CHURCHILL'S SPANIARDS

Séan F Scullion uncovers a hidden aspect of World War Two

On 20 November 1975 came the announcement on Radio Televisión Española: "Españoles, Franco ha muerto." With this, a tearful Carlos Arias Navarro, president of the Spanish government, announced to the whole world the end of a dictatorship that had gripped Spain for 39 years.

For Spaniards, Franco's death was a turning point in its modern history.

As a schoolchild in Spain at the time, I remember it well. Not just because people were anxious to find out what the ailing health of the Caudillo was over those tumultuous final months, but also because I got several days off school.

Many miles away in London, only a month prior to Franco's death, a group of World War Two veterans had gathered in Whitehall. In the softening October sun, they stood solemnly upright, dressed in their smart blazers, shiny shoes and with medals hanging from their chests. At the front, at the feet of one of them, was a wreath adorned with the Spanish Republican colours that read: "To the memory of the Spaniards who gave their lives in the fight for freedom 1939-45." What were smartly dressed Spanish Republicans wearing British medals doing at the Cenotaph? These men were, in fact, members of the Spanish Ex-Servicemen's Association. Men who had served as soldiers in the British army in north Africa, in the Middle East, on Crete as well as in France and Germany. But how and why did all of this come about? When my good friend Óscar Luís Fernández Calvo sent me a secondhand copy of Daniel Arasa's book Los Españoles de Churchill, I was totally taken aback by its content and intrigued at the same time. Not soon after, I managed to contact Daniel Arasa who told me that yes, Spanish Republicans had served in the British armed forces during World War Two and that a far more thorough study was needed, especially now that archives had opened up more and a great deal of further information was available.