Some aditional info:
A funny video of Division Azul in 1943.
:rolleyes:
The Blue Div at War , part I:
Part II.
1943 was not the end of the history however, some spanish unit and volunteer continue the fight till 1945, in the battle of Narva for example the spanish were regarded among one of the best axis defenders.
Private, Inf div 250th , USSR june 1942
TEXT: Scans of : “Foreing Legions of the Whermacht, Vol II” by David Littlejhon.
Hello
About the Alcalá Gate, it´s not the Alcalá de Henares, this is a village, it´s just Alcalá Gate.
After the departure of the Blue Division, some spaniards organized the Blue Legion, which continued fighting for the Germans untill the end, in Berlin.
Gracias Natxo.
Angel Salas Larrazabal spanish Ace is the USSR:
<H1 style=“MARGIN: auto 0cm; TEXT-ALIGN: center” align=center>[FONT=Verdana]Angel Salas Larrazabal - A Fighter Ace in Two Wars.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]Written by Santiago A. Flores.
INTRODUCTION
DURING World War II, the Nationalist government of General Francisco Franco Bahanmonde decided to send a volunteer force to fight on the Russian front in a way to repay the assistance that Germany and Italy had given him during the Spanish Civil War 1936-1939.
A complete infantry division was raised with a fighter squadron “Escuadrilla” to provide protection to the “Division Azul”. But in the actual fighting the division and the squadrons would fight in different areas of the Russian front. The Spanish pilots would even had encounters with the Free French pilots, of the “Normandie-Niemen” fighter regiment.
A Spanish Legion was formed in place of the Division to continue the fight against the Russians, but even this Legion was eventually recalled home, leaving a number of Spanish volunteers that fought in the German SS until the end of the war.
As for the Spanish squadrons, they received their training in Germany and later in France, they would first fly the BF-109E, F and G models and the FW-190A-3. These Spanish “Escuadrillas” would fly as part of the JG27 and JG51 in Russia. A total of 659 Spanish air force personnel would serve in these units.
During the course of their stay in Russia the Spanish pilots would claim the destruction of about 163 Russian aircraft and 12 pilots scoring 5 or more victories. On the debit side a total of between 24-25 pilots including ground personnel would lose their lives, some posted as missing in action, while one pilot was taken POW, only to return back to Spain in April 1954.
EL COMANDANTE SALAS
At the start of the Civil War, now Captain Salas, defected to the Nationalist side in a Breguet XIX general purpose biplane. During the course of the civil was, he flew the De Havilland Dragoon, and later fighters like the Nieuport Ni-52, Heinkel He-51 and the Fiat CR-32 biplane fighters.
He became one of the original members of the “Patrulla Azul” led by Joaquin Garcia Morato ( who finnish the war as the top scoring pilot with 40 claimed victories). Salas flew Fiat CR.32 No. 3-61 (c/n.111) he later became commander of 2-G-3 in September 1937.
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Salas was one of two pilots who would claim four kills in a single combat, the other was the German Oblt. Wilhelm Balthasar of 2./J88 claimed four SB-2’s on February 7, 1938.
At the end of the war Salas had flown 618 missions, 1,215 fight hours, was involved in 49 aerial combats, he was shot-down four times. But to his credit he had destroyed 48 vehicules and was credited with shooting down 16 Republican aircraft and shared one.
After the war he served in the following positions commander of the 21st fighter regiment and chief of the 4th section of the Estado Mayor.
He volunteer and was designated as the commander of the 1a. Escuadrilla Azul, (Escuadrilla Expedicionaria) that was formed with 17 pilots, some veterans of the civil war, with thier combined score totaled 79 aerial victories.
The unit crossed into France on July 24, 1941, later arriving in Germany in late part of the month, they were assigned to training at the Jagdfliegerrschule 1 at Werneuchen near Berlin, after completing their training on the BF-109E’s, the 1o.Escuadrilla left for Russia on September 26, 1941. At first the Spanish pilots were worried that they would arrive late to see any action, since they were kept informed of the progress of the German advance towards Moscu.
The 1/o.Escuadrilla received a total of 12 BF-109E-4 and –7’s’s and they were assigned to JG 27 VIII FliegerKorps of LuftFlotte 2. They were known as the “15 Spanische Staffel”, and they started to fly their first combat operations October 2nd , 1941 and suffering its first pilot in that same day. Escorting German bombers and reconnaissance aircraft, they operated from 12 different airfields, On October 4th, the Escuadrilla Azul score its first aerial victories, when Cmdte. Salas opens the score board with the destruction of one I-16 fighter and a Pe-2 as he described in his after combat report:
I saw coming 6 Pe-2 and I went after them, cutting the distance between us I found myself below I opened fire from 150 meters with my small machine and much closer with my canons, I saw pieces jump from the aircraft after the second burst, it occupant taking to his parachute. Later I continue towards Cholm to join up with the group and see a “Rata” I attack him in a turn while trying to flee in a fast dive that rips his left wing and he crashes near the confluence between Dnieper and Wjasna. Later I attack twice another “Rata” with no effects.
On October 7th, the Escuadrilla undertakes 42 sorties and in the course of the day Cmdte. Salas shot-down an “I-18” for his third personal and unit victory. Days later on the 13th, two of Salas pilots shoot-down a Biplane and another “I-18” fighter. On the next day Salas in the company with three other pilots in a “free hunt” near Kalinin surprise three DB-3 bombers in the resulting combat Salas downs two, while Capt.
Carlos Bayo Alessandri destroys the third DB-3, but during the heat of the combat Salas and Bayo collide resulting in Salas BF-109’s rudder being partially destroyed but he made back to base. But during this combat Cmdte.
Salas became the first Spanish pilot to become an “Ace” in the skies of Russia.
On the 25th,Salas with two other pilots destroyed on the ground three “I-18” Soviet fighters at the airfield of Klin. On the 27th, Salas during an combat between five Spanish pilot and reportedly 10 “I-18” fighters shot-down another “DB-3” bomber for his sixth personal and the 10th victory for the Spanish squadron.
On November 4th, Cmdte. Salas is force to land between German and Russian lines during an aerial combat, he was rescued the next day by German troops and returned to the squadron.
In the later part of November Cmdte. Salas reportedly shot-down an Russian biplane for his 7th personal victory, but there is some confusion, as his this kill was actually a ground victory, since in the listing of victories by the Escuadrilla Salas is listed with 6 aerial and 2 ground victories. That would end the score card for the 1/o.Escuadrilla Azul. For the remainder of their stay in Russia, they would continue fighting, flying escort mission, ground attacks etc, etc. but sustaining losses to it pilots.
The 1/o.Escuadrilla Azul receive the orders to return to Spain on January 6th, 1942. during their time in Russia the unit flew a total of 460 missions, engaged in 94 aerial combats and destroyed 10 enemy aircraft plus four on the ground, for the lost of 5 pilots (one KIFA, three WIA and one KIA) plus one wounded in action.
He passed away on April 26, 1991.
http://www.elknet.pl/acestory/larrazabal/larrazabal.htm
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A weird tank desing, the spanish “Carro de combate Verdeja”, in here in comparative test against captured T-26.
continue from above…
continue from above.
Scans Revista Armas nº 281.
Panzerknacker,
The history of the Spanish civil war is a bit more complicated.
At first you’ll have to understand how divided Spanish society was up to the 1930s.
While you had modern industry and commerce, with the connected trade union movement in the north, mainly Catalunia, the Basque country and Asturias, Western, rural central and southern Spain were essentially stuck in the 18th century with absolutely ruling landlords, being supported by reactionary Catholic priests and the hate Guardia civil paramilitary police, against a huge number of impoverished and uneducated farm labourers.
At the beginning of the war the Stalinists of the PCE had actually very few followers. The Republican government consisted mostly of centrist liberals, plus a few socialists of the PSOE, while most of the workers and farm hands were organised in anarchist trade unions of the CNT-FAI. Then there existed a small, but intellectually very vocal Trotzkist party, the POUM (which’s militia Orwell later joined btw.). Additionally there existed various regional interests and political groups, like in the Basque country or in Catalunia.
When the generals staged the coup in 1936, the Republican government was afraid to arm the population, but in several provinces the coupists were defeated by the population which got armed from illegal armouries of mainly the anarchists.
Also parts of the military refused to join the coup, like most of the navy and the airforce, plus parts of the army (in many cases the soldiers, once they knew what was going on, rebelled against their plotting officers, like in Madrid, were some artillerists provided the cannons to attack the Casa Del Campo barracks in Madrid). Plus, while the rural Guardia Civil was largely supporting the coup, the government was supported by the Guardia de Assalto, another armed police force.
The coupists were on the other hand supported by a national-revoluntionary movement (similar to the SA in Germany), the Falange under Primo de Rivera and the Carlists from Navarra, who wanted to restore a Habsburg monarchy and were extremely Catholic.
At the beginning the coup was lead by a junta of five generals (mostly Africanistas, this means a kind of brotherhood from fighting the colonial war in Morrocco in the 1920s) with the aim to make exiled former General Sanjurjo the new dictator. But Sanjurjo got killed in an aircraft accident when he tried to fly back into Spain from Portugal.
The coup ran soon into serious difficulties, mainly due to the refusal of the navy to join the coup. The at this time stronest force in Spain were the Spanish foreign legion and the colonial troops from the colony in Morrocco, which were lead by a young general named Franco and intensely loyal to him, got stuck in Northern Africa. An editor of the conservative Spanish magazine ABC approached a German businessman who then through Göring contacted Hitler and manged to provide Ju-52 (mostly commandeered from Luft Hansa) to set up an airlift to fly the troops acros the mainland Spain.
The Spanish government approached other European governments for help. The only government which tried to support them was the French one under Leon Blum, but conservative circles and the British government threatened to intervene, because they were at this time afraid to provoke Germany. Also, the British government was afraid of the revolutionary rethoric (again moszly anarchist) from the various militias in Spain. Also acts of revenge and attrocities by militias against e.g. land owners and the Roman Catholic church made them wary (though the fascist militias acted more or less the same against trade unionists etc. in their zone of occupation, evidence of fascist massacres and mass graves is only coming to light in Spain during the last few years. Investigations and research in these matters was always postponed out of a fear to rekindle the civil war).
Now the only two countries openly supporting Republican Spain were the Soviet Union and Mexico.
Obviously Mexico did not have the capacities to support Spain a lot, so almost all support came from Russia. Stalin used his influence to excert pressure on the Republican government, to accept Soviet “advisers” and NKVD officers, plus moving members of the PCE into important government positions, while at the same time, behind the frontline, starting with stalinist purges, mainly aimed against the Trotzkist POUM and the anarchists. This lead to a civil war within the civil war
( See as examples “Breu Historia de la guerra civil a Catalunya”, ISBN 84-297-5746-5 or Antony Beevor “La Guerra Civil Espanola” ISBN 84-8432-665-3 or Hugh Thomas “The Spanish Civil War”, or about the purges George Orwell “Homage to Catalonia”, there are lots of serious books about this topic). Stalin also made the Republic pay for the help, e.g. the republican government move Spain’s gold reserves by ship to Russia for safekeeping, where they disappeared.
In meantime France and Britain managed to convince the League of Nations to issue an embargo on Spain, which was then to be enforced by the German and Italian navies. This meant that while italy and Germany were free to provide assistance to Franco, (who after Sanjurjo’s death became the leader of the coupists), while ships aiming for republican ports were stopped or sunk (including British freighers).
Hitler made Franco pay for the support as well, e.g. a large part of the Asturian coal mines were handed over to a German owned trust, which was headed by the businessman who organised the airlift for Franco.
After Franco’s victory spain was bled out and Franco, as a trained general, recognised how stupid Hitler’s plans were, so he refused to let the German troops cross Spain to attack Gibraltar.
On the other hand he had to give Hitler a gift.
He sent the Division Azul, which was mainly made up of Falangists. Now, after the end of the civil war the Falangists made demands to Franco to nationalise big landholdings and factories and to carry out social reforms, essentially what Röhm’s SA wanted from Hitler after 1933. Now Franco was extremely reactionary, siding with the old elite, and used the Division Azul to get rid of the troublemakers.
Jan
Guys, I have not read this thread much. so forgive it has ben mentioned.
Have you heard about the dispute between Poland and Spain about the Polish fighters in the Spanish civil war?
Here is the English link: http://www.eurotopics.net/en/presseschau/archiv/aehnliche/archiv_article/ARTICLE15629?EUTOPICS=00c4894f73fcaf3bf44a3c475bc9a583
Here is the Spanish one: http://www.elpais.com/articulo/espana/Senado/defiende/brigadistas/comunistas/polacos/repudiados/pais/elpepuint/20070323elpepinac_12/Tes
The Spanish offer a honourary citizenship to foreigner who fought on the republican side during the civil war.
Many volunteers were recruited through the various international communist parties and fought then in the International Brigades. the IB were controlled by the communists, but not everybody who joined them was a communist and they kept largely out of the purges and did their work fighting on the front line.
There were a few hardcore stalinists in them, e.g. the later head of state of east germany Ulbricht served a a political commisar, or a particularly nasty piece of work was the commander of the IB, a French communist named Andre Marty, a true paranoiac in the best stalinist tradition, who was responsible for the execution of many International Brigadists as “spies”.
Most of the members and especially field commanders of the IB units (not the politicos in the capital !) were too independently minded, and after the defeat, when many of the survivors escaped to Russia, they were hunted down by the NKVD and killed in Siberian prison camps.
Jan
Addition to post #33:
Of course there are some people for whom anybody who fought for the Spanish Republic is a criminal. I suspect that the current government of Poland would have, at least secretly praised Franco and his junta as savious of the Catholic faith.
Jan
Walther you are correct, I shouldt not post that picture because is inviting to a messy political debate ( wich was not the intention of this thread) Deleted.
Two more images of the Verdeja AFV,:
V1, with the turret in the rear and the engine at front:
V2, with the turret amidship:
Apart from the 45mm gun (derivated of the russian 45 At gun) the tank carried 3 locally built Mgs with 3650 rounds of 7mm ammo.
And yet more pictures of this tank, this is the V2 in the actual display near the city of Toledo. The original tracks were replaced with M-113 tracks.
The Verdeja was an interesting vehicle.
The idea of placing the engine at the front is now diplayed by the israeli Merkava, with great success. The armor plate and the main gun were enough for the time (just before the WWII), but it was atoo small tank and with the development producedduring the war, it became an old design.
It´s a pity that it never enteres production, due to the poor industrial capability of Spain.
I think that there was also some bad politics involved.
España bought some Pz IV ausf G in 1943, 20 or 24 tanks, not sure.
Yes, there is still one of them in the tank museum in Madrid.
These were great tanks at the time they were bought. At the end, we sold them to Syria and they fought in the Golan heights against really superior israely´s Centurions.
From the Ejercito site:
In 1944, 20 units of the Ausf. H. version arrived by rail in Spain. As the most modern tank of the moment, they all came to the recently created Armoured Division “Brunete” and finally they were grouped together in two Companies of the 61st Regiment “Alcázar de Toledo”. Later they passed on to Cavalry Regiments and finally 17 were sold to Syria, which used them in the Seven Days War.
16/06/2006 Instituto de Historia y Cultura Militar
EL IHCM REFLOTA UN “PANZER” DEL AÑO 1944El IHCM reflota un “Panzer” del año 1944
Bajo la dirección y coordinación del Instituto de Historia y Cultura Militar la empresa SPA-MIR, dedicada a la reconstrucción de vehículos acorazados de combate, ha puesto en marcha un carro Panzer IV, KPFW-IV H.
El carro, adquirido por España a Alemania durante el año 1944, estuvo en servicio en el Regimiento Alcázar de Toledo y posteriormente en Unidades de Caballería, Dragones de Santiago nº 1, Almansa nº 5 y Farnesio nº 12, hasta 1965.
Las operaciones de reconstrucción, que han consistido, fundamentalmente, en la reparación de la torre, motor, tren de rodaje, relojes internos, asientos y elementos varios, se han llevado a cabo tras la utilización de alguna pieza de otros dos carros de la época, uno, depositado en la División Acorazada Brunete nº 1, Burgos, y el otro, en el Regimiento Alejandro Farnesio 12, en Valladolid, junto con la adquisición de alguna pieza a Alemania.
El proyecto de reconstrucción, que dio comienzo en octubre de 2004, finalizará el próximo día 21 del presente mes de Junio. El vehículo reparado, que pertenece al Museo del Ejército, quedará depositado en la Brigada Acorazada XII, El Goloso, Madrid.
El Panzer IV K PFW-IV H, fabricado en 1943, tenía una autonomía de 200 kilómetros, una velocidad de crucero en carretera, de 42 kilómetros/hora, un peso de 24.600 Kg y era manejado por cinco tripulantes. Podía transportar 85 proyectiles de 75 milímetros y 2850 cartuchos de 7,92 milímetros. Fueron construidas 3774 unidades en Alemania y su empleo, diseñado para batallones acorazados.
