This landscape
buried after a battle—
keep it hidden, my knees,
more hidden than these refugee lands.
Never let go of it, my eyes,
until you say the names, make the wounds,
keep it, my blood, keep
this taste of shadows
so there can be no forgetting.
Pablo Neruda1
Why did I go to Spain?
For me, as a communist, Spain was the next logical step. Franco’s rebellion in mid-1936 sparked a civil war which became a focal point of the worldwide struggle to halt fascism and prevent World War II. The generals’ rebellion against the Spanish people’s front government was backed by Hitler and Mussolini, who poured in troops, tanks, planes and supplies in an attempt to topple the progressive Republican government.
The Spanish Civil War was a part of the worldwide drive for fascism. Spain had become the next item on their agenda, after north China and Ethiopia. The Soviet Union called for collective action to stop the aggression in Spain, but the western capitalist
democracies responded with a so-called non-intervention pact which allowed Hitler and Mussolini to flood men and munitions into Spain while the U.S., France and Great Britain refused to sell war supplies to either side.
Betrayed by these appeasement policies, the Spanish Loyalist forces faced seven to one odds in equipment and materials. Fascist atrocities shocked the world as the Nazis used. Spain as a testing ground for new weapons.
On April 26, 1937, the small village of Guernica in the Basque province of Vizcaya was bombed by German planes from about four-thirty in the afternoon until eight at night. The population was strafed by machine guns as they fled and 1,654 people were killed, 889 wounded.2 Communist parties throughout the world rallied to the defense of Republican Spain and organized the International Brigades, made up of communists and other antifascist fighters, to answer the fascist aggression.
Our Party in the U.S. took up the call. It came during a time of deep domestic crisis and increasing radicalization of masses of Americans. We were already involved in the fight against domestic fascism and were developing a popular front under the leadership of communists. There was widespread support for Republican Spain. Over 3,000 American volunteers traveled there, making up the majority of the Lincoln and Washington Battalions of the Fifteenth Brigade. More than 1,500 died there.
As another step in the fascist plan of world conquest, Spain made the threat of fascism at home more immediate. Although there were relatively few Blacks—not more than a hundred who volunteered for Spain—there was generally support and sympathy for the Republican cause in the Black community. Already alerted to the dangers of fascism through the defense of the Ethiopia campaign, Blacks played an active role in the movement to support Republican Spain with the National Negro Congress and the Southern Negro Youth Congress adopting strong resolutions against fascist aggression and for collective security.3
As a Black man, I was acutely aware of the threat of fascism. Blacks have always faced the most brutal, racist oppression in the United States, but fascism would mean a great heightening of the
terror and oppression. I felt it was wrong to say that the conditions of Blacks “could not be worse under fascism.” It was through this understanding, that I felt the strongest solidarity with the Spanish people.
I was eager to go to Spain. We had carried on an active recruiting campaign for the brigade. Many of my co-workers in Chicago had volunteered—Oliver Law, Tom Trent, Oscar Hunter and others. Also I felt it would afford me the opportunity to learn many lessons in revolutionary struggle which would be invaluable for our Party and my people. Finally, I felt the presence of Black communists in Spain would help emphasize the solidarity between the Afro-American and Spanish people in the struggle against fascism.
I was reminded of this later on in Madrid when Bob Minor introduced me to La Pasionaria (Dolores Ibárruri), the great woman communist leader who embodied the whole sentiment of the Spanish people’s struggle. She was happy to see me and related how impressed she had been when she had watched the parade of the International Brigades through Valencia on the way to the Aragon front. Leading them was a handsome Black youth carrying the American flag. “How remarkable that Black people, so oppressed themselves, see the relation of our struggles and are here to join us,” she said. “What happened to that young man?”
“That was Milton Herndon, Angelo’s brother,” I replied. “He was killed a few days later on the Aragon front.”
Despite heroic efforts, the civil war in Spain ended in a tragic defeat for the world’s anti-fascist forces. The death of the Spanish Republic emboldened the fascists and led, six months later, to Munich, the invasion of Czechoslovakia, and with that, the inevitable outbreak of the Second World War in which millions died.
While the people’s forces were defeated in Spain, their cause was not. The fascists could claim this initial battle, but the courageous example set by the Spanish people and the International Brigades, even in defeat, inspired millions across the world to stand up to the fascist tide. In the end, it was fascism that was crushed and the people’s forces that triumphed. Those who fell in Spain were the
vanguard of the victory.
Personally, I also suffered a defeat, a setback which would affect my life in the Party for some years to come. My experience in Spain was shortlived, lasting only about six months. It, and its aftermath, which I relate in the following chapter, focus on some of the more negative features of the International Brigades. But they should not be allowed to detract from the overall epic struggle that Spain represented. I have not attempted to detail the political and military history of the brigades in Spain. This has been done in a number of books.4
Late in the winter of 19371 raised the question of going to Spain with Browder, and he tried to dissuade me. I would be the highest ranking member of the U.S. Communist Party in Spain and the sole member of the Politburo. He had been receiving reports about the problems in the brigade and probably questioned my ability to handle the job. I was persistent, however, and Browder brought it up before the Politburo where it was reluctantly agreed upon. Within the next few weeks, the Party took steps to strengthen its leadership in Spain and sent over several top organizers.
We sailed for Spain on the lie de France out of New York. Our large group of volunteers went through the usual charade of pretending not to know each other—just tourists meeting for the first time. The leadership group was composed of Bill Lawrence, Ed Bender of New York and Dave Mates from Chicago—all old Party functionaries whom I knew. The crossing was uneventful, and we docked at Le Havre, taking the boat train to Paris.
At the headquarters of the International Brigades on Rue de Lafayette we were taken in charge by the French Party. We spent a few days in Paris, and I went to visit my friends Otto Huiswood and his wife, Hermie Dymont. Huiswood headed the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers, which had been in Hamburg until Hitler’s rise to power. From Paris we went by train to Perpignan near the Spanish frontier, where a local committee took charge.
We were split up and lodged in a number of farmhouses outside the town. I was impressed by the strength of the anti-fascist forces in which the local communists were the moving force. We were
(reated with great courtesy and hospitality by our hosts. Lawrence, Bender, Mates and myself were put up in the same house to wait for our turn to cross the Pyrenees.
While waiting I had a bad attack of asthma. It was the allergic type which I attributed to some ragweed in the vicinity; I had had such attacks before and I assumed this would go away once we got out of the area.
One night at about midnight we were roused and told to fall out with our baggage. We were to begin our march and cars were waiting to drive us south towards the border. After about an hour’s drive, we pulled up near a river and got out. This apparently was an assembly spot. A number of comrades were already there and others were arriving by car.
We formed a column of probably a hundred men—including several guides and a doctor. We marched towards the river where we were told to strip and wade across.' As I remember the river wasn’t very wide or deep, but once we were in, we found the early spring water was ice-cold and chest-high. We got to the other bank, dried off, put on our clothes, reformed our ranks and began to climb. We were told to keep close, not to straggle, because of the French border guards. There were guides in front and file closers in the rear to keep us together so there’d be no stragglers. They set a very fast gait.
We walked quietly, climbing steadily for a couple of hours. My asthma was bothering me, and I had difficulty breathing and found it hard to keep up with the column. It got worse and I finally fell to the ground, completely out of breath. The column stopped. Two of the young men who were our file closers rushed forward. One stuck a pistol in my side as I lay there, saying, “Get up, you bastard, you volunteered, it’s too late to change your mind!”
I knew what was on his mind. He was afraid that stragglers might disclose the secret trails to the French border guards who were carrying out the orders of Premier Blum’s non-interventionist French government to close off the borders.
My comrades immediately interceded, asserting that they knew me, that I was an important anti-fascist leader, that I must really be ill and wasn’t faking. They called the doctor over and he checked
me over with his stethoscope. He said, “Yes, this man can’t go any further, to do so might cause irreparable damage to his heart.”
What to do? The summit and the frontier were a couple of hours away. One of the guides, an elderly man, pointed to a hut on the mountainside, a short distance from the trail. He said it was vacant and suggested I should stay there, rest up, and come over in the morning.
One of my comrades said someone should stay with me; the old man volunteered. The column reformed and marched away, leaving me with the old man. I felt ashamed and somewhat humiliated at not being able to make it over the mountains. I had been in fairly good health ever since I had left the Army; but, I thought to myself, I was getting old (I was thirty-nine and no mountain climber).
After resting in the road for a few minutes, I told the old man that I felt I could make it to the hut. He looked at me anxiously as if to say, “Can you really go?” He insisted on carrying my pack and helped me to my feet. Leaning on him, I made it to the hut. It was a one-room affair with a cot. I flopped down really fagged. He told me to get some sleep, that he was going down the mountain to get some food and would be back shortly. I gave him an incredulous look—you’re going down there where we came from? “Oh, that’s nothing. I’ve climbed mountains all my life.”
After he left I fell fast asleep and woke when the sun was bright in my eyes. There was the old man sitting beside me, waiting patiently for me to wake up. He smiled—and produced some cheese and wine which I ravenously attacked. He asked if I was ready to attempt the climb, that it was only a short distance, and we would go slowly, resting whenever I was tired. He carried my pack.
We reached the summit after a series of short hikes and pauses. There we met the guards of the Loyalist Spanish Republic. They greeted us; the old man knew them. They said our comrades had passed through several hours before. They insisted we have breakfast with them. The old man remained. The guards told me to follow the road to the Figueras, an ancient fortress now used as barracks for brigade volunteers.
A truck soon came by, and I hopped a ride into Figueras. I met up with my comrades again, as they had been detained there to wait for transportation. Worried about my health and the possibility of not being allowed to go to the front, I went to see a doctor. After a thorough examination, he assured me that my health was alright and he saw no reason not to go to the front. The four of us in the leadership group were driven to Barcelona where we spent the day.
During our stay in Barcelona we spent some time seeing the sights. Walking down the Ramblas de Catalunia, we suddenly stopped and did a double-take. It was Bert Wolfe! He also stopped, startled at seeing us. He had been a leading member and chief lieutenant of the Lovestone group and had been expelled with Lovestone from the Party in 1929.
What was he doing here in Spain, we wondered. We recognized each other—exchanged startled looks and then turned and went our separate ways. We were sure he was up to no good for he had turned virulently anti-communist. Looking back on it, our suspicions may well have been justified. For only a few weeks later, there was a counter-revolutionary putsch of the POUM, the Trotskyite organization.5 It was reasonable to assume that Wolfe would have made common cause in their struggle against the communists.
We left Barcelona and eventually arrived in Albacete, a provincial capital, now the headquarters of the International Brigades. There were five International Brigades: the eleventh, chiefly German, called the Thaelmann Brigade; the twelfth, chiefly Italian, known as the Garibaldi Brigade; the thirteenth, mainly East European; the fourteenth, chiefly French; and the fifteenth, composed of Americans, French, Belgians and Balkans. The fifteenth, due to the later predominance of Americans, was often incorrectly called the “Abraham Lincoln Brigade.”
At this time, all the brigades were under the political command of a triumvirate based in Albacete: André Marty, leader of the famous French Black Sea Mutiny and member of the Political Bureau of the French CP, was commander; Luigi “El Gallo” Longo, second in command of the Italian Party, was inspector
general (he was later to become Togliatti’s successor as Party chief); and Giuseppi di Vittorio was chief political commissar. The General Commissariat, under their leadership, was the multilingual command apparatus in which all nationalities were represented. Lawrence assumed the position as American political commissar of the Albacete base, Bender became his assistant in charge of cadre, and Dave Mates left Albacete for Tarazona de la Mancha to become political commissar of the Washington Battalion which was then in training.
Even before we left the States, we had heard of the terrible losses suffered by the Americans of the Lincoln Battalion of the Fifteenth Brigade at Jarama. Upon our arrival in Albacete, George Brodsky, the acting American representative, filled us in on the details. The situation was much worse than we had expected. The action of February 27 on the Jarama front resulted in a needless slaughter of American volunteers and their fellow battalion members, the Irish, Canadians and Cubans. Ill-equipped, largely untrained, and without the promised artillery, air or tank support, they were thrown against an impregnable fascist strongpoint, Pingarron Heights, in their first engagement.
This attack was carried through on the insistence of General Gal and Lt. Colonel Vladimir Copic, and over the protest of Captain Merriman, the American battalion commander. Charging up the hill, the Lincolns were caught in a murderous machine gun crossfire. It was a virtual massacre.
The results were that our batallion which had entered the lines with 450 men, had 200 killed or wounded, leaving only 250 effectives on the line. The casualties included most of the officers. Douglas Seacord, second in command, William Henry, commander of the first company, and adjutant Eamon McGrotty were all killed in the attack. Captain Merriman was wounded, as was my old friend and schoolmate, the Englishman Springhalt. Springy was an assistant to brigade commissar and along with Merriman had led the assault. My good friend from Hyde Park, our YCL organizer Tom Trent, was also killed that day.
The responsibility for this crime lay with General Gal, division commander, and Copic, the brigade commander. Their incom-
pclcnce was exposed further when it was later learned that a little lul l her down the line there were ill-defended enemy positions where a breakthrough could have been made.
1 )espite the handicaps and bungling by the brigade and division commands, the Lincolns fought with great heroism and determination. The International Brigades played an important role in hulling the fascist offensive aimed at cutting the Madrid to Valencia road, the life artery of Republican Spain, and thwarted I heir efforts to encircle the capital.
After a few days in Albacete, I left for the front, accompanied by 1 uwrence and Bender. Our front lines were situated along the crest of a hill which rose in a gentle slope from the Morato road, about a kilometer away. About halfway up sat a small Spanish villa which Was used as brigade headquarters. Entering the villa, we met Lt. ('olonel Copic.
M uch to my surprise, I recognized him as “Sanko,” an old Lenin School student from the Slav language group. He had been one year ahead of me and so I had known him only slightly. He seemed genuinely pleased that I was the brigade’s new adjutant political commissar and embraced me warmly. I learned that he had been an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army and had received some Red Army training. He spoke English fluently.
He introduced us to the members of the staff. There was Col. Hans Klaus, chief of staff, a former Imperial German Army officer; George Aitken, brigade political commissar, my direct Niipcrior and a Scottish veteran of Paschendale—the World War I holocaust of British and Canadian troops; Major Allan Johnson, on leave from the U.S. Army and the highest ranking Army officer in Spain (he had come to the brigade after the February 27th disaster); and Lt. George Wattis, former British officer and now in charge of brigade staff mess.
Copic took me aside to give me his account of February 27. According to him, the attack on Pingarron Heights was necessary and had to be carried out as General Gal had ordered. Of course it was difficult for the American volunteers to understand. After all, they were no soldiers, he said, but only raw recruits without (raining—pampered by easy living in the States and unprepared
for the rigors of battle. He reminded me that it takes time to make a soldier. We all took a drubbing that day, the Americans were nothing special.
I listened, growing angry at his disparaging remarks. Of course all of this was true, but it still didn’t explain the suicidal assault on Pingarron. These volunteers were not the “do or die” type. They were political soldiers, ideologically committed and they knew who was responsible. Copic’s account amounted to a disparagement of the American effort and a complete denial that the command was in error.
We went up to the trenches to meet the men. I was struck by their youth; many were YCL’ers and I recognized only a few. Among those I knew was Oliver Law, a former Chicago comrade, head of the Southside ILD and one of the several American volunteers with military training. Law was a veteran of the Twenty-fourth Infantry, a Black regiment, and was now commander of the Lincoln machine gun company. He had been an important member of our Southside leadership. I remember him running the police gauntlet at the Forty-eighth Street precinct during the Ethiopia demonstration. He had been a victim of Red Squad sadism during the unemployed struggles in the early thirties when he was beaten up and deliberately kicked in the groin. It seemed right and logical that Oliver should be in the front lines in Spain.
I was happy to see that he had survived the February 27 ordeal, but saddened when he told me that the young Irishman, Tom Trent, was among those who had perished in battle that day.
I also met Martin Hourihan, battalion commander, a former Regular Army calvary man, teacher, seaman and trade union leader. The fellows were happy to meet us and glad the U.S. Party now had some leading members in Spain.
In hopes that we could be of some help, they poured forth their complaints. They were beefs concerning poor equipment, food and clothing. They suspected some of these problems arose with the Spanish Premier Largo Caballero. Rumor had it that the international brigades were being discriminated against in terms of
the limited amount of equipment available because Caballero, a right wing socialist, hated the communists. But the men’s bitterest complaints were directed at the brutal incompetence and irresponsibility of Copic and Gal. The men had absolutely no faith in their leadership and were particularly angered by the fact that they had had no relief in four months. They wanted adequate American representation on the brigade staff.
I then spoke with Allan Johnson. He was very impressive and struck me as a first-rate officer, a graduate of the U.S. War College who had been a Regular Army captain assigned to the Massachusetts National Guard. Though he arrived at the front after the Jarama battle, he felt the men’s complaints were justified. He was particularly outraged at what he considered to be the incompetence of the brigade and division leaders. He felt that they had failed to exercise common sense. His opinion was that something had to be done, at least the removal of Copic, because the colonel had lost the confidence of the men of the Lincoln Battalion.
Lawrence, Bender and I talked it over and agreed that something had to be done. The two of them returned to Albacete and made an appointment with Marty’s adjutant, Vidal. He was sympathetic and advised us to return in two weeks. We returned, and he explained that it was impossible to remove Copic. Vidal assured us that the men would be given relief—new weapons, clothing and equipment. Also the brigades would be reorganized and divided into two regiments with Chapayev to lead the Slavic group. He then asked who we thought should lead the English speaking battalions. I answered him immediately. Jock Cunningham was my choice, a well-respected rank-and-file leader. (Johnson probably would have been our first choice, but he had left Spain on a special mission to procure weapons for the Loyalist government and was not to return until September.) Vidal agreed and asked if I would be Cunningham’s political commissar. I accepted. Vidal also explained at this point that we would be drawn back from the front for a long-deserved rest—though not right away—and the plan would be implemented at that time.
These changes would be an important victory for our men but I unfortunately paid far too little attention to the possible repercussions. I had made an enemy of Copic.
Our battalion was pulled back for a two-day rest at Alcala de Benares. We were to take part in the May Day celebrations. At this time, Steve Nelson came up to the brigade. I only knew him slightly but he had a reputation as a veteran communist organizer and a leader in the eastern Pennsylvania anthracite coal mining areas. When I met him, he relieved Fred Lutz as commissar of the Lincoln Battalion.
Shortly thereafter, on May 5, Bob Minor came over as a representative of the Politburo for a short inspection tour. We filled him in on the events with Copic. He spoke to the men on the May 3rd attempted coup of the POUM, criticizing Caballero very sharply for his attitude toward the brigades, and left a new Dodge for my use.
In the middle of May, I accompanied A1 Tanz, brigade supply officer, to Valencia on a matter of supplies and we learned more about the coup. At that time, the popular front government was in a crisis as a result of the POUM action. Caballero had been hesitant to take military measures against the counter-revolutionary coup. His stand lost him the government, and he resigned on May 16.
A few days later, we heard La Pasionaria speak at one of the big halls in Valencia.6 She stated the position of the communists. I went to hear her with Langston Hughes and Nicolas Guillen, the black Cuban poet. I had heard great oratory before, but never anything like hers. She appeared to me tall and stately. She spoke in a calm manner with few oratorical flourishes, hardly raising her voice.
It was a damning bill of particulars, detailing the crimes of the Trotskyist POUM. She described how under their leadership the anarchist “uncontrollables” had set up a dictatorship of libertarian communes in Aragon where they were strong. Now instead of agrarian reform for the benefit of the peasantry, they had imposed forced collectivization—this in the midst of a bourgeois democratic revolution. “ You could win the war, but lose the revolution,” was their slogan. She went on and detailed how they had refused to
build the people’s army and kept the arms in the rear, preparing for mi uprising against the popular front government.
She charged fascist infiltration and collusion with Franco’s agents. Finally, their activities culminated in the May 3 coup which left the Aragon front wide open to the fascists. Although I knew very little Spanish, I felt I could understand every word Of course, I was acquainted with the subject and that helped. La I'asionaria spoke eloquently, holding the audience in rapt attention for forty-five minutes. She built it up slowly and carefully, point by point, to the end of her speech. Lowering her voice she asked, “What are you going to do with such people?”
Pandemonium then broke out in the hall. “Kill ’em! Shoot ’em!”
I had never seen such a demonstration.
The meeting broke down spontaneously into a whole number of Ninall meetings throughout the hall; people were bringing it down to their local situations, taking the lessons from her speech. She stood poised and calm, waiting for the commotion (which lasted fifteen minutes) to subside. And then a unanimous resolution of support for her and the Central Committee of the Spanish ( ommunist Party was passed.
I returned to the front and pursued my duties as deputy brigade commissar. A political commissar’s main job was to inspire morale imd the highest spirit of discipline and loyalty among the men for the Republican cause. A crucial task was to establish a mutual confidence and close comradeship between officers and men. It was not a militaristic discipline, but rather one based on the conscious realization that the interest of the people and the army were one.
Our duties required keeping the men fully informed as to the progress of the war and our current military objectives. Our work extended to the smallest detail that contributed to the physical and mental well-being of the men—food, clothing, supplies, mail, rest and leisure. Our jobs were an integral part of the brigade command structure. Political officers held parallel rank with the military command and all orders to the troops needed the signature of both. The responsibilities and difficulties of the job were tremendous, and we could not always live up to them.
Our Fifteenth Brigade Commissariat was under the direction of Aitken. We published a daily memo sheet, Our Fight, in English and Spanish. There was also a larger periodical, The Volunteer for Liberty, which was published in French, German, Italian, Polish and English. We used sound trucks for propaganda directed at the fascist troops calling on them to join the fight against their real enemies.
The heroic Frank Ryan, a flamboyant Irish journalist and former officer in the IRA, was assigned to work with us. On one occasion, we drove into Madrid together to check up on the printing of The Volunteer. As we were driving from Grand Via, a main street in Madrid, I realized it was almost deserted. I wondered what was happening. Frank noticed also and exclaimed, “Damn! I didn’t realize it was so late! It must be four o’clock!”
Suddenly a shell whistled over our heads and exploded down the street. It was the regular daily shelling that the fascists used to demoralize the valiant citizens of Madrid. The shelling came faithfully every day at four o’clock—you could set your watch by it. It came from Mt. Garabitis on Casa de Campo and was soon to be the objective of one of our offensives.
The men were finally withdrawn for relief to small villages near Madrid. The reorganization plan was put into effect and the men were given new equipment and clothing. After a few weeks’ rest, our brigade was given orders to move to the new front. Our first objective was Villanueva de la Cañada, a well fortified town on the Brúñete Road. On the road to Villanueva, we passed many of the Listers and Campesinos, crack troops of the Loyalist army, lined up by the side of the road ready to move out. We realized this was to be a major battle.
We met with stiff resistance and became pinned down. The British Battalion in the Fifteenth Brigade circled to the west to cut the road leading south to Brúñete. They crossed just to the right of us under machine gun cover directed by Walter Garland, the young Black commander of a machine gun company. Garland had been seriously wounded at Jarama and, after recovering, was sent to the brigade training camp at Tarazona de la Mancha where he assisted in the training of the Washington Battalion. He served as
acting commander until he left for the Brunete front, at which time lie was relieved by Merriman.
1 had made my way to the rear behind the lines to look over our positions. As I approached Garland’s machine gun company, he Nhouted a warning, “Get down, Harry, the snipers have a bead on that spot! Captain Trail’s just been hit right there!” I ducked quickly, getting out of the line of fire, but a young Spanish soldier was not so lucky. Coming up behind me, he was hit and killed.
Walter was impressive, directing the very effective cover fire which allowed the British to cross the road. Standing behind his men, much like a quarterback barking signals, he would order his gunners into action, the fire pinning down the fascists long enough for the British to make it across.
Our Washington Battalion was under orders to move straight ahead for a frontal attack on the town. The town was well fortified and we faced heavy machine gun fire. Our only orders were to keep advancing. This we did, but very slowly. At one point, Martin llourihan (adjutant to Cunningham) and I witnessed a suicidal charge by our cavalry in which they suffered terrible losses and were forced into a wild, disorganized retreat, nearly overrunning our position. Shaking his head in disbelief, Hourihan, an old cavalry man himself, asked, “Did you ever see anything like that? Horse cavalry attacking such a fortified position?”
Hourihan was severely wounded later that day in the final assault on Villanueva. Our attack proceeded very slowly and it wasn’t until early evening, after being pinned down the entire day in the sweltering heat with little water, that we forced the fascists to withdraw and were able to seize the town. But this delay was to have serious consequences for it gave the fascists time to figure out our objective, to begin concentration of their troops and materiel on the Mosquito Heights, the highest point in the area. Our offensive had lost its element of surprise.
In town I found Cunningham’s headquarters; he had moved in with the British Battalion which was on our right flank. Immediately he informed me that we were moving out. Moving south down the Brunete road, we soon encountered the horrible sight of the bodies of women and children lying in the road, as well as the
bodies of members of the British Battalion. Among those latter I recognized Brown, a member of the British Central Committee and formerly of the Lenin School. He had been a political commissar of one of the British companies.
What had happened? A group of fascists, fleeing the town, had seized some women and children as hostages, forcing them to march in front as a shield against the British fire. Passing the British they suddenly opened fire and threw grenades. Shoving the hostages aside they rushed down the road. The British, caught offguard by this ruse, tried to defend themselves. But to avoid shooting the women and children, they were unable to effectively reply and took many casualties as a number of fascists escaped.
We continued to march in the direction of Brunete to our new attack position, avoiding the road as much as possible. Hitler’s and Mussolini’s planes were already bombing the roads. Towards evening we halted for the night. Cunningham was called to brigade headquarters to get the plan of action for the next day. At the time I thought it was strange that I had not been called. Jock returned shortly and unfolded a military map, asking me if I could read it. Having no experience in military map reading, I said no. He abruptly folded the map and marched off without saying another word, apparently having confirmed some derogatory judgement of me.
I mention this incident because from that time on, there seemed to be a definite cooling in our relationship. At the time, I wondered if there were any connection between this action and an incident with Nathan earlier that morning. I had been standing roadside waiting for the Washington Battalion to pass so I could fall in with them. Nathan, the chief operations officer for the brigades, marched past. Out of the side of his mouth he snarled, “You’ll get yours.”
This came so suddenly and so threateningly, that I was taken aback. I yelled after him, “What did you say?” But he kept going without looking back. Now, putting these incidents together, I began for the first time to suspect that the hand of Col. Copic was at work, that he had begun lining brigade staff up against me in order to even the score.
The next morning we were to be in position. I had only a general idea of the action. I knew our immediate objective was Mosquito Crest, the dominant ridge in the area, in the foothills of the Guadarrama Mountains, overlooking Madrid. If we took the hill, the fascists’ positions at Mt. Garabitas, from which they shelled the city daily, would be outflanked and untenable. Franco would be forced to abandon his salient, and the seige of Madrid would be lifted.
We arose early and were in our attack positions by daylight. In our brigade sector, the British Battalion was on the right, where I was, the Franco-Belgian, Spanish, Washington-Lincoln and Dimitrov Battalions were all on our left. At zero hour, our men charged up the hill with shouts, hurrahs and vivas, dashing across the Guadarrama River, which at this time of year was practically dry. Under cover of machine guns, we took the first ridge. By this time, however, the surprise element in the offensive was lost.
The enemy had decamped, moving back to the heights beyond. We stood looking east; ahead of us, beyond a series of ridges and probably 3,000 meters away, loomed Mosquito Crest, our objective. We established temporary regimental headquarters on the first ridge in a large dugout, vacated by the fascists. We established telephone connections with the brigade. Our orders were to continue the attack.
After a slight rest, all battalions moved forward in an attack; British on the right, then Washington and Lincoln. Our regimental headquarters were closest to the British positions and I watched the British battalion led by its commander Fred Copeman, leader of the naval mutiny of the Enver Gordon, move forward. Jock and I remained in our newly established headquarters, as all the battalions moved forward. The brigades came under withering fire from the crest and were forced to withdraw with heavy casualties. It was during this attack that Oliver Law was killed. The men brought back the wounded during a lull following the withdrawal.
During the next few days, a number of attacks and probes were made in the direction of the crest. Now seeing what we were up to, the fascists began a massive concentration of troops and weapon-
ry, artillery and planes. The air superiority which we enjoyed the first day or two was soon gone. The fascists brought in planes from everywhere. There were swarms of German Heinkels and Italian Cazas that bombed and strafed our ground positions, flying so low they showered us with hand grenades from the sky. All this amidst the most murderous heat that I had ever experienced. The sun was a blazing inferno. The Guadarrama River, which the day before had been a trickle, was now completely dry.
By now the food and water problem was acute. The iron rations (reserve supplies) were running out, and we had lost our rolling kitchens; they had failed to keep up with our advance and were scattered along the road, almost to Madrid—sixteen miles away. A main duty of a commissar was to maintain morale; proper and sufficient food was an important item in this task. With the incessant bombing and strafing, the whole network of roads between Madrid and the front was disrupted and supplies were prevented from moving up. I suggested to Jock that I round up the chuckwagons and he agreed. I then left the headquarters dugout, walked down the hill across to the west bank of the river, and found the car Minor had left me at the brigade car pool in the woods. A young lad assigned to me as driver was there and we drove back in search of the kitchens.
On the road I saw the devastation caused by the bombing. Villages which were standing when we had passed through on our offensive were now reduced to rubble, deserted by their surviving inhabitants. The sickeningly sweet stench of death filled the air. The bombing of the roads was so sustained that several times we stopped, abandoned our car, and took refuge in the woods.
We finally located some of the kitchens. They had pulled off the road to escape the planes. I remember running across an American mess officer from the Washington Battalion, Sam Kaye, who had drawn his whole outfit off the road into the nearby woods. He remained near the road, peering out from a culvert and trying to find directions to our brigade sector. There were several more of the rolling kitchens scattered along the way. I told him to wait until dark and some let-up in the heavy enemy bombing and we would then guide them up to our positions. This is what we did, and we
arrived late that night.
I spent the remainder of the night with the kitchen crew. In the morning I crossed the river with a Canadian comrade. We started up the hill to the regimental headquarters. Halfway up, we were halted by an ear splitting and earth shaking barrage of enemy artillery. We fled from the road and burrowed ourselves into the earth. We were showered with stones and dust, but miraculously escaped without being harmed.
What had happened? The British, attacking east along Bodilla Road, ran into the withering fire of fascist artillery massed along the crest, and were hurled back with heavy losses. The barrage lasted probably an hour. When the artillery finally stopped, we got up and continued up the hill to regimental headquarters. We found the entrance to the dugout blocked by a number of dead bodies. Among them I recognized Black, Canadian commander of our new anti-tank group. Charles Goodfellow, adjutant commander of the British battalion lay dead in the road, cut down while trying to reach the safety of the dugout. We entered to find it crowded with men from the British battalion; those fortunate enough to escape the murderous shelling on the road. They had also dragged in a number of wounded comrades. In the dim light I saw Ted Allen, a Canadian newspaperman who was covering the Brunete offensive for the Canadian Tribune, the communist paper.
Jock Cunningham was shouting excitedly over the brigade field phone. He hung up, turned and continued shouting, this time at me. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Rounding up the kitchens, you knew that,” I said.
“Fuck the kitchens, you should have been here!”
I was incensed by his comment and even more by his tone. He was like a British sergeant dressing down a recruit. “You know goddamn well you agreed I should go get the kitchens!” I yelled back.
We confronted each other a few feet apart. Then Jock unleashed his crowning insult. “Aw, fuck off. You’re no good anyway. You’re scared now.”
Furious, I started towards him. Ted Allen, sitting close by, jumped up and rushed between us. “Take it easy, Harry,” he urged.
“This can’t be settled now in the midst of battle. You’d better go back to the brigade and settle this later.”
I turned and walked out of the dugout, the confrontation over. I made my way down the road towards the river. The main shelling had stopped, but there was desultory fire. Walking down the hill, I thought over the events that had led up to this confrontation with Jock. Again I sensed the fine hand of Col. Copic behind the whole matter. There had been the incident with Major George Nathan. Our relationship had been cordial but how was I to account for his actions on the road up to Villanueva? Then there was the fact that I hadn’t been called into the operations meeting and the map incident with Jock that followed. Something wasn’t right.
As I neared the river, engrossed in thought, I ran into Copic. He could see from my expression that I was troubled.
“What’s the matter?” he asked eagerly.
I told him about the argument with Jock. “I told you those guys were no good, but you sided with them against me,” he beamed. “What are you going to do now?” I told him I was on my way back to see Steve Nelson.
I found Steve at the Lincoln Battalion headquarters. He had had his own troubles; the Lincolns had also suffered heavy casualties. Oliver Law had been killed. Law’s adjutant, Vincent Usera, an ex-Marine officer, had left his post without permission and had been dismissed from the battalion staff by Steve and the other officers.7 Nelson now assumed command of the battalion. I informed him about my quarrel with Jock. His opinion was that it couldn’t be settled then in the midst of battle. He suggested that I return to Albacete, pick up Lawrence and Bender, and bring them up to the front within the next few days. Then we could find time with leading American comrades at the front to have a meeting on the situation and decide what to do. This made sense.
The meeting took place a few days later, when the battalion was given rest and drawn back on the other side of the river. Present were Steve Nelson; Mirko Mirkovicz, commander of the Washington Battalion; Dave Mates; two or three other comrades from the front; Bill Lawrence and George Bender from Albacete; and myself.
In the meeting, Steve repeated what he had said earlier. The issue couldn’t be settled at that time, in the midst of battle. Jock Cunningham, he pointed out, was in effective command of the regiment. Thus he felt that I should be withdrawn from the front and things worked out later. This was unanimously agreed upon.
On my own part, I felt it was the only possible decision that could be made under the circumstances, but nevertheless, I didn’t like it. I left the front bitter and frustrated. But now I had time to understand how this situation had come about. I had led the fight for improvement of conditions for the Americans and the removal of Copic. The main responsibility for the February 27 slaughter at Jarama was Gal’s, the division commander. Copic, however, shared in it as brigade commander and became the main apologist for Gal—consequently he was the immediate target for the men’s anger. The struggle for changes in the brigade brought about improved conditions, reorganization and a marked boost in morale. It also meant a loss of prestige for Copic, even though he remained as commander.
Copic was aware of my role in all of this. At the front, where his power and influence were greatest, he was at last able to move against me.
Johnson had been the only American on the brigade staff. When he left the front on a special mission, Nathan took his place. Copic easily brought Nathan into his inner circle which, I reasoned, enabled him to clear the way to isolate me in the brigade leadership. My confrontation with Jock was undoubtedly the end result of this effort to regain his lost prestige.
Shortly after the meeting at the front, Bob Minor arrived back in Spain, this time as official representative of the CPUS A. I was happy to see him. He listened sympathetically to my side of the story and told me that they heard I was having difficulties. Browder had said that if I couldn’t see my way through, I should come back home.
He agreed that my withdrawal was the only thing that could have been done at the time, and that at some future time it might be possible to work me into some position at the front. In the meantime, he suggested that I might consider taking over as
political commissar in Madrid. I rejected this latter proposal, considering it a demotion. By this time, I was already beginning to feel that I was getting the short end of the deal. Rather than go to Madrid, I stayed in Albacete with Lawrence and Bender, accompanying them on their rounds of hospitals, checking up on Americans. Bob Minor took me to Valencia and introduced me to leaders from other countries and from Spain.
The battle of Brunete ended on July 28. Of the 360 men in the British battalion, only thirty-seven were left on the line. The remainder were either killed or wounded. The Franco-Belgian battalion had eighty-eight left. The Dimitrovs had ninety-three left from 450. Only 125 Spaniards remained effective out of400. There had been two American battalions with a total of 900 men. Now there were 280 effectives who were merged into one battalion. They pulled back to rest in villages near Madrid, the same villages from which they had left for the offensive. Officers killed included Nathan. A number of volunteers were given “extended leaves” to return home if they wanted. Among those repatriated were Jock Cunningham and Aitken.
There was now, for the first time, an American ascendency in the brigade. Although Copic remained commander, Steve Nelson replaced Aitken as political commissar; Merriman, now a major, became chief of staff, replacing the German Col. Klaus. Gal was dismissed. Johnson returned to command the training camp at Tarazona. The brigade went on to Terruel and then to the Aragon front. It became clear to me that after all this reorganization, all of which passed me over, there was no place for me in the brigade. Minor raised again the question of repatriation and I agreed.
The fighting in Spain continued for nearly eighteen months after I left, the internationals fought many more battles and their heroism and fighting spirit became legendary.
But Loyalist Spain was not able to overcome the military superiority of the fascists, a condition forced on it by the nonintervention pact. On March 28, 1939, Madrid fell, ending the three years of bitter fighting. Republican Spain was clearly a victim of the western imperialists’ policy of appeasement. The fascist victory in Spain was another step toward World War II.
I left Spain bitter and frustrated. I was disappointed that I had not fully anticipated nor was I able to overcome the difficulties encountered there. It was for me a personal crisis, but nothing compared to what I was faced with on returning home.