Category Archives: Pozorubio

23-24 Mayo Merriman has lots to tell his diary (X-Rated Edition)

May 23-24
Robert Merriman’s diary for May 23 and 24, 1937

Merriman has time on the 23rd and 24th to write plenty about the machinations of the Brigade.  He even includes a page of notes from later in the diary.

The day starts routinely with Merriman going from Pozorubio (“Camp”) to Albacete to view instruction on the two new anti-tank guns from Russia.  He receives a lecture and something which looks like “lock” but whatever it is it took all morning.   Dr. Atal continues to be a concern to Merriman.  Atal was not a member of the Communist Party (he was a member of Nehru’s Congress Party in India later in life).  It is quite possible that Atal has raised concern by his comments made in early May and he is now on Merriman’s suspicion list.  He did, however, apparently pass his examination by the Doctor brought to camp to check him out and it looks to be a political concern with Atal at this point.  Merriman says Atal is being exposed to open political discussions and  has “No discipline”.

After he and Bob Thompson had a check up at the doctor’s office, they ate and attended their first bullfight in the ring at Albacete.  Marion Merriman relates:

In the afternoon, the two Bobs [Merriman and Thompson], Joe Dallet [the Ivy-League-educated commissar], and I went to our first bullfight.  Through a friend we had seats in the circle of boxes high around the rim of the ring.  The place was packed, at least the shady side for even at four o’clock in the afternoon the sun blazed.  Music, a gay introduction to a dead romance.  The bull racing bewilderingly into the arena.  The cape holders (they do have a name for them but I can’t think of it) waving their cerise and yellow cloaks.  The bull rushing back and forth, not too excitedly and occasionally stopping to stare at the crowd.  The bandilleros, riskier business than any, waiting for the proper moment to throw the brightly colored darts into the bull.  The bull enraged trying to shake the darts out his back. Blood running in trickles down his sides.  More play from the cape wavers.  The fanfare.  The torero with his crimson cloak and sword.  Graceful taunting and tormenting of the bleeding bull.  The quick thrust sword to the hilt draws applause.  The bull weaves, lunges in a last frenzy, sinks to the ground in a slather of fury and weakness.  The man with the dagger at a safe moment plunging it into the bull’s brain.  The bull dragged ignominiously off on a chain by a team of horses.  And the next bull is prodded and dodged through the same routine.¹

Merriman says he did not enjoy the bullfight and most Americans were disgusted.

More of Lamotte’s battles with the Albacete leadership come out and Lamotte appears to be defending Americans being in the artillery unit.  Vidal’s memo (see the previous posting) also concerns the Artillery and there was discussion of taking all the artillery pieces away and giving them to the Spanish Army.  Vidal had line authority over the Artillery units and would have been quite possessive.  The dispute goes deeper apparently as we see on the 25th.  In one of the more strange sentences in the diary, Merriman says that the “husband of the man” who ran the Intendencia arrived and there was “shock”.  We may never know this whole story but it does sound like an interesting one.  At this point, Lamotte ran the Intendencia so one might surmise that his sexual orientation became an issue at this point.   Lamotte is having a wide range of charges being stacked up against him.  In one memo, Lamotte is accused of being abusive to the guard at the Garde Nationale barracks, taking his gun away from him and then the Americans who wrote the complaint felt that this was a way of setting the guard up for charges for not having his gun.

Merriman says that the guys he was with stayed in Room 35 at the hotel and we would need a hotel register to figure out who was staying in that room.  We will find where they slept on the 24th to 25th.   Merriman has enough to tell his diary that he used another notes page from the end of November:

November notes page
Additional notes page attached to May 24, 1937, from Merriman’s diary
177-196102 Aitken
Bert Williams (left), George Aitken (center) and Marty Hourihan (right), ALBA Photo 177-196012, Tamiment Library, NYU

The intense rivalries in the leadership of the Brigades are revealed here in their depressing detail.  Merriman says that George Aitken and Vladimir Copic made up a faction of the leadership who were opposed by Merriman/Haywood/Lawrence/Johnson (most of the Americans).  Merriman makes the critical comment that General Gall {sic, General Gal or Janós Galicz} was acting as a political commissar and General.  This is a conflict of interest since the “ombudsman” qualities of a commissar were designed to be a relief valve when conflicts with military line management developed.  Clearly, the Brigade leadership did not have a Brigade Commissar to provide that adjudication of the infighting. It is believed that the Brigade Commissar at this time was Jean Barthel.

The issue appears to be the unwillingness of Copic to ask for relief troops to take the IB’s off the line at Jarama until the Brigades were reorganized.  The Americans appear to be resisting bringing up the new Battalion until these issues are resolved.  Allan Johnson got in trouble for his actions on April 5 when he left the training base and went to lead at Jarama after a fascist attack on April 4.  Harry Haywood sent Johnson back to Albacete since Johnson will have “deserted to the front” if Copic had not ordered him to the front.   This event is not a major part of the story of Jarama but it was telling:

The loss of two hundred meters of trench on the 14th of March was rectified on April 5, when elements of the Dombrowski and Garibaldi battalions drove forward briefly on the Lincoln’s left to recapture these positions.  Captains Johnson and Hourihan directed the action, the Lincoln Battalion’s job begin specifically to supply cover fire while the other battalions went over; then the Americans themselves  left their entrenchments under British cover fire.  When the attack was launched, there was some hope of pushing on beyond the first objective– to straighten the line– but again it was launched too late in the day , and some units failed to appear at all for their role in the operation.  Captain Allan Johnson says that the Lincolns had not been slated to go over; that the plan had been for the 11th Thaelmann Brigade to attack through the Lincoln line in conjunction with the assault of the Garibaldis and Dombrowskis.  They were to have appeared on the scene at approximately 7:00 A.M.  Since they did not arrive at that hour, and since four hours later the Rebels were thoroughly alert to the developing attack all along the line– artillery and mortar shells were now ranging the Brigade parapets– he ordered the Lincoln’s First Company to go over, to threaten the enemy positions, and to prevent any possible counteraction prior to the arrival of the 11th.

Contrary to previous reports of this action, the Republican casualties were by no means light.  The Garabaldis, especially were hit hard.  Charles Nusser of the Lincolns states that some of the Garibaldis, either going over or returning to their lines, found themselves in front of the Lincoln trenches, got caught up in the Lincoln barbed wire, and were badly shot up.  Heavy fire met the assault of the Lincoln’s First Company, but relatively few were killed.  The entire Battalion actually sustained only twenty casualties for its part in the action of April 5.  Amongst those wounded, however, were Captain Johnson, Captain Hourihan, David Jones, the Battalion Commissar and a number of the leading cadres.²

Oliver Law
Oliver Law

Knowing this counterattack was occurring on the 5th, Johnson left Albacete and took action. Aitken and Copic did not support Johnson in this action.  Merriman states that as a result Copic jumped in and tried to reduce the Battalion staff by promoting Oliver Law up to Battalion Commander (in Marty Hourihan’s absence as he was sick).    Merriman’s attribution of the changes may be clarified by Art Landis who says that it was Allan Johnson who made the promotions of Walter Kolowski to the MG Company, Paul Burns to command Company 1 and Edward Flaherty to the command of 2nd Company. ²  Merriman, however, here says that a Slav was promoted Commander of the Machine Gun Company and Kolowski was demoted again by April 23.   This is probably the event where Johnson must have had his moves overruled and resented it.  “Words developed”.  If Johnson went at Copic, he clearly did not win the contest of wills.

The tempest developed into a political storm because when Robert Minor and James Ford visited lines at Jarama, Johnson was ignored and this aggravated the grievances.   Copic apparently charmed Ford and this further irritated the Americans when the VP Candidate of the Communist Party of America took the side of a Yugoslav commander of the Brigades over the wishes of the American communist leaders of the Brigades.  Continuing his list of grievances, Merriman pours out the fact that the Spanish are unhappy since they are also not getting the leave from the lines that they were accustomed to in the Spanish Army.   Merriman says that the front line troops are demoralized and the “Lincoln Battalion” had only 80 men remain in the lines … far fewer than the 600-800 that would be at strength.

As a side note here, Oliver Law would become a singular icon in the Lincoln Brigade as the first black officer in any war who rose to command a Battalion of mixed American soldiers.  Law was both used as a heroic icon back in the US to hold up the Brigades as fully integrated as well as dashed after the war by a number of writers who sought to denigrate Law’s competence.   We will not delve into this controversy since it is peripheral to Merriman’s diary and not discussed at all in Marion Merriman’s memoir about Robert.   It should be noted that these events on April 5 were central to Law’s rise in the ranks.   Anthony Sparrowhawk of England has a biography of Oliver Law in the works and we hope to see it published in the next year or so (private communication).

Merriman describes the reorganization of the Brigade around language. He says that Vidal, Platone and Dr. Telge have gone to Valencia to plead their case with the new Minister of War, Indalecio Prieto.  They wanted four “units” (for the lack of a better word in the transcription): one Slav, one German, one French and one English.  Each Brigade would have five battalions making 20 overall battalions in the Brigades.  The plan included three active Battalions at any one time with one in reserve and one completely at rest.  The plan doesn’t say how often the rotations would occur.  The group asked for pensions to be paid to veterans after the war and discretion to remove some soldiers totally out of the Brigades and back to their home countries.

Merriman continues that this would mean a reorganization along language lines.  The XVth Brigade would be entirely English speaking.  Vidal continued his presentation that reorganization needed to include Albacete, the Base.  It was said that Albacete was not safe (obviously so since saboteurs had destroyed the Brigade ammunition depot in recent days).  In the interview, which was planned for the morning of the 24th of May, Vidal invited Prieto to visit the Brigade lines, a visit which apparently never occurred.  In addition, a proposal was made to have “all language units”, presumably mixing everybody up.  This sounds like the “poison pill option” which you offer in a negotiation and one which you know will be rejected as unworkable.

Going back to the May 24 entry in the Diary, Merriman tells us he got up and took Joe Dallet with him for an 8 o’clock military parade at the Garde Nacionale but that since the guard had been doubled on the ammunition dump, no one could fall in on parade.   Merriman and Dallet returned to their quarters so they could do their ablutions, including taking a bath.  He picked up Marion and they went for breakfast and then he was off to inspect the guard at the Garde Nacionale.  Clearly, the nerves were on edge about sabotage.

Merriman is still dealing with his broken wing and he gets another X-ray.  We will hear the outcome on the 25th.  Merriman says he joined “boys who are on the chase” which is clearly code for being out on the town to find women.  He goes to the Auto Park and hears Bob Minor speaking and they have entertainment.  In their travels, they get shot at and there were obviously fifth columnists (perhaps resentful anarchists or POUM, who would have been angry about the events in Barcelona earlier in the month) amongst the locals near Albacete.  On the 21st of May, Hourihan’s orders of the day state that Johnson was removed on orders of the Brigade.

Merriman gets to the Ammo factory that was blown up and finds it substantially gone.  The French guard at the site had been drunk.  Merriman has to hunt down his officer to complain.

Merriman reveals that Bob Thompson “got lucky” with one of the nurses and Thompson and Dallet spent the night with her.

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¹ Marion Merriman Wachtel and Warren Lerude, American Commander in Spain, ibid.,  p 146.

² Art Landis, The Abraham Lincoln Brigade, ibid., pp 161-162.

21-22 Mayo Bob Merriman turns over command of the Training School

May 21-22
Robert Merriman’s diary for May 21 and May 22, 1937

Merriman spends another night at Albacete and in the morning he meets with Marcovics who has come from Madrigueras for breakfast in town. Together they go to the Estado Major to talk with Vidal and Platone on the decisions made on leadership in the new Battalion.  It appears here that Walter Garland, Edward Cecil-Smith and Bill Halliwell are being recommended for leadership.  Halliwell and Garland will become Company Commanders.  Smith will not be a company commander in the new Washington Battalion.  Smith, Garland, Burton, Hampkins remained at Pozorubio at this point as trainers.

Merriman meets Bill Lawrence and Lamotte at the Guard Nacionale.  The meetings between Lawrence, the American responsible in Albacete, and Merriman and Lamotte deal with the unhappiness of Platone and Vidal over what is occurring in the Intendencia.  This week in May was a very busy one for Vidal and one of great pressure on him.  The Government in Madrid was in transition and the leadership of the military forces will turn over, partially to the new Prime Minister Negrin, who had been Minister of War.  There are a number of high level memoranda describing this transition and there were meetings in Albacete to brief the command officers of the Brigades what these transitions meant for them.  In a handwritten set of notes of one of those meetings¹, an officer (believed to be either Johnson or Aitken) noted that the transition would be good for the Brigades but that the Spanish Army believed that the brigades were a mercenary army and could be treated as such.   Vidal wrote a very long memorandum² to the Command outlining the grievances of the IB’s which led off with the fact that the English units were in the line at Jarama for 78 straight days with only a four day relief break for the Lincolns which was shortly rescinded.  The handwritten notes¹ say that this was an anomaly and happened because of the events in Barcelona requiring other units to go to suppress the POUM/Anarchist rebellion.   But the Spanish believed also that the IB’s got better treatment than they did and certainly had more access to food than the people in general.  This was outlined in a memo in French from Luigi Gallo to General Gal about the behavior of the Autopark Chofers and the irresponsibility of the artillery groups in Almansa (I translate:)

Madrid, 22 May

Comrade General Gall

Commander of the 15th Division {sic}

Dear Comrade,

Comrade Vidal, commander of the Base at Albacete has told me he has received a report completely preoccupied with the state of the Transport Service Mobile Evacuation Service of our Health Service at Tarançon.   After the messages we have received, Doctor Gorgan has fired all the international chauffeurs and has recruited new chauffeurs from the CNT, which has caused many great difficulties in the Service.  On the other hand, there are many very serious irregularities in the responsible personnel.

He additionally warned me that the first battery of artillery (French and Belgian) attached to the 15th Division and actually commanded by Captain Clerc, was found in deplorable condition, caused by the conduct of that Captain, who stole nearly all of the reserve supplies of the battery and who sent a significant portion of those supplies of the battery to take to a house of prostitution in Madrid.   We have written to … Gé {name not spelled out}.

I would ask you to open an inquiry on these accusations and if it is the case, take necessary measures to eliminate all irregularities.

Anti-fascist greetings

The Commissar delegate of War

Inspector of the International Brigades

{signed Luigi Gallo}³

The RGASPI archives contain an answering memo from Dr. Gorgan who was in Morata which complains about Vidal’s removal of the ambulances.  He also sends this letter to General Gal as commander of the XVth Brigade.  Gorgan denies that he wanted CNT drivers but instead, he asks that the 10 ambulances be returned with their auto park drivers or he can not guarantee that the wounded can be evacuated to Tarançon4.   This curious episode points out some of the Brigade infighting for control on the vehicles.

In Albacete, there was a fight between non-commissioned troops and some German Officers who were housed in the Garde Nationale and the Officers were turned out to “sleep on the ground” like the soldiers have to.   Tersely worded memos in German were written to Vidal accusing Lamotte of not managing the Garde Nationale barracks, which added to his subsequent demise.  One called Lamotte a “gangster”.  We also found in the handwritten notes above the following snippet:

Lamotte Accusation
Notes taken by IB Officer during a briefing on May 221.

An accusation has been made that the XVth Brigade is 500,000 pesetas in arrears, but this note says that is not true.  It does admit that the XVth Brigade owes 250-300,000 pesetas for its unpaid bills.  Since Lamotte would be responsible for paying the bills of the Intendencia, it is likely that this is the accusation of Lamotte embezzling 300,000 pesetas.   One might also assume that Lamotte procured items for the Brigades and just did not pay for them.  That would be viewed differently by the Brigade Command than the suppliers.  In any case, Lamotte’s leadership in the Intendencia is coming to an end during this week.

Merriman must have thought he was going to get a ride back to Pozorubio with Roblet, but he did not show so he stayed until lunchtime and had a meal with Marion Merriman in the Intendencia.   He spoke with Gold (likely Irving Gold).   Frustrated by the crossed wires with Roblet, he arranges a car from Platone and is back to Pozorubio by 2 pm where he translates Roblet’s Russian lectures into English.

Merriman gets his men from Tarazona de la Mancha who were pulled out of training and sent to (probably) the non-commissioned officer’s school.  Five arrive including a Knight who had been on the lines at Jarama (there is an Allan Knight in the list of Canadians)5.  Patrick McGuire, an Irish-Canadian, who had been at the Officer Training School, is called out as a problem and Merriman sent him to join the British Battalion at Jarama.

Patrick McGuire
Patrick McGuire, Irish/Canadian volunteer, RGASPI photo Fond 545/Opus 6/Delo 170, Moscow, Russia

McGuire must not have been happy about going to the front and he and “Wolf” (probably James Wolfe, also a Canadian at the OTS) decided to get drunk to celebrate the departure.   Merriman keelhauls them, gets an apology and a plea to stay in school.  Drunkenness was rampant in the Madrigueras base at the time and this was one reason that the Americans were pulled out and sent to Tarazona (to the relief of the villagers who appreciated that the Americans who drank less than the French).   Richard Baxell relates a story from Peter Kemp who was in the opposing Nationalist Bandera at the time:

There was a grimmer side to the discipline, which reminded me how far I was from the O.T.C. The day after my arrival two troopers reported for duty incapably drunk; apparently they were old offenders. The following evening [their Catalan officer] Llancia formed the whole Squadron in a hollow square in the main barrack-room. Calling out the two defaulters in front of us, he shouted, ‘There has been enough drunkenness in this Squadron. I will have no more of it, as you are going to see.’ Thereupon he drove his fist into the face of one of them, knocking out most of his front teeth and sending him spinning across the room to crash through two ranks of men and collapse on the floor. Turning on the other he beat him across the face with a riding crop until the man dropped half senseless to the ground. He returned to his first victim, yanked him to his feet and laid open his face with the crop, disregarding his screams, until he fell inert beside his companion. Then he turned to us: ‘You have seen, I will not tolerate a single drunkard in this Squadron.’ The two culprits were hauled, sobbing, to their feet to have a half-pint of castor oil forced down their throats. They were on duty next day, but I never saw either of them drunk again.6

Not to say that drunkenness was tolerated in the Brigades.  Some Lincolns had files which reported that they had been sent to prison for one or two weeks because of being found drunk.  And their documents on leaving Spain reflected these events.  Each Brigadista had to report fully whether he had every been disciplined or arrested.  One child of a Brigadista was shown such a document from the Tamiment Archives and, while somewhat surprised, said “That does sound like him”.

Merriman finishes the 20th by noting that the new commandant of the training school will arrive on the 21st and that he was either a “French comrade or Italian lieutenant”.  He says he is a “good fellow”.  We will reveal his name in tomorrow’s pages of the diary.

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¹ RGASPI Fond 545/Opis3/Delo426/P25

² RGASPI Fond 545/Opis2/Delo50/P136-142

³ RGASPI Fond 545/Opis1/Delo37/P16.

4 RGASPI Fond 545/Opis3/Delo 433/p81.

5 Petrou, Renegades, ibid, Table of Mac-Paps.

6 Baxell, Unlikely Warriors,  ibid., Chapter 20.

5-6 Mayo “So Long Cast!”

May 5-6, 1937
Robert Merriman’s diary for May 5 and 6, 1937
Doran, Haldane, Merriman
Dave Doran, J. B. S. Haldane, and Robert Merriman, ALBA Photo 11-1363, Tamiment Library, NYU
Anti-Gas Unit
Anti-gas section of the Lincoln Battalion, ALBA Photo 11-1088, Tamiment Library, NYU

Robert Merriman must have been in a hurry on the fifth of May (Mexico’s national holiday) because he did not write much and much was a real scrawl.  He tells us that Hans Amlie is now an instructor at Pozorubio, the Officer’s Training School, so his “promotion” to avoid Sam Baron at Madrigueras was effective to get him to move up rapidly in the training cadre.   Cryptically, Merriman notes “Dr. and Olorenshaw” lectured on gas.   The Dr. is believed to be Prof. J. B. S. (John Burdon Sanderson) Haldane of England who travelled to Spain several times in 1937 to lecture on the use of poison gas in warfare.  Haldane, a geneticist, was the son of John Scott Haldane who experimented on gas and invented the gas mask.  Haldane wrote in 1925 that poison gas was no more immoral than other weapons of war.¹  Olorenshaw’s experience in WWI probably added to this lesson.   There was a Lincoln gas unit that was trained in Aquaviva in late 1937 (photo right).

After training ended on map lessons on the new “sand table”, Merriman talked with Walter Garland.  He notes that Haldane had a “burnt cork face”.   Burnt cork is still used to darken a white complexion for camouflage.  (Hopefully, you are more skilled at burning a cork than the guy in the video).

The sixth of May was a big day for Merriman as he got his cast removed and they had a cast signing ceremony with Bob Thompson, Andrew Royce and Marion Merriman.   Bob Merriman notes that Andrew Royce had deserted from the front and normally would not have been received so well at Albacete, but Merriman must have been in a good mood.   Chris Brooks has done a yeoman’s job in updating biographies of the Lincolns on the ALBA website and he notes that Royce was shell-shocked from Jarama and was withdrawn back to Albacete to run the Armory.

Ford-Shirai
Photograph believed to be from the Daily Worker which shows James Ford and Japanese-American Brigadier Jack Shirai.

Merriman confirms the names of the two important Americans who had arrived in Spain (and were given their own automobile to get around):  Robert Minor and James Ford.   James Ford was the Communist Party Vice Presidential candidate for President of the US in 1936.   It is probably during this visit that James Ford visited the lines and a photo was taken with Jack Shirai (this photo has been mistakenly attributed to be Paul Robeson and Jack Shirai, but Robeson does not come to Spain until January 1938).

Merriman says that he left camp with “Oppman and Roblet”.   Oppman is Tedeusz Oppman, a Polish officer who will go on to command the 13th Brigade².

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¹ J. B. S. Haldane, Callinicus: A Defense of Chemical Warfare. Kegan Paul, London, 1925.

² Hugh Thomas, Spanish Civil War, ibid., pg 324.

29-30 Abril Ludwig Renn comes to Lecture

29-30 April
Robert Merriman’s diary for the 29th and 30th of April, 1937

Training continues at Pozorubio’s Officer Training School.  Merriman notes that the training activities on the 29th of April were led by Walter Garland and Canadian Edward Cecil-Smith (“point advance problem”).  The second problem which did not get completed was led by John Hagileou and this indicates that he is being moved up from his duties as Mess Sergeant at Albacete.

Ludwig Renn, who was the commander of the Thaelmann Battalion of the XIth International Brigade, came to Pozorubio to lecture on earlier battles and the state of the Brigades.  He speaks of a battle which is believed to be that Battle of Guadarrama.   There are four battles that took place in the region of Guadarrama.  The first was the first battle of the war in July and August of 1936.   The second battle took place in December 1936 – January of 1937 in the Sierra Guadarrama which is northwest of Madrid.  This battle is discussed by Antony Beevor¹.

While the whole republican sector looked as if it were about to collapse, Miaja placed machine-guns at crossroads on the way to Madrid to stop desertion.  He ordered in XII International and Lister‘s Brigade.  In addition, XIV International Brigade was brought all the way round from the Córdoba front.  On January 7 Kléber ordered the Thaelmann Battalion to hold the enemy near Las Rozas, telling them ‘not to retreat a single centimeter under any circumstances’.  In a stand of sacrificial bravery they followed his order to the letter.  Only 35 men survived.¹

Having Renn discuss the heroic stand of the German Thaelmann Battalion would have been designed to show the XVth Brigade that their losses at Jarama were not unusual for the Internationals.  Interestingly, Merriman latched onto the failure of the Listers to move forward at Guadarrama, which is identical to the failure of the Spanish 24th Battalion to move forward at Jarama and where the Americans took such horrific losses on February 27.

There was reported to be a third battle of Guadarrama in March 31, 1937, but this reference is secondary and may be a mistake².  The fourth battle of Guadarrama is also discussed by Beevor and took place in May and June of 1937.¹   This battle decimated the French XIVth Battalion who passively absorbed a beating by aircraft and artillery.

After Renn’s lecture, Merriman takes the OTS to Albacete to stand guard and uses the opportunity to see Marion and “Sunny Kaminski”.  The last man is not known at this point but could be Levie Kaminsky who went by the nom de guerre Edward Brown.

Merriman meets with Alex McDade of Scotland and finds him “not much” but says he probably will have to take him to Pozorubio for OTS.  McDade may have not appeared a great soldier but he became famous for penning the poem “Valley of Jarama” which has become a theme song for the Lincoln Brigade and is sung to the tune of “Red River Valley”³ (the Woody Guthrie lyrics are sung by Pete Seeger and the Almanac Singers here):

There’s a valley in Spain called Jarama,
That’s a place that we all know so well,
for ’tis there that we wasted our manhood,
And most of our old age as well.

From this valley they tell us we’re leaving
But don’t hasten to bid us adieu
For e’en though we make our departure
We’ll be back in an hour or two

Oh, we’re proud of our British Battalion,
And the marathon record it’s made,
Please do us this one little favour
And take this last word to Brigade:

“You will never be happy with strangers,
They would not understand you as we,
So remember the Jarama Valley
And the old men who wait patiently”.

Merriman finishes the month by discussing weaponry.  He talks of a new German machine gun and a machine pistol, perhaps the Mauser 96.  In the afternoon, he worked on a “Lewis Gun“.

Rosey is likely to be Joseph Rosenstein (discussed earlier).  The issue of “shelling peas” is cryptic.  Perhaps it actually is about shelling peas (i.e. KP duty).  There is a slang phrase “easy as shelling peas” meaning something is trivial.  Perhaps Merriman used this phrase earlier and was reaping the backlash.  Merriman finishes the day with a meeting with the leadership group of Steve Nelson, Bill Lawrence, Harry Haywood and Ed Bender.  Bill Lawrence (a.k.a. William Lazar) and  Ed Bender arrived at Albacete in April and came to Europe together on the SS Vollendam on March 27.  Lawrence, Haywood and Bender are seen together in a photo from this period in Albacete:

Lawrence_Haywood_Bender
Bill Lawrence, Harry Haywood and Ed Bender, Albacete, 1937.4

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¹ Antony Beevor, The Battle for Spain. The Spanish Civil War. Penguin Books. London. 2006. pages 347 and 429

²http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Guadarrama

³http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There’s_a_Valley_in_Spain_called_Jarama_(Song)

4 Carroll, Odyssey of the Lincoln Brigade, ibid.

27-28 Abril Merriman returns to Pozorubio and to training

27-28 April
Robert Merriman’s Diary from the 27th and 28th of April, 1937
Begelman
Elias Begelman, Image Source: RGASPI Archives, Moscow, Fond 545 Opus 6 Delo 862.

Merriman’s short sojourn in Madrid ended and he returned to Pozo Rubio to resume his teaching at the Officer Training School.  He found Elias Begelman had been wearing a stripe that he was not entitled to and he needed to reprimand him.  The infringement was not serious enough and Merriman was able to say that he had confidence in Begelman who would move up to deserve those stripes by June 1937.  Merriman finds from Al Robbins that the school is still not running smoothly and that reorganization into sections was necessary.

Pozorubio
Palacio (Castillo) de Pozorubio at Pinares del Jucar outside Albacete. This is the location of many of the training schools of the International Brigades. Photograph from SpainCenter.org.

About this time, the Pozo Rubio school was organizing curriculum for training and several  courses had been developed:

School for machine gunners and rifle-machine gunners (7 days)

School for  Officers and NCO’s (15 days for those with experience and 25 days for Spanish who had no prior military experience)

Command school for Subalterns (15 days)

Officer’s School for Commanders and Heads of Battalions (15 days)¹

It is possible that leaders would then spend as much as two months at Pozorubio before going to the lines.

Merriman returns from Pozo Rubio to Albacete to see the doctor about his arm.  He is informed that there is no point rebreaking the injured arm.  That must have been comforting and discomforting at the same time.  In subsequent photos, however, Merriman is shown with his left arm in all kinds of positions so he must have regained full range of motion of his shoulder.

Merriman mentions that Rosenstein stayed all evening.  He confirms on this page that the Stone discussion previously is Joe Stone (Sheer Isaac Hershkowitz).  Merriman shows that rank has privilege by throwing a German captain out of his room at Albacete and “organizing” it.  Mess Sgt. John Hagileou and “Pete” (probably Peter Hampkins) helped him get the room.  Merriman drinks with Stone and Bob Thompson in the evening.

Richard Baxell has noted that April 28, 1937, was an important day for the XVth International Brigade.  On that date, they were replaced on the line by the XIVth Brigade (French) in Jarama and taken to Morata de Tajuña where they would rest.   Baxell notes:

Before leaving, an ‘impressive memorial service’ for the members of the battalion killed at Jarama and a stone memorial, in the shape of a five-pointed star, was erected.²

The British Battalion was pulled back further to Alcala de Heneres and subsequently would base their training in Mondejar, both east of Madrid and south of Guadalajara.  The Brigade Estado Major would be based at Ambite, also a few kilometers away.  General Gal would have a villa outside Ambite where he would direct activities for much of the rest of the year.  The Americans would later be based close by at Albares.

Baxell’s book (which is now available in paperback) points out that the relief gave the Brigades time to deal with issues that arose in Jarama and one was the accusation that Bert Overton’s actions included a “self-promotion” and a possible defection of his unit from a battle situation.  The result of the investigation was the removal of Overton’s stripes and a court-martial.   He was sentenced to a labor battalion and then sent back to the front where he was ‘killed by a shell while carrying munitions to a forward position.’²

Overton’s removal will be discussed by Merriman in the diary in a posting in late May which may put the actual court-martial and removal at a somewhat later date.

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¹ RGASPI Fond 545, Opis 2, Delo 231 pp 8-9, March 26, 1937.  RGASPI Archives, Moscow, Russia.

² Richard Baxell, Unlikely Warriors:  The British in the Spanish Civil War and the Struggle Against Fascism,  Aurum Library,  London, 2012. pp 171-2.