still remember him today as a wonderful soldier – highly intelligent, immensely brave,  and with a capacity, which the average Englishman doesn’t have, for enormous personal loyalty”. I’ve just selected a few examples of Spaniards named for their courage by Scullion. There are many others in his book.

What happened to them when the war ended in 1945? Like other servicemen they were slowly demobilised. Some decided to leave for Mexico, where there was a sizeable Spanish community. For those who stayed it was obvious that they could not return to Spain while Franco was still in power. There were difficulties, especially when the British Government came up with a scheme to send the Spaniards to Italy to be demobilised. The scheme was shelved after protests, and it was agreed that they would be allowed to settle here. In 1947 they were given permission to bring their wives and children to Britain. Some younger Spaniards had married local women during the war and already had families here. They had to find jobs and places to live. Alfredo Canovas, mentioned above, settled in Blackpool.

One thing that did upset the Spaniards was that no action was taken against Franco. There had been an expectation that a move would be made to remove him from power, even though he had kept Spain out of any direct involvement in the war. He had sent a division of volunteers to fight with the Germans on the Russian Front. But by 1947 it was obvious that the wartime alliance between the United States, Britain, and Russia was at an end. The Cold War was already underway with Soviet expansion in Eastern Europe, followed by a communist victory in China in 1949, the Korean War in 1950, and other factors. Spain became strategically important in terms of naval bases for NATO.

Churchill’s Spaniards is an important book for the light it throws on what has previously been a little-known aspect of the Second World War. Sean Scullion has carried out extensive research, and his book has lists of enlisted Spaniards in the British Army, details of those who died, and other information. There are notes, a good bibliography, and numerous photographs, maps, and other illustrations.