3-4 Abril At Madrigueras

3-4 April
Robert Merriman’s diary for the 3rd and 4th of April 1937

Robert Merriman will now settle into the routine of being an instructor at the training bases around Albacete (Villaneuva de la Jara, Madrigueras, Tarazona de la Mancha, Quintanar del Rey,  Pozo Rubio and others).   The diary for April 2 flows over onto this page and he finishes the story of André Marty questioning Marion on where she got her military greatcoat and reminding her of the “dress code”.  I am sure from the retort that Marion was impressed by Marty.

Amlie
Hans Amlie (right) with David Doran and US Military Attaché Colonel Fuqua, at Quinto, October 1937. Source: ALBA photo 11-0843 of the Randall Collection, Tamiment Library, NYU
Burton, Amlie
Instructors at Tarazona de la Mancha in June 1937. From left to right: Peter Hampkins (British), Edward Cecil-Smith (Canadian), Wallace Burton (American), unknown, Walter Garland (American) and Hans Amlie (American). Photo from the Milly Bennett Collection, Hoover Institution, Stanford University

Hans Amlie is now Commander of the Lincoln Battalion and Merriman will be working with Amlie until the Fall of 1937, with frequent chafing between their personalities.  Hans Amlie was a very interesting character and was the brother of Republican Congressman Tom Amlie of Wisconsin.  His biographies¹ say that he was a Socialist when he came to Spain but when the Eugene V. Debs Column of the American Socialist Party could only draw 25 volunteers, Amlie joined the Communist Party in Spain.  In an interesting confluence of personalities, the American reporter Milly Bennett lost her lover, Wallace Burton, in Spain as he was killed at Belchite.  Milly had spent some time in China with Wallace’s twin brother Wilbur Burton who wrote for the Baltimore Sun newspaper.  When Milly Bennett was the lead reporter for the Chang Mei news bureau in Peking (Beijing), Burton replaced her when she moved down to Hankow to be more in the action.   Her biography², “On Her Own” reads like a Dashell Hammett mystery story.  In Spain, after Wallace died,   Milly became the lover and then married Hans Amlie and when she returned to the US in the fall of 1937, she did so as Amlie’s wife.

Tapsell
Wally Tapsell, ALBA Photo 11-1292. Tamiment Library, NYU
11_0009s_Clyde Taylor, MacKenzie-Papineau_nov 37
Dr. Clyde Taylor. Photo 11-0009 of the Randall Collection, Tamiment Library, NYU

Three additional names are added to our cast in this installment: Commandant Clare, Dr. Clyde Donald Taylor and Dave Engels.   Dave Engels’ nickname was “Mooch”.  We have not posted a picture yet of Wally Tapsell of the British Battalion.  Commandant Clare is a mystery at this point.  There is a Jean Clerc in the 14th Battalion (French) but no connection is made to the leadership of the Brigade.  There was a “Clare” in the second company of the Lincolns at Jarama (Chris Brooks, private communication of a transcription of Sandor Voros’ diary).  No information about a promotion from the ranks is given for Clare.

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¹ Eby, Comrades and Commissars, ibid. pp. 204-206.

² Milly Bennett (Mildred Mitchell), On Her Own:Journalistic Adventures from San Francisco to the Chinese Revolution, 1917-1927,  edited by Tom Grunfeld, M. E. Sharpe Publishers, Armonk, NY., 1993.

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