They Shall Not Pass The British Battalion at Jarama - The Spanish Civil War

288 Pages·2011·3.027 MB·English

by  Ben Hughes

BEN HUGHES
They Shall
Not Pass!
The British Battalion at Jarama
THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
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They Shall
Not Pass!
O
SPREY
PUBLISHING
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For the fallen
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Contents
Author’s Note 7
List of Illustrations 9
List of Maps 12
Preface 13
Introduction 15
Dramatis Personae 26
PART ONE
‘A CROWD OF BOY SCOUTS’ 35
Chapter 1 – First Blood 36
Chapter 2 – Departures 46
Chapter 3 – Training 56
Chapter 4 – The Advance 65
Chapter 5 – White House Hill 78
PART TWO
DEATH STALKED THE OLIVE GROVES 87
Chapter 6 – ‘The bodies were rolling down the hill’ 88
Chapter 7 – Retreat! 98
Chapter 8 – ‘The Moors were mowed down in scores’ 109
Chapter 9 – The Dark 117
Chapter 10 – Dawn 127
Chapter 11 – The Feint 138
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THEY SHALL NOT PASS!
Chapter 12 – Capture! 146
Chapter 13 – The Second Night 155
Chapter 14 – Tank Attack! 161
Chapter 15 – The Great Rally 172
PART THREE
CONCLUSIONS 179
Chapter 16 – From Jarama to Brunete 180
Chapter 17 – The Nationalist Breakthrough 197
Chapter 18 – The Ebro Offensive and the Farewell Parade 206
Epilogue – Back to Britain 213
Appendix 1 – The Battlefield Today 232
Appendix 2 – Order of Battle 233
Notes 240
Bibliography 260
Index 264
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Author’s Note
The following account is compiled entirely from first hand sources. In the days,
weeks and months after the battle, several volunteers wrote diaries, memoirs,
letters or newspaper articles detailing their experiences. Four decades later the
Imperial War Museum began a series of interviews which added a wealth of detail
to the existing accounts. Whilst I am confident that what follows is an accurate
description of the events of 12–14 February 1937, memories fade and some
veterans may have embellished their exploits. Furthermore, although they largely
agreed on what happened, precisely when each particular event occurred, and in
which particular order, proved far more difficult to ascertain.
The scope of any work of non-fiction is limited to the sources available.
Whilst the British participants at Jarama left copious material, the Nationalist
sources are sparse. The reasons are various. Although they won the war, the
Nationalists lost the battle for hearts and minds that followed and therefore
the market for their memoirs has been limited. Furthermore, after Franco’s
death, Spain underwent a period of deliberate forgetting (el pacto del olvido)
and as the veterans entered their twilight years, the desire to record their
reflections was lacking. Finally, although several of the British veterans were
well read and educated and predisposed to writing about their experiences,
the men they faced at Jarama were from different backgrounds. The vast
majority of the Spaniards who made up the bulk of the rank and file of the
Foreign Legion were barely literate and the Moors who fought alongside them
were even less well equipped to leave a written record.
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THEY SHALL NOT PASS!
They Shall Not Pass!is a micro-history. The narrative is constructed from a
worm’s eye point of view. It is not an account of ‘great men’ whose decisions
altered the course of history. Instead, it aims to immerse the reader in the lives of
a select number of ‘ordinary’ individuals over a brief period of time. As such,
it inevitably overlooks the contributions of others, chief amongst whom are the
Spaniards themselves.
On a related note, in an attempt to make the characters come to life from
limited resources, I have included references to individual’s ages. However, in
several cases, whilst the year of birth was possible to ascertain, I was unable to
find the exact date. Where this was the case, I have assumed that the individual’s
birthday occurred before the start of the battle. Therefore, a volunteer whose
year of birth was 1900, is assumed to have been 37 on 12 February rather than
36. Although this supposition is unsatisfactory, it avoids over complicating
the text.
One of the problems facing any writer of history is the use of terminology.
Truth is always more complex than fiction and applying labels to the various
groups of men involved at Jarama is fraught with difficulty. Nevertheless,
I have chosen to make a few generalizations to avoid becoming bogged down
in detail. ‘The British’ were not all British; amongst the ‘Republicans’ were
communists, socialists and anarchists; and those they fought were certainly
not all fascists. For the benefit of objectivity I have chosen to use the less
emotive epithet of Nationalists for the enemies of the British Battalion. Even
though the volunteers referred to them as ‘Fascists’ in their letters and memoirs,
to label the Moroccan mercenaries and professional soldiers of the Foreign
Legion in such a way would be to do them a disservice.
This project would not have been possible without the cooperation of
numerous archivists and librarians in England, Spain and Russia. I would also
like to thank Kate Moore, Emily Holmes and Philip Smith at Osprey; Richard
Baxell, the author of the meticulously well researched British Volunteers in the
Spanish Civil War; Jane and Dave Hughes, Tim Dalrymple, Jamie Cowper and
Julia Winslet for their comments on various drafts and DeeDee Cunningham
for her invaluable insights into her great uncle Jock, to my mind the greatest
of all the unsung British heroes at Jarama.
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List of Illustrations
Between pages 112 and 113
1. Los Nacionales, an early propaganda poster. (akg-images)
2. Moroccan regularesawaiting transportation to Seville, July 1936. (Topfoto)
3. ‘The Spanish See-Saw’. (Topfoto)
4. ‘No Pasarán’. First used during the 1936 campaign in defence of Madrid, ‘No Pasarán’
or ‘They shall not pass’ became one of the Republic’s most powerful slogans. (Courtesy
of Francis Lannon)
5. The British Battalion banner. (Mike Chappell © Osprey Publishing)1
6. Tom Wintringham, Madrigueras, July 1937. (Image courtesy of the Marx Memorial
Library)
7. Frank Ryan. An IRA activist and ardent Catholic, Ryan was a senior figure in the
International Brigades. (Image courtesy of the Marx Memorial Library)
8. The Jarama River. The photo was taken on the west bank a few hundred yards south
of the San Martín Bridge. (Author’s Collection)
9. The Jarama River. (Author’s Collection)
10. The I-16 or Mosca was the Republicans’ most advanced fighter plane. (Corbis)
11. Two members of Harry Fry’s company manning a Maxim machine-gun. (Image courtesy
of the Marx Memorial Library)
12. Sam Wild. Wild was wounded whilst retreating from the Conical Hill on the first day at
Jarama. (Image courtesy of the Marx Memorial Library)
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THEY SHALL NOT PASS!
13. The British Battalion on parade behind the front line at Jarama. (Topfoto)
14. Moorish Infantry, Spain 1937. The British feared and demonized the dreaded Moors
they faced at Jarama. (Keystone Images)
15. T26 tank. The Russian-built T26 was the most advanced tracked vehicle operating on
either side during the Spanish Civil War. (Keystone Images)
16. The Sunken Road. (Author’s Collection)
17. A view from the Sunken Road looking west towards the ridgeline. (Author’s Collection)
Between pages 192 and 193
18. William Ball. At twenty years old, Ball was one of the youngest volunteers to join the
British Battalion. (Image courtesy of the Marx Memorial Library)
19. Walter Gregory recovering from the wound he suffered at Jarama. (Image courtesy of
the Marx Memorial Library)
20. George Nathan, a veteran of the Great War. (Image courtesy of the Marx Memorial
Library)
21. John ‘Bosco’ Jones. Before travelling to Spain, Jones had fought Oswald Mosley’s
Black Shirts at the battle of Cable Street, the British Union of Fascists’ biggest defeat.
(Image courtesy of the Marx Memorial Library)
22. Donald Renton. The political commissar of the 2nd Company, Renton was wounded
then captured on the second day. (Image courtesy of the Marx Memorial Library)
23. A well-earned break. Members of the British Battalion resting behind the lines at
Jarama, 1937. (Image courtesy of the Marx Memorial Library)
24. Wounded from Jarama. Walter Gregory, the 3rd Company’s runner, is second from the
right in the bottom row. (Image courtesy of the Marx Memorial Library)
25. Members of the 2nd Company captured at Jarama on 13 February 1937. James Maley
is second on the right, partially obscured next to him is Jimmy Rutherford. George
Leeson is fifth from the right. Harry Fry, the company commander, stands two places to
Leeson’s right. Bert ‘Yank’ Levy is standing alone on the left wearing a cap. Two places
to Levy’s right is Tommy Bloomfield and beside him is Donald Renton. (Image courtesy
of the Marx Memorial Library)
26. Burial of a British soldier amongst the olive groves. (IWM HU 34695)
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
27. The Farewell Parade, Barcelona, 29 October 1938. (Image courtesy of the Marx
Memorial Library)
28. Members of the British Battalion leaving Victoria Station on their return from Spain,
December 1938. (Corbis)
29. Officers and staff of the British Battalion, most likely taken in 1938.
30. The ruins of Belchite. The most fought-over town of the war, Belchite played host
to the British Battalion in September 1937. (Author’s Collection)
31. The International Brigade Memorial at Jarama. Before the author’s visit, the plaque
was vandalized by members of the Falange, a Spanish fascist movement. (Author’s
Collection)
32. The Conical Hill. (Author’s Collection)
33. The peaks of the Pyrenees seen from the battlements of the Castell de Sant Ferran in
Figueras. (Author’s Collection)
34. This humble memorial to the British Battalion overlooks the valley where the first
two days’ fighting took place. (Author’s Collection)
35. A close-up of the memorial. The plaque reads ‘To Kit Conway and the other 200
internationals of the British Battalion who died for liberty’. (Author’s Collection)
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