The Drydock - Episode 196

Gla dto see I'm not the ony person interested in the Spanish Civil war.

'General' Dipper

As someone who is old enough to have been on many of the world war two ships featured on this channel, and, as a native born US citizen , also a citizen of Italy , I have met a number of people who had direct experience with the Spanish Civil War. With all due respect to For Whom the Bell tolls, the issue, as always is far more complex. The Republicans were led by and sponsored by the communist regime of Stalin. There was a fiery political leader, an elderly woman, who went by the name La Passionara , who was as blood thirsty as Trotsky and every bit committed to a workers paradise. You might still find some of the magazines I saw as a child, with her smiling broadly as clergy were thrown over cliffs. One of the reasons many of the people chose the Republicans versus the nationalists what the Catholic Church. Those folks had been literally thrown out, with the revolution, but they still believed in the inquisition and were prepared to continue an absolutely barbaric rule over the people. It’s easy to see why people exposed to those abuses would look for something new but what European nation, to say nothing of the US, would tolerate a communist regime in Spain? Jumping ahead several decades, as a career naval officer for the United States, we didn’t need all that much clearance to serve the interests of our British allies in the Falklands war. I assume UK interests were tied much more closely to Franco. Spain, after all did remain neutral, and, after the war, there were stories aplenty about the British government reminding the generalissimo of their support during his Civil War. Leslie Howard’s mission was often mentioned as one part of this effort, in the years after World War II

Last time I was this early, Harvey steel was still state-of-the-art...

Robert Pavelchek