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p To write of the progressive Americans who gave their hearts to the cause of the Spanish Republic is our duty. To write of Spain and America in the years of the anti-fascist war means to open the window to the very eve of Apocalypse, to review the dynamic decade when the Spanish war awoke in America an anti-fascist conscience that would serve as a source of strength for the people over the difficult years of the Second World War.

p The experience gained and the lessons learned in those years will be neither “exorcised” by the new inquisitors, nor obliterated by the remnants of cold war logic on the part of some American statesmen.

p To write of Spain and America of the thirties is to cross a bridge to an almost forbidden past. For in America today, with rare exception, all meaningful factual data on the Spanish struggle has either been deleted from the curricula of schools and universities, or so distorted as to make the events connected with it appear to have constituted an ordinary "palace coup" against a “red” government.

p This is not to imply that there have been no books written in America giving an honest account of the Spanish national- revolutionary war. Such books do exist, and they are being increasingly welcomed by the contemporary reader. For, despite the opposition of reactionary quarters, progressive America seeks desperately for solutions to its problems and turns more and more to the heritage of its past.

p In the 1930s, America became an area of sharp confrontations between labour and capital. It was a time of widespread strikes, staged in response to the capitalists’ attempts to find a way out of the ruinous crisis of 1929-32 by intensifying their exploitation of the working class. Action taken by workers and the jobless was frequently suppressed by force of arms. American soil was stained with the blood of working men.

p The movement of the army of unemployed, which in the period from 1932 to 1936 remained at a level of 16,500,000 jobless, developed along a broad front of class battles.

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p Nor did agriculture escape the calamities engendered by the economic crisis. In a span of two years of the mid-thirties, more than 1,300,000 farms were seized from their owners and an additional 330,000 holdings put up for forced sale.

p Capitalists in the United States, as in Europe, fought tooth and nail against the reforms that the world economic crisis had patently shown were imperative. The American counterparts of the Krupps and Thyssens, who had paved the way to dominance for German fascism, strove to turn back the clock of history. Various fascisttype organisations were established: The Black Legion, the KuKlux-Klan, the Coughlinites, the America First groupings, the nazi Bund and various “vigilance corps" and “secret armies".

p However, they found no mass base among the American public. The working class and democratic forces could not be intimidated and demoralised by the onslaught of big capital. On the contrary, the struggle against the consequences of the crisis strengthened the working class, and the labour movement rose from a membership of four million to a total of almost 15,000,000. The pressures of the union movement and of the unemployed councils were largely responsible for the enactment of the National Industrial Recovery Act (June 1933) and other reforms such as Social Security benefits and old-age pensions. In the process of the struggle, the industrial worker and the small farmer had become that singular force in American life that held back the dark forces of reaction.

p It was in this social struggle, imbued with a militant spirit, that solidarity with the Spanish people was born in America.

p The U.S. ruling circles had assumed a hostile attitude towards the National Front of the Spanish Republic even before the Spanish war began. Their class sympathies lay with the forces that had been rejected by the Spanish people in the parliamentary elections of February 1936, that is, with the bloc consisting of the financial oligarchy, the landowners and the church, all of whom drew support from the monarchist military clique. Therefore, when a conspiracy by these reactionary forces developed on July 18, 1936 into an armed fascist revolt against the legal democratic government, American capital rushed to the aid of the ringleaders of the revolt.

p On August 11, 1936, just three weeks after the fascist rising against the Republic, the U.S. State Department announced a “moral” embargo against the shipping of arms to either side in the Spanish war, and on January 8, 1937, a joint resolution of Congress banning shipments of war materiel to Spain was enacted into law.

p Thus, the Roosevelt Administration formally adhered to a policy of neutrality, while in fact creating conditions for rendering aid to the insurgents. It is known, for example, that Italy and Germany, General Franco’s patrons, could not supply him with much oil. The American Texas Oil Company supplied this need: during the 334

One of American aid to Spain posters. 1938
three years of the war, more than 1,866,000 tons of fuel, including high-test aviation gasoline, were delivered to Franco, enough to take care of all exigencies. Moreover, the Spanish fascists received 12,000 trucks from the United States, more than twice the number they got from Germany and Italy. The Spanish Republic, on the other hand, could buy neither fuel nor trucks from the United States. What is more, the U.S. Government permitted arms and ammunition deliveries to Italy and Germany, who passed them on to Franco. Between January and April 1937, 60,000 airplane bombs were loaded on German freighters from just one plant, at Carneys Point, New Jersey.

p When Barcelona and other cities in the Spanish Republic were brutally bombed in March 1938, President Roosevelt conceded that the fascist airplanes may have been dropping bombs of American 335 make on Barcelona, noting that they may have been sold to some European government and then reexported to Franco.  [335•1 

p The United States brought diplomatic pressure to bear on the government of Mexico in an attempt to force that nation to cease her support of the Spanish Republic. Despite the fact that the United States formally regarded the Republican Government the duly authorised government in Spain, the U.S. State Department established an American Consulate in Malaga in February 1937, after it was captured by the insurgents.

p The bourgeois press fully reflected the pro-fascist stance of American finance capital and the government. From the very first days of the Spanish war newspapers and magazines with circulations in the millions (Chicago Tribune, Washington Times, New York Journal, Los Angeles Times, and many others) spread the notion of Franco’s “crusade” against the communist menace allegedly endangering Spain, and lauded the valour of the insurgents in Toledo’s Alcazar—those “heroes” who used as a cover not only the thick walls of the fortress but also the wives and children of workers they had seized as hostages.

p When the facts of fascist barbarism—the bombings of the peaceful population of cities, the mass executions and brutal treatment of the inhabitants of seized territories—became known, and as the direct intervention of Italian and German troops became evident, some newspapers and magazines altered their assessment of events and the manner in which they reported them. In particular, such influential magazines as Time, Newsweek and Fortune began to express open sympathy with the Republic.

p The switch made by these organs of the press was prompted also by the pressure of public opinion. A Gallup Poll survey showed that 76 per cent of the American populace were in support of the Spanish Republic. The country’s major political parties had to take this fact into account, not only in their election and other political activities, but sometimes also in the actions taken by government bodies. Unqualified support for the Spanish Republic came above all from the entire organised labour movement, as well as from the overwhelming majority of people in the arts and sciences and university students and faculties. A letter published in the New York Times on March 1, 1937, under the heading “Ninety-Eight Writers Score Spanish Rebels" was but one indication of the general pro-Republican sympathies of American intellectuals. Among the latter were some of the greatest names in American letters: Franklin Adams, Brooks Atkinson, Robert Benchley, Erskine Caldwell, John Dewey, Clifton Fadiman, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Sinclair Lewis, Lewis Mumford, Christopher Morley, Genevieve Taggard and Thornton Wilder.

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p Appearing in the press at that time were many such letters, articles, resolutions and appeals signed by ordinary citizens and by outstanding figures in the arts and sciences. An important contribution to the creation of a favourable attitude towards the Spanish Republic was made by letters and articles written by distinguished journalists and writers George Seldes, Martha Gellhorn, Herbert Matthews, Joseph North, Ernest Hemingway, Upton Sinclair, and many others who exposed the nature of the fascist attack against the Republic, extolled the courage of the Spanish people and the People’s Militia, and warned of the consequences if fascism were allowed to win in Spain.

p There was no major union—steel, auto, rubber, oil—in any part of the United States which did not register in resolutions and in its press whole-hearted support for the Spanish Republic. Mass demonstrations, rallies and meetings were held throughout the land. At the end of 1936, at a meeting sponsored by the American Trade-Union Committee for Relief to Spain, at which 16,000 people gathered, the garment workers’ union issued an appeal to send aid to the Republic. The garment workers collected 100,000 sets of clothing for the Spanish population. In the beginning of 1937, over $1,500 was collected for the Aid to Spain Fund at just one meeting in Canton, Ohio. Similar meetings were held in many other cities.

p When the International Federation of Trade Unions, at the request of the Mexican unions, held an Aid to Spain Week, the American Trade-Union Committee for Relief to Spain immediately dispatched $100,000. According to the New York Post, in July 1937 an additional $125,000 for assistance to Spanish trade unions was collected by this same organisation, and six major Republican organisations raised over $800,000, (Because of the dollar’s devaluation, equivalent sums today would show millions of dollars in place of the indicated hundreds of thousands.)

p In the third year of the war, when the predatory intentions of German and Italian fascism became evident to the whole world, the U.S. Government’s continued policy of non-resistance to the fascist intervention in Spain evoked a new wave of indignation among the American people. In September 1938, 70,000 people marched in the streets of New York demanding that the arms embargo be lifted. An especially vigorous campaign was conducted in November 1938 to send the freighter Erik-Maria to Spain with a cargo of grain, foodstuffs, clothing and medical supplies valued at $300,000. American and Canadian farmers contributed 2,000 tons of grain. More than 100 sports and trade-union organisations in New York and other cities held benefit matches under the slogan "Match for Spain".

p Paradoxically, despite the all-out support of the moneyed interests of the ultra Right, their attempts at popular fund raising 337

A meeting of solidarity with the Spanish people in Columbus Circle in
New York. 1936
for aid to the Spanish rebels met with little success. A major fascist front organisation calling itself the American Committee for Spanish Relief set as its goal the raising of $500,000. Its campaign, culminating in a meeting at Madison Square Garden in New York City, failed miserably. Less than half the seats in the auditorium were sold. Having collected a total of just $17,562 338 (including the Garden meeting receipts), this “Committee” closed its offices and withdrew from all public activity.

p Despite the many and unequivocal manifestations of the American people’s will to aid the Spanish Republic, those who held the levers of power supported the enemies of the Republic. The sympathies of the majority of the American people were bluntly ignored. The aid given to fascist Spain by American finance capital proved as decisive in the long run as the military intervention of Germany and Italy.

p The highest form of progressive America’s international solidarity was the participation of American volunteers in the Spanish war on the side of the Republic.

p There were over 3,000 of these volunteers of the International Abraham Lincoln Brigade fighting in the ranks of the Republican Army. But millions of American men and women supported them, followed their fate with unremitting attention, manifested concern for them, and defended them against attacks by American reaction. The Lincoln Brigade volunteers were a banner, an inspiration to all in the movement for solidarity with Republican Spain. The appearance of the American unit on the fronts of the Spanish war gave rise to a national organisation called The Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Its purpose, according to one of its founders, Philip Bard, was “to reach into every American group and every American home, into trade unions, clubs and church organisations. .., to organise collections of 100,000 packs of cigarettes each month—and chocolate and books and money with which to buy other necessities".  [338•1 

p The “Friends” list of sponsors read like an honour roll. The California headquarters, for example, listed among its sponsors such men as State Assemblyman, Ellis Patterson ; Los Angeles Supervisor, John Anson Ford; the distinguished writer, Upton Sinclair; attorney Leo Gallagher, and the eminent actor, James Cagney.

p Across the years, the Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade succeeded in doing exactly what it set out to do. It enrolled more than 25,000 members in tens of chapters across the country and collected approximately $215,500 for the purpose of purchasing parcels for the volunteers.

p Simultaneously with the departure of American volunteer fighters, an American volunteer medical contingent was formed. In October 1936, a group of prominent medical and professional men had created the first nucleus of the Medical Bureau to Aid Spanish Democracy. Among those participating were Henry Pratt Fairchild, Professor Paul Douglas, Professor Albert Einstein, Dr Walter B. Cannon of the Harvard School of Medicine, 339

American medical volunteers. Second at right: Dr. Barsky
Dr James B. Peters of the Yale School of Medicine, Dr Thomas Addis of the California School of Medicine, and a host of others representing every university medical college in the United States. Besides giving medical aid, the organisation also provided food and clothing for the Spanish people.

p In January 1937, the Bureau formed the first medical contingent headed by Dr Edward Barsky. It included many doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers, a pharmacist and an interpreter. The unit sailed from New York on the Paris, taking with it sufficient supplies to equip a fifty-bed hospital, plus the first ambulances and quantities of medicine donated by the American people. American medical personnel served two years in the Spanish war; a total of more than 117 doctors and nurses gave unstintingly of their time, their skill—and in some cases, their lives.

p American hospitals were set up at Romeral, Tarancon and Castillejo, on the Madrid Front, and at Vich, Mataro and S’Agaro, in Catalonia. American doctors and nurses also served in the various International Brigade hospitals in Albacete, Murcia, Denia, Benicasim and elsewhere.

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p American mobile units, replete with ambulances, tents and mobile operating rooms, under the leadership of Dr Irving Busch, Dr A. I. Friedman, Dr Leo Eloesser and Dr Edward K. Barsky, served on almost every active front in Spain, where they were constantly bombed, shelled and, in many cases, strafed. In March and April 1938—the period of heroic fighting and the retreat of the Republican Army—Dr Barsky was given command of all International Brigade hospitals in Spain, and he supervised the withdrawal of all international medical personnel and wounded from Central Spain to Catalonia.

p Countless thousands of wounded, not only from the International Brigades, but from all Republican units, were cared for by these most capable, dedicated and courageous American medical volunteers.

p The American Medical Bureau and other organisations devoted to the cause of democracy continued to solicit funds for the Spanish Republic throughout the war.

p The first newspaper account of the participation of an American unit in the battle of the Jarama in February 1937 came as a surprise to many Americans and caused a sensation. Under the circumstances of official U.S. hostility towards Spanish democracy, the volunteer movement was unable to assume as massive and open a character as other manifestations of solidarity. The initiative and organising role in this endeavour belonged to the Communist Party. The American Communists were among the first to fully recognise the danger for the world of the fascist revolt in Spain, and were prepared to come to the aid of the Spanish people in more ways than issuing declarations and soliciting funds. Many of the first American volunteers to fight in the International Brigades were members of the Communist Party, members of the Young Communist League and trade-union activists tempered in the class battles of the thirties. These were the Americans who fought the nazi Bundists in the streets of American cities and ringed the consulates of Hitler Germany with militant picket lines. When the Bremen, pride of the nazi merchant fleet, sailed into New York, these were the Americans who boarded her and climbed the mast to tear down the swastika. And the young American seaman who tossed the symbol of nazi rule into the Hudson River was later a machine gunner in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Many of these Americans were ready to give up their lives in the struggle they felt was their own.

Anti-fascists from all over the land responded to the Communist Party’s call. They volunteered to fight in a just war for freedom and democracy, motivated by the high principles of international proletarian solidarity and by the ideals of the real free America, whose shots at the Concord Bridge in 1775 had “rattled the thrones of privilege and kings".

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A group of American volunteers, Paul Robeson among them. Tarasona, August 1937

p The first contingent of 97 volunteers sailed from New York on December 26, 1936. No one saw them off; they avoided publicity. Even the American press knew nothing about it. On board the ship, the volunteers kept away from each other to give no hint that they were a group. Some were very young, others, in their middle years. Among them were workers, professional men, students, and teachers; some were Americans whose ancestors had fought in the American revolution of 1776, and others were immigrants born in Europe or Latin America. A few days after they sailed, the Congress passed a law prohibiting American citizens from joining the Spanish Army. Nonetheless, in the ensuing months volunteers, taking the necessary precautionary measures, continued to go to Spain, in groups and individually. They would sail for Europe and then cross France to reach the Spanish border. It was not always easy to get past the coastal control system established by the Non-intervention Committee. In March 1937, for example, 17 Americans and 8 Canadians—led by Joseph Dallet, the future commissar of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion—were detained in a small fishing boat in the Mediterranean by French police and imprisoned. After serving their time, they made their way to Spain anyway, by land. Joseph Dallet was killed in the autumn of 1937 leading his battalion into attack at Fuentes del Ebro.

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p The Abraham Lincoln Battalion of the 15th International Brigade was formed in January-February 1937. This battalion, which included besides Americans volunteers of other nationalities, was to fight through seven of the major battles of the Spanish war.

p Its first engagement was on the Jarama Front, where in a bloody battle the Republican Army stopped an offensive by General Franco’s crack troops and frustrated a plan to encircle Madrid. Under the command of Captain Robert Merriman, the battalion took part in the Republican counter-offensive and lost threequarters of its personnel: 127 dead and over 200 wounded. Among the dead were such gallant,commanders as Douglas Seacord, John Scott, William Henry, and the Irish company adjutant, Eamon McGrotty.

p Two American battalions fought at Brunete: the George Washington Battalion and the Lincoln Battalion. They participated in the storming of Villanueva de la Canada, and Mosquito Crest, in the defence of Villanueva del Pardillo, and in the withdrawal from Brunete across the Guadarrama. By the tenth day of battle, their losses were such that they had been reduced to one battalion. By the end of the campaign, July 28, 1937, there were only 250 survivors and the two battalions had to be merged into one. The list of dead was long. It included Oliver Low, commander of the Lincoln Battalion and the first American Negro to lead an American integrated military unit into battle; the Washington company commissars Harry Hynes and Morris Wickman, plus tens of others.

p The following brief entry in the diary of one of the fighters characterises the morale of the American volunteers during the trying days at Brunete: "July 21:—Quiet—but snipers hiding in the bushes and trees continually are getting some. I lost my best friend today. Sydney Graham of New York was killed by a sniper’s bullet. We buried him in the valley with these words over his tombstone: ’He Died That Spanish Democracy May Live’.”

p A month later, the 15th International Brigade participated in the Republican offensive in Aragon. It fought its way into Quinto, stormed the heights of Purburell Hill, and, finally, together with the 32nd Spanish Brigade, stormed the fortress of Belchite and seized the town after bloody house-by-house and block-by-block fighting. Almost every member of the brigade staff was there in the thick of battle: the American Brigade Commissar, Steve Nelson, the American Chief of Staff, Robert Merriman, and American Staff Captains Bradley and Philip Detro.

p During the winter months of 1937-38, the 15th (Lincoln)  [342•1  343 Brigade, the llth Brigade and units of the Republican Army fought in the bloody defensive battles in the critical Teruel sector —La Muela, El Muleton, Santa Barbara and the valley of the Alfambra.

p Shortly after the battles in the Teruel sector, the 15th Brigade was again in the forefront of the struggle in the offensive at Segura de los Banos. As a result of this campaign an enemy company was captured, together with its captain. On the following day, the brigade inflicted heavy losses on counter-attacking Foreign Legion “banderas”. The Lincolnites earned the plaudits of Juan Modesto, the commander of the 5th Army Corps.

p On March 9, 1938, at the time of the fascist breakthrough, the Lincolns were again at the apex of the most critical sector of the front. The story of their fighting retreat from Belchite to Caspe is one of utmost courage and sacrifice. Their stand at Caspe permitted the first momentary stabilisation of the secondary lines, and enabled other sections of the army to prepare for continued battle.

p Then, together with the 12th and 13th International Brigades who had joined them from the Central Front, the Lincolns continued the rearguard action. Until the end of March they retreated under the onslaught of the much superior strength of the enemy forces, frequently finding themselves surrounded and communications with the staff and between battalions cut.

p Losses in killed, wounded and captured were especially heavy in the defence of the Calaceite-Batea arc above Gandesa, where the Lincolns, together with the llth Brigade and the entire 5th Corps were again cut off and surrounded. But the fighting spirit of the volunteers never waned. The 15th and the other International Brigades crossed the Ebro to regroup and prepare for new battles.

The reverses suffered by the Republican Army in the Teruel sector and on the Eastern Front in the beginning of 1938, which were coincident with the seizure of Austria by German troops, gave rise to a new wave of concern in the American body-politic. On February 2, Associated Press dispatches announced: “Sixty American Senators and Congressmen send greetings to the Opening Session of Spanish Cortes in Catalonia.... Express confidence in the true democracy of the Spanish Republic."  [343•1  Henry L. Stimson, former Secretary of State, pleaded openly against the arms embargo, stating that: “If this Loyalist Government is overthrown, it is evident now that its defeat will be solely due to the fact that it has been deprived of its rights to buy from us and from other friendly nations the munitions necessary for its defense."  [343•2 

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Crossing of the Ebro by American volunteers from the 15th International
Brigade. July 1938

p Across the country a chorus of millions of voices demanded that the arms embargo be lifted. Unions, Democratic Clubs, Masonic Lodges, Churches—all asked that U.S. policy be reversed and that the Spanish Republic be given arms for its defence. The wellknown columnist, Drew Pearson, wrote: “Washington has seen all kinds of lobbying ... but seldom before has [it] seen people spend money to come from all over the country in a cause from which they would receive no material benefit."  [344•1 

p Senators Nye, Borah, Clark, Thomas and King of the State of Utah—all among the chief authors of the Neutrality Act—now publicly regretted their action. On May 2, Senator Nye introduced a resolution to rescind the embargo (imposed on January 8, 1937) and permit the shipment of arms to Republican Spain. Many in the House and Senate instituted a campaign in support of the resolution. However, under pressure from the Administration, the Foreign Relations Committee rejected Nye’s resolution.

p In July 1938, the American volunteers participated in the fierce and bloody battle of the Ebro. At Asco, Fatarella, Gandesa and in the defence of Hill 666 in the Pandols, they were again cited by the Army Command. At Sierra Caballs and in their last action on the Ebro Front, the Americans were at all times an example of courage, dedication and sacrifice.

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p During two years of battle the Abraham Lincoln Battalion had been led successively by 13 commanding officers. Seven were killed, and the remainder, excepting the last commander, Major Milton Wolff, were wounded, in most cases more than once. Casualties were just as heavy among American commissars of all ranks and company and section commanders, as well as among the men themselves. The American volunteers had done everything within their power. All of them had combined to write a truly glorious page in the history of the Spanish war and in the history of the American people’s struggle against fascism.

p Some names are forever associated in the minds of the American survivors with the campaigns in which they fought. They will never forget the steadfastness of the commissar, Steve Nelson, at Jarama and Brunete; or the courage and skill of Captains Leonard Lamb, Hans Amlie and Carl Bradley at Quinto and Belchite. The splendid leadership of the commissars Joseph Dallet, Saul Wellman, Carl Geiser and Fred Keller at Fuentes del Ebro, Teruel and Segura de los Banos, was unsurpassed. And the figure of the 15th Brigade Commissar, Dave Doran, at Caspe, essentially epitomised the total concept of the American Volunteer. “At Caspe,” as one man put it, “Dave Doran was the rallying point, the nerve centre to which all impulses return—-No matter who breaks, Doran can be depended upon to withdraw no further than he must."  [345•1  And the consummate skill and courage of Battalion Commander Major Wolff, who, like many Americans had fought through every campaign beginning with Brunete, and is ever associated with the battle of the Ebro.

p When by a decree of the Spanish Republican Government the International Brigades were withdrawn from all action, steps were taken to repatriate them to their homelands. Before leaving Spain, the members of the Lincoln Battalion and the entire 15th Brigade pledged to continue aid to the Spanish people in their struggle against fascism. Indeed, former Lincoln brigaders addressed gatherings across the land and appeared in hundreds of union halls before tens of thousands of workers, pointing out the urgent need for unity in the struggle against fascism.

p The efforts of the veterans of the Spanish war were fruitful. Before long, a Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Relief Committee was established and had as its National Chairman Dr Edward Barsky. This organisation was to function over a period of many years, making collections in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Tens of thousands of Spaniards were thus aided with food, clothing and medicine in the French camps at Argeles-sur-Mer, Prats de Mollo and others. Other Spaniards, those who reached the safety of 346 Mexico, Cuba and South America, were also aided by the American people and especially by the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. With funds contributed by the American people, the organisation established a fully-equipped hospital in Mexico City for the Spanish Republican refugees. Staffed by exiled Spanish medical personnel, it was named after Dr Barsky.

p The Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade were also in the forefront in organising aid to the Spaniards imprisoned by Franco. The American Committee for Spanish Freedom worked for a number of years to achieve the release of those imprisoned. Later, the Action Committee to Free Spain played a similar role. Both organisations involved unions, varied political organisations, church groups and community groups.

p On the eve of the Second World War, a series of paradoxes affecting Lincoln men became apparent. Though the American people accepted the brigaders wholly and completely their government was even then preparing the first inquisition before the House Un-American Activities Committee. And though the fighting experience of the Lincoln Vets was being carefully studied by the U.S. military, Lincoln volunteers for the armed services found themselves listed as “premature anti-fascists" and subjected to secret orders holding them to the continental United States. Only after a stiff fight mounted by the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade for the right to continue their fight against fascism were the restrictions finally lifted and the Lincoln brigaders permitted to fight in the ranks of the American army. An additional 400 men of the original Abraham Lincoln Brigade were casualties of the Second World War.

p According to the Volunteer for Liberty, more than “six hundred American veterans of the war in Spain were enrolled in the American Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force. Three hundred more served in the Merchant Marine.” Their cadres contributed between 60 and 70 commissioned officers. Among these were such men as Captain Herman Bottcher, who received a field commission plus the Distinguished Service Cross with Oak-Leaf Cluster. Robert Thompson was another winner of the DSC. He served as a sergeant in New Guinea. In Spain, he commanded the Canadian Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion.

p Lieutenant Harry Schonberg and Lawrence Cane, battalion adjutant and last M.G. company commander, respectively, of the same Canadian Battalion, were outstanding in the Second World War. Schonberg was a captain in one of the shock battalions in Italy, and Cane was a captain of Combat Engineers on Omaha Beach. Kenneth Shaker, a platoon commander in the M. G. company of the Lincoln Battalion, attained the U.S. army rank of captain and commanded a company of the famed 509th Parachute Battalion, attached to the 82nd Division, which took part in the 347

Veterans of the Lincoln Battalion at a demonstration in New York, 1938
Normandie landing to open a second front in Europe in 1944 and saw service at Anzio (Italy) and Southern France.

p A number of Lincoln brigaders were attached to the Office of Strategic Services and served with valour behind the enemy lines in North Africa, Italy, France and Yugoslavia. Some of them, too, had distinguished themselves in the Spanish war. Captain Irving Goff had led a guerrilla detachment to free 300 Republican prisoners behind the fascist lines in Spain. Lieutenants William Aalto, Michael Jiminez, Irving Fajans and Milton Wolff, the last Lincoln Battalion commander, had made exceptional contributions to the Spanish struggle.

p In addition to the struggle for the right to fight fascism at the fronts, the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade were in the forefront of the home battle demanding the early opening of a second front in Europe. They saw speedy victory over Hitler and Mussohni as presaging the end of Franco’s rule and the liberation ot the Spanish people.

p Continuing its struggle against the Franco dictatorship during the war, the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade were instrumental m exposing the scandalous activities of some American oil interests who were selling petroleum to the Franco government which then shipped it to nazi Germany.

p In the post-war period, arrests, jailings and persecutions of every kind followed m the wake of McCarthyist hysteria. Every effort was made to discredit, obfuscate, and eradicate all that had been created m the progressive struggles of the thirties and throughout the length of the great anti-fascist war. But those who had aided bpam held their heads high and fought back. The volunteers ot the Abraham Lincoln Brigade remained true to their pledge 348 to the Spanish people. Throughout this period they were in the forefront of the struggle to exclude the Franco government from membership in the United Nations. They campaigned against the U.S. State Department’s two-faced policy of publicly criticising Franco, yet secretly working to strengthen the regime. This principled position against a policy that could only lead, as it did in 1953, to a Washington-Madrid Pact aroused the full wrath of the U.S. Government.

p The overwhelming majority of Lincoln Veterans, in this last period, had no formal Communist affiliation. But they offered principled opposition to the Hitler tactic of anti-communism used by the United States Government in pursuit of the cold war.

p And wherever the Government of the United States has supported, aided or abetted the imposition or maintenance of a fascist or military dictatorship upon a’ people in any part of the world, the men of the Lincoln Brigade have generally denounced the act. It is not surprising that the American internationalists have been subjected to the fascist tactic of the McCarran Act and to the inquisition of the United States Subversive Activities Control Board. Over the years lives have been ruined, careers shattered, and whole areas of employment denied them.

p Despite this harassment, the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade carried on their anti-fascist activities. They worked for the liberation of Leoncia Pena and other political prisoners in Franco jails. In addition to publicising the plight of these prisoners and mobilising American support for their release, they raised the demand for full amnesty for all political prisoners. Typical of the many demonstrations and picket lines organised by the Lincoln brigaders was their militant action at the New York World Fair in 1964, which received considerable attention in the U.S. press and helped to make many thousands of Americans aware of the nature of the Franco dictatorship. Another powerful action was the protest demonstration which greeted the arrival in New York of a Franco government naval training vessel carrying young Spanish cadets.

p The Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade also played a role in rallying Americans to join the international protests against the execution of Julian Grimau. All these activities continued despite government harassment of the veterans. Finally, in 1965, the Supreme Court of the United States had no alternative but to reject the petition against the VALB by the U.S. Attorney General’s Office, “for lack of meaningful evidence".

After ten years of battle and twenty years of constant harassment, the Lincoln Brigaders had won! It is notable that those thousands of Americans who supported them in their just fight were the same who had fought on the home front for the cause of the Spanish Republic. For them, the struggle for the freedom of Spain was also a struggle for the freedom of America.