Today In History

ARMY IN THE RANKS OF ALLY

Actually , Miguel Ramira not called Miguel Ramira . Of particular about theory. " When you start a war , everything can change : even your name." It's what Eduardo Pons Prades historian dubbed " the war entropy " in custom adventure of Miguel . The July 18, 1936 , he was a pastor of Grazalema (Cádiz ) concerned that the Moroccan haze will not come up and dry pastures and soon discovered that he was not trying to leave the guts on the deck of a foreign ship , thousands of miles from home . Until the winter of 39 , his story is a struggle in permanent withdrawal . He fought with the Republicans guerrillas in the Sierra de Ronda, retreated to Malaga and Valencia joint 31 attached to the brigade, and then on the Ebro, with the legendary body 12 of the Army. Later, he suffered defeat : Barcelona , La Junquera and an internment camp in Perpignan . There he died Ramira Miguel Ramirez and Miguel was born , just as hunger and the latent threat of deportation did you enlist in the French Foreign Legion under the umbrella of another identity. An official said his name wrong and Miguel decided not to fix and accept barter : a new name to change to keep fighting . In its current figure and even documents .

An official said his name wrong and Miguel decided not to fix and accept barter : a new name to change to keep fighting

A Miguel does not miss that Republicans enlisted in the French Foreign Legion , with the explicit blackmail forced back across the Pyrenees , were there to be cannon fodder . His training in Oran was not a walk . Some French officers looked on with suspicion as a strange entourage defeated, useless spectra for battle. " They forgot that we had many more reasons for them to face Germany." Gernika , the Condor armored Madrid . " Besides, explains Ramira - , any of us had over three years of war ." The most senior , novice and tactical Academy boys suspected of allegedly unruly and anarchic character of the Spanish exiles , had never seen combat .





The May 12, 1940 saw the first landing of allied forces under enemy fire in World War II . "In the end they only served as evidence ." The Wehrmacht had occupied Norway in April. In the port of Narvik , a natural anchorage escorted mountains ( " a nightmare for any attacker " ) carrying the Swedish iron factories that supplied the Third Reich. "The only way to take it was one of those amphibious operations which everyone was talking , but no one had ever tried."

" They forgot that we had many more reasons for them to face Germany." Gernika , the Condor armored Madrid

The British and French expeditionary forces and decided to try. The Spaniards of the 13 hit Semibrigada exert them ahead in the assault . There, a few feet leaving the barge , where he was strafed . He was evacuated to Scotland emergency . When he was discharged , he was paid allies delivery with the option of living in a greyhound racing stadium , crowded with thousands of European refugees . In the movie screen Shepherd Bush heard that Winston Churchill scream that cross in the world between good and evil raged . On August 28 , just recovered from his wounds , he enlisted in the Royal Regiment Queen . "This time I took the step voluntarily " he explains. I felt , "modestly ," I could not do otherwise.

With the Regiment fought in the Far East, until he was transferred to the Number One Company Pioneer Corps ( the 'Spanish Company ' ) . Doing guards in Bournemouth on April 44, discovered the maneuvers that the Allies did in New Forest. The D-Day rehearsal He wondered if he would play part in making France. He thought so. He succeeded . He landed in Normandy shortly after the assault , but fortunately , this time he suffered the first line. Taut wire and built bridges .

IN GERMAN SIDE

The Russian memory of Manuel Mendoza is a lame puzzle pieces, jumbled , sometimes fit and sometimes not and force an absurd interview, full of gaps and repetitions . Manuel is exhausted and loses the thread constantly strives to move and disjointed speech by hovering , occasionally , shocking details.

Remember, for example, participated in the siege of Leningrad (which now met 70 years) , attached to the Artillery Regiment of the Blue Division , under command of Colonel Badillo . But do not know if you remember just because or because someone bother to explain later, I propped the details that he has already escaped , flags , dates , fronts , the positions of his battalion . Know who was at the Blau Division with at least two other countrymen of his people, one of whom confirmed the story with an involuntary exit and far : dry testimony of his name, carved in one of the German cemetery headstones Novgorod. " Pitera " says the old man , referring to his fellow by the mote. " There was charged to Pitera " .

Manuel explains , in a way that not everyone in the military or Division Phalangists were obsessed with stop in the Urals Soviet power . There were also outcasts , starved , converts enrolled to wash their fault, impostors willing to change trench and, above all , guys with bad luck, tough guys or big heads like Manuel who failed to keep up appearances and finished it by filling in the so-called " quota dirty " money mules , ' mataliendres ' or undertakers . " I ended up in Russia because I messed up twice ," says the grandfather.

"Damn , I went to Russia as " sums Manuel . "I thought it could not be worse than jail," he says. " But I was wrong "

The first . A few days after the uprising, Manuel , a teenager oblivious to the lack of political will and culture , goes to Puerto Serrano from the farm where she keeps pigs in exchange for a miserable wage. A patrol of the Falangist Coronil gives the senior and requests the pass . Manuel does not have any documentation, but is determined to continue. The patrol gives him a beating death . Manuel does not forget the insult . Year and a half later , and forcibly recruited by the national side , ask for a volunteer at The Coronil . On their first night in town, gets drunk . All the bars out of question for Falange who is seeking "to return a favor ." The Civil Guard stops him and sends him to jail for shouting death threats.

The second . Manuel , with the history of leaks and insubordination planted exerts guard in the prison of El Puerto. A captain (" Captain Terry ," he says ) he engaged in ugly delousing of prisoners, some of whom were known to the Sierra . The captain called vague and orders him to kick brightness latrines . Then, "to ensure" that the bathrooms are clean, Mendoza intended to kiss the edge of a toilet . Manuel refuses . Terry tries to compel by force, takes him by the neck, he bends his arm and head down to the water of the toilet, but in the middle of the fray , the soldier turns around and bite the captain tip . Le starts ear. Following the Council of War, a colonel , unofficially, gives you two options: either is ten years imprisonment or enlists volunteer to go to Russia. "Damn , I went to Russia as " sums Manuel . "I thought it could not be worse than jail," he says. " But I was wrong ."

DEAD BODIES EVERYWHERE

Mendoza said that some nights still remember how cold it was in the desert and he enters the shivering . Cold is the only incoherent narrative sown inconcreciones and jumps in time constant. In the winter of 42 , the Division suffered temperatures of 40 degrees below zero. The Spaniards, input , had lower freeze- fire combat . " It was so cold I spent my days drinking brandy ," says the old man , smile at the ready. "O wedged between the beasts " . " Red soldiers saw few ," he admits . " But dead ... dead did see . Many dead. Of ours. "

When he reached the front , the official responsible for assigning tasks quickly see that Manuel had a way with animals. Was assigned a herd of mares and mules that served to vary the position of the guns . "With so much snow and mud, they were more reliable than cars. And less froze . " So the recruit, in rear, went cold, moving artillery, drank brandy and dozing among the beasts , until the Russians got tired of playing cat and mouse and , in winter, decided to break the front.

In rear, went cold, moving artillery, drank brandy and dozing among the beasts , until the Russians got tired of playing cat and mouse and decided to break the front

It is possible that what Mendoza lived close out surf Russian counterattack February 43, an action that caused the desperate Spaniards 1,121 dead, 1,035 wounded and 300 captured in 24 hours. "I remember the fuss in the troop , but we were not at the forefront. And the bombing that destroyed the front and Pitera killed . " " Yes, I remember ," the old man insisted , pleased with himself , but is unable to bring a date. Also perfectly recalls the night his commanding officer sentenced to a lifetime nightmare .





Throughout the day , Russian bombs had shattered the Spanish positions. " The officer ordered me to get a car as soon as the sun went down , I approached the front and carry him dead with care if there was any living Spanish . No truck wanted us to be quiet . "

Manuel 's car crossed twice the stretch of snow that separated the camp from the battlefield . Occasionally , Russian flares illuminated the ice plain bordering the periphery of the city, and then Manuel and his partner realized the magnitude of the effort : "There were bodies everywhere , half buried in the snow you ." Nothing moved . No one complained . Nobody asked for help . The cold was commissioned to finish off the wounded.

" The officer looked me up and down and said, ' Go wash , Mendoza , which look like a butcher ' "

Manuel and his partner in the morgue downloaded the last car of dead soldiers (after miraculously knew any still breathing ) and ended at dawn service . Exhausted, covered in blood and mud , the old man remembers who came to see his officer. "I asked a long leave because she had caught a bit of disgust ," he says . Now, when it counts, not smiling . In the slang of the trenches , " suck fuck " meant go into shock in paranoid or depressive phase . " The officer looked me up and down and said, ' Go wash , Mendoza , which look like a butcher .'"

THE LAST BATTLE AND MENDOZA RAMIRA

Before being demobilized in 1946 , Miguel Ramira lost the last battle. The Allied high command decided that Berlin was enough. Thousands of Spaniards fighting under its banner all attended with stupor to resignation of Yalta. "First Hitler ," he said . " Then Franco" . " We were deceived." "I was and am against all dictatorships , whatever color they are ." Today , living in London and widower of Biscay , daughter of Republicans like him, Michael would be proud to have contributed (with blood) to rid the world of a monster. Also the story begins, slowly , to recognize his achievement . Blond French researcher George Ramira writes about the soldier and his companions : " Many officers they had looked askance , contemptuously calling them ' red ' and complaining that they were in Norway. However, after they highlighted in their reports ' had fought like lions ' in the rugged mountains of Narvik " . Five hundred and gray snowy grave, lost in a small Nordic cemetery attest that they did.

Manuel Mendoza bears no physical reminder of those days . " What for? " . Suggests that broke off all (including a wall clock that failed in the assault on an empty mansion and are determined to bring Spain ) after the death of Franco , purely caution or fear . Of the others, giving the cold, it does retain a few. Harsh memories like him. Images , especially at night , is assailed by memory. For example, faces frozen grave or broken ear Pitera Captain Terry . And the dead. "Many dead. Of us. There no one moved . That's what I do remember : there nobody was moving









" I'm an old hard," says Manuel Mendoza , giving slaps on knees. Manuel , bony face, sharp nose , a slight smirk , speaking in the living room of his house, with his stick on the side of the chair, his cap in the other, turned on the TV and mute. " He's dying around the world," notes , with a touch of pride. Twists his mouth in an ambiguous gesture , a gesture meaning " shame " but also " I'm still here ." Then start an endless list of names and nicknames , elders of Puerto Serrano ( Cádiz) , deceased , and ends with a "I do not like funerals " who may or may not hide sarcasm .

" A tough old " repeats . At 94, Manuel has to be to stay on here , " making war " with the sole burden of minor ailments. "I remember correctly ," he complains . " And my bones ache from the cold I spent in Russia." It is difficult to weigh him grandpa still 40 degrees below zero which suffered at the Siege of Leningrad, but Manuel nobody dares contradict him . It is not difficult to understand why. It is not difficult to understand why.The other veteran, Miguel Ramira is also tough. It has 93 years and seven bullets in his body. The scars on his chest up to the neck. The projectiles you drew a diagonal zipper and left him a sort of dotted seam. The injuries, he says, are "a reminder of Narvik Bay." Have others: dizziness on the barges, the coast in flames, the reflection of the cannonade on the Norwegian Sea.