At the beginning of the
Spanish
Civil War a battlefront
was established at Aragón. The first major campaign took place
at Aragón in June 1937.
The purpose of the Republican offensive was to draw the Nationalist
Army from
Bilbao. The first battle took place at Huesca where the Republicans
suffered 1,000 casualties. The campaign was a failure and General
Francisco
Franco
was able
to enter Bilbao on 19th June.
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Last updated: 10th April, 2002
(1)
Jack Freeman, member of the Abraham
Lincoln Battalion, letter from Aragón
(22nd October, 1937)
We
moved into the trenches one morning before light and, as soon as dawn
came, the crap began to fly. Then started my education. Some of the
old-timers explained the various sounds to me. At first anytime anything
whizzed, whistled, or buzzed, I would duck. Then I found out that
any bullet which passes anywhere near you will whistle. Ricochets,
that is, bullets which have already hit the ground or a rock or something
and bounce off in a different direction, buzz when they go by. When
bullets come very close they sound more like a whine than a whistle.
But the most important
thing of all about these bullet sounds is never to worry about any
bullet you hear. Bullets travel much faster than sound, strange as
that may seem, and the bullet is way past you by the time you hear
it. As it's put out here, "You'll never hear the slug that gets
you."
Of course, it's pretty
hard to control your instinctive tendency to duck when you hear a
loud noise, but the only time it really pays to duck is when you hear
a burst of machine gun fire and hear them come over you. You can't,
of course, duck the first few if they're coming at you, but you can
get out of the way of the rest of the burst.
Well, the first morning
I'm keeping low in the trench and not too much interested in the intricacies
of military education, when these trench mortars start coming over.
They whistle for a long time before they hit and that just increases
the agony, waiting for them to land. When these things start coming
the battle commander shouts "Everybody down in the trench."
So I stick my nose six inches below the level of my heels and then
the commander finishes his sentence, "That doesn't go for the
observational staff. Locate that gun."
So I found out what observing
under fire meant. Poor me has got to spend my time sticking my nose
through peep holes when it's much more comfortable two feet below,
and my head and shoulders over the parapet half the night, and when
the big bastards come over instead of dropping we've got to watch.
It was pretty tough the first morning but I soon got used to it.
You see, after a while
you get the feeling that what's going to happen to you, if anything,
will happen pretty much in spite of anything you do. That doesn't
mean we become dauntless heroes and walk out of our way to take risks
because we like to watch the patterns the bullets kick up in the dust,
but it does mean that we don't become nervous wrecks bobbing up and
down every time a mosquito buzzes around your left ear. It's the only
kind of defense mechanism you can adopt.
Shortly after noon that
first day we went over the top. For about three quarters of an hour
after the beginning of the attack I didn't think I'd get a chance
to climb over that hump. I was stationed next to the commander in
a pretty exposed observation post keeping wise to how our boys were
going, so that the attack could be properly directed. The commander,
you understand, does not move up until the troops have taken up a
position, even a temporary one, in advance of the original lines.
But if you think that's safe, you're cock-eyed. He's got to keep calm
and see everything that's going on when every instinct is pulling
him down to a covered position.
Communication with the
men out front is maintained by runners. Pretty soon we ran out of
runners, so I got my chance. But the company I had been sent out to
contact had had some tough going and was pretty well scattered and
difficult to find. I went out, couldn't find the company commander
nor anyone else who knew where he was. So I was in a fix. I didn't
want to return until I had contacted them and I couldn't find them.
I roamed around that god-damned no-man's land, sometimes running,
sometimes crawling, sometimes snake-bellying, and holy cow, was that
a time. I didn't of course know where in hell my men were and one
time I crawled up to within fifty meters of the fascist lines before
a sniper reminded me where I was.
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