This is open warfare with a vengeance. In many cases Insurgent patrols or cavalry columns will enter a town in the morning and the Loyalists will visit it in the afternoon. That is happening particularly in places along the east bank of the Ebro River. The Insurgents, for instance, had the Hospitalet road under machine-gun fire near Tivisa this morning, but that whole road was in government hands.
What newspaper men here still wanted more than anything else today was further news about the Fifteenth [International] Brigade. However, there is nothing new that can be added to the story told yesterday by members of the American Lincoln-Washington Battalion. The bulk of that battalion still has not shown up.
Today’s news concerns the MacKenzie-Papineau Battalion. Once again that crack battalion of Canadians and Americans carried on the traditions of the Internationals.
This writer has referred several times recently to that rear-guard action in the hills behind Gandesa that permitted the safe withdrawal of thousands of men by holding the Insurgents back from the Tortosa road for a whole day. There were hardly more than 150 men who performed that feat, and fifty of them were “Macpaps.”
Your correspondent got the story today from Captain Wattis, who commanded them. He is an Englishman, a regular army man, who saw service in the World War and he is chief of staff for his brigade.
When the break-up of the brigade came he and others fought and infiltrated through to the other side of Gandesa. There he gathered around him all foreigners and Spaniards of the International Brigades that he could find. There were Germans of the Eleventh Brigade, French from the Fourteenth, British, Americans and Canadians from the Fifteenth and Spaniards from all three. Fifteen of them were members of the Lincoln-Washington Battalion.
They took up a position on a ridge completely dominating the Tortosa highway. The Insurgents could not get by without smashing them. The defenders had rifles and one machine gun, but no extra ammunition and of course no food or water.
Heavy Attacks Stopped.
The Insurgents cut loose at them with everything they had, which meant heavy and light artillery, tanks in waves and columns of men. But the defenders beat back everything. Six tank assaults were driven off, which was a considerable feat, considering that no anti-tank guns were available.
Captain Wattis kept his men back of the ridge during the repeated artillery barrages, leaving just two observers behind. When the observers saw the Insurgents coming at them they signaled, and the Loyalists rushed to the crest, giving it to the advancing foe with rifles and that lone machine gun. And back they went.
It was a contest against time, of course, for the position was not tenable in the long run. But if they could hold out until dark, they were safe. One can imagine how they watched that sun and how slowly it sank for them.
When it did sink, the commander could congratulate himself on the amazing fact that his casualties at the end of the day consisted of four wounded.
Then came their retreat. With dusk they started back, but ten riflemen remained behind, firing as fast as they could and throwing hand grenades at random to give the impression of a large force there. Grenades were also to be thrown under Insurgent tanks if these came on.
A small group of Assault Guards had joined the Loyalists late in the afternoon, comporting themselves as well as all the others. Captain Wattis also had been able to get word back and have one medium-sized tank sent up for support. That tank played the last role of the day, remaining after the ten riflemen ran back and throwing shell after shell into Gandesa.
When day dawned, the Insurgents doubtless charged the ridge, only to find the Loyalist force had retired.
Captain Wattis took his men down the road to Cherta. Then, seeing a column of Insurgents marching down the west bank of the Ebro in the distance, he marched his own men out quickly, getting them across a ford at Benifallet.
That was the group, with additions, that was coming down the road from Rasquera when this writer was there yesterday. Now, like all men of the Internationals, they have rejoined their divisions and are ready to fight again.
Newspaper men saw them in temporary rest billets, where the captain told his story. Sitting over against the side of the house was a group singing lustily. One refrain ran “We’ll hang General Franco on the sour apple tree.” Another, to the tune of “Hinky dinky, parley voo,” commenced, “Franco said he’d take Madrid, parley voo.”
Captain Wattis smiled at us.
“You know,” he said, “that singing is the greatest compliment paid to me in twenty-three years of soldiering.”
He had just received the congratulations of Commander Modesto of the Fifth Army Corps to the “bravos muchachos” [“brave lads”] who had held the ridge over Gandesa.
Correspondents also heard about another group of “Macpaps.” It was an officer of the Eleventh Brigade who related that it was holding a tunnel south of Cherta and doing it so tenaciously that the Insurgents had been forced to move down, far away from the road into the open country. It is not possible yet to get details of that action.
About a hundred “Macpaps” appear accounted for. Men of the battalion are drifting in steadily from various points after having come through the Insurgent lines, so more of them as well as other members of the Fifteenth Brigade will almost surely be heard from in the next few days.
This correspondent drove down the coast road and up side roads again today, but without discovering much that was new.
The head of the stream of peasant refugees was just reaching Barcelona this morning. Carts in Spain bear plates with the names of their towns, and we saw them from Calaceite, Batea, Candesa, Calanda and many other places in that district where the break-through occurred Friday.
Those families had been on the road five days. They could have gone to the hills, returning when the Insurgent wave swept by, but they chose to flee with what little belongings they could carry, abandoning their homes. That may be a commentary on what the Spanish peasant thinks of the Insurgents.
BARCELONA, Spain, April 5. – Severe measures to cope with espionage, which recent events have demonstrated to be a problem quite as important as the military one, have just been taken by the Spanish Government and will be put into effect immediately.
By a series of decrees the machinery of investigation has been tightened and placed under military control. A halt has been called to the policy of commuting a majority of death sentences. Six persons, including a young woman, were executed at Montjuich Fortress as spies last Tuesday, in contrast to the occasional execution of one or two prisoners after death sentences have been reviewed.
The story behind the execution of the woman and two of her confederates has been veiled in some mystery, but yesterday this correspondent was permitted to consult the court records and obtain the facts.
The condemned were Carmen Tronchoni, 22 years old, a State employee; Jose Vielsa and Carlos Garcia, both majors in the regular army and professed Rebel sympathizers. The court drama concerned the men’s attempts to escape to Rebel-held Spain, the girl’s efforts to aid them and the net into which they unwittingly walked at the very moment they were congratulating themselves on their safety.
The girl worked in a government office at Valencia last year, and, being attractive, she was popular with men, the testimony revealed. This popularity proved her undoing. Suspicion was directed against her by the frequency with which she visited prisoners held as disloyal. She was placed under observation and it was learned that she often visited the Panama Legation at Valencia, where the two army men and a youth, Manuel Gonzales, were staying.
Vielsa had been attached to the army general staff in Madrid, while Garcia was a permanent military judge in that capital. They took refuge in the Panama Legation in Madrid when the rebellion broke out, and later they went to Valencia when the legation was transferred there.
The girl arranged to procure false passports for them, so they could leave the country. Police agents established contact with her, posing as Rebel sympathizers and confederates. The two officers and the youth, believing that the matter of their passports and safe departure had been discreetly arranged, left the Panama Legation of their own free will and came to Barcelona by automobile, accompanied by the girl and the secret police agents.
The men used false names. When put on trial they attempted to the end to deny their identity.
During the automobile trip to Barcelona, according to the evidence, the girl and her friends sang Fascist hymns and reviled governmental authorities, while they two officers revealed their plans to escape into Rebel territory for the purpose of offering their services. One of them, it was testified, boasted that the Rebels several times had got word to him by radio demanding his presence because of his technical ability. They also boasted of lists of government supervisors who were to be killed if and when the Insurgents arrived.
In Barcelona all went to a hotel to await the passports, and while there they were arrested. The court was more lenient with the youth, Gonzales, who was sentenced to thirty years’ imprisonment, while the purveyor of false passports was let off with six years. It was testified in his behalf that he did not know that the passports he was to provide would have aided the Rebels.
It is charged here that the Rebels continue a policy of ruthless extermination of prisoners taken in Bilbao, Asturias and other captured territory. Captured Italian aviators, it is declared, have related that Republican fliers are killed on their capture, while the government charges that in Bilbao, Basque and Asturian prisoners have been executed in groups. The Minister of the Interior, in a recent statement, charged that during December 320 were executed at Bilbao and that thirty-one were killed in January. It is contended that in view of that circumstance there is no reason why clemency should be shown to Rebel sympathizers.
Six priests on trial at Gerona on charges connected with the rebellion have been absolved by a Popular Tribunal. After their acquittal the president of the court delivered a eulogy of popular justice, while the priests were effusive in expressing thanks, according to a dispatch from Gerona.
PARIS, April 5. – Spanish civilian refugees who have received a haven in France are being distributed in different cities of France, which formerly harbored refugees from San Sebastian and Bilbao.
There still remain a number of children’s colonies for Bilbao refugees, but in general the children have been repatriated. All whose families could be traced have been sent to rejoin their parents either in Spain or in France in the case of the limited number of Basque refugees who have been permitted for various reasons to establish residence here.
Some Basque children, notably orphans, have been taken in charge by Catholic organizations in France. The great majority of the Basque children, however, have been sent back to Spain.
The Spanish Insurgents keep moving forward.
Reply #2 is another story by Herbert L. Matthews, and it sounds a little implausible:
The defenders had rifles and one machine gun, but no extra ammunition and of course no food or water. . . The Insurgents cut loose at them with everything they had, which meant heavy and light artillery, tanks in waves and columns of men. But the defenders beat back everything. Six tank assaults were driven off, which was a considerable feat, considering that no anti-tank guns were available.
Those must have been some pretty crappy tanks.
Reply #3Concerns the fate of Insurgent spies caught by the Loyalists. "Fascist Hymns?" Somebody remind me - who are the good guys in this struggle?
Bzzzzt.
Real time is 2008.
Real time plus 70 years is 2078.