Written by the famous British International brigader and appeared in a manual for the British forces in 1940.

At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War there were many cases of infantry being dislodged from their positions by air attack. The number of these cases rapidly decreased as the infantry received some training and as they developed methods of protection and counter attack against aircraft.

The entirely untrained militia who formed the bulk of the Spanish forces at the start of the war usually took position in straight line strung out along the embanked edge of a field or olive grove, or in a sunken road. Near most Spanish villages the cart tracks had been used for a very long period and their surfaces had never been made up. These tracks were therefore two or three feet lower than the surrounding soil, and to untrained soldiers seemed sufficiently good trenches.

In fact, they were useless against attack from the air. They were so wide that the bombs that would burst harmlessly outside the parapet of a normal trench were likely to burst high up on the bank of the sunken road and kill or wound everyone within reach of the splinters. these roads were so straight and so easily seen from the air that enemy aircraft could tour along them using machine guns with deadly effect.

UNCONTROLLED FIRE POWER

The efforts made to use rifle and machine gun fire against enemy aircraft only resulted in a waste of ammunition, because the untrained men had no idea of how to aim at a rapidly moving aeroplane and because their firepower was completely uncontrolled. As a result Franco's airforce seemed to be a dominant weapon in this early period of the war; they could be relied upon to help his infantry forward against any opposition they met.

A rapid change came when Franco's forces approached Madrid in November 1936. The first efforts towards making the militia into an organised army were starting to show results. A certain number of positions were entrenched, and some of these trenches - though not all - were laid out on modern lines. A few trenches had head cover of reinforced concrete. Reinforcements put into the line near Madrid included units from other fronts that had developed a certain amount of discipline and fire control. The International Brigades had also reached the line at this time; although these Brigades after a period of training varying from 1 to 6 weeks had not yet shaken down into fully disciplined units, many of the men in them had military experience either from the Great War or from their conscript training in European armies. They were able to set an example in the matter of resistance to air attack.

From November 1936 the nationalist airforce was no longer a dominant weapon against infantry, although for some time they remained their most important weapon. Later as methods of concealment, protection and counter action against aircraft were developed by the Republie, Franeo came to switch reliance to artillery for his forces to advance effectively.

We found that infantry with some training and discipline could always, in the latter half of the war be relied on to its job in spite of an air attack, at any rate as well as the job could be done when opposed by a force of another sort. When we were trying to advance, half a dozen enemy machine guns on the ground would hold us up longer and cause more casualties than half a dozen machine guns flying above our heads. This is largely because ground machine guns, if well dug in and supplied with ammo could stay where they were day and night, while the aircraft had to go home for more petrol, ammo and rest for pilots and crews.

When we were trying to defend positions we were seldom subjected to machine gun fire from the air; we contrived to make it to dangerous for enemy aircraft to come down to the height from which they could use their guns. We were often, however subject to bombing. This was at all times unpleasant,, but in the later stages of the war seldom hampered our infantry as mueh as might have been expected.

THE VALUE OF THE BOMBER

One of our Brigades, in March/April 1938 was trying to hold a mountain crest position that would have been very difficult to for enemy infantry or tanks to attack. This position commanded a main road along which the nationalists were driving through our retreating divisions towards the sea. From his point of view our brigade had to be shifted as quickly as possible. There was no cover from air observations and action on this mountain: trenches were deep but hastily made; narrow but not camouflaged. Franco concentrated 180 bombers against this brigade and blew them out of their positions.

They could also, I am sure, have been blown out of their trenches if sixty 150/155 mm guns been concentrated against them. I imagine it costs more in money and manpower - in military effort- to make and service three planes than it does to service one howitzer. From that view Franco was wasting effort. But, he wanted a quick result. It would have taken him 3 or 4 days to get 60 howitzers into position; his air units could be organised in 3 or 4 hours.

This seemed to us the principal value of the plane against trained infantry; it is a sort of artillery that can be concentrated very quickly to check an enemy breakthrough or to hammer at a centre of resistance when your enemy is retreating. But while the plane seemed to us to have great value when used along these lines it did not have the all conquering, world beating weapon that some have made it out to be.

Counter Attack

The methods we used to counter air attack changed as our army became more experienced.

At first the great need was control and discipline. Useless fire against aircraft had to be cut down, because it only had to be added to the possibility of panic and wasted ammo, of which we were always short. Our first training, therefore emphasised only the passive aspects of resistance to air attack. If I remember rightly, the first days instruction given by myself to a company of the British battalion's consisted almost entirely of methods of scattering and finding cover if attacked without warning from the air when moving on the road or in the field.

We laid emphasis on dispersal of men sufficiently widely to ensure any bombs falling among them would injure only 2 or 3; this seemed to us more important than the securing of a little cover from air observation. the plane approaches so rapidly that it is likely to have spotted some men of any unit as large as a company, before they can find cover. If emphasis is laid on finding cover there is every likelihood that too large a number of men will bunch together under the nearest tree or bush. Even if these men are not hit by the first bombs to fall, they will be likely to have given the units position away when their n.c o orders some of them to move in order to reduce the bunching.

Movement shows up so much from the air that we preferred men to scatter rapidly for as short a distance as might be necessary and then lie still, whether they were in the open or not. At this period and for some months afterwards we forbade rifle fire against enemy aircraft because the movement involved and the visible rifle flashes gave away the position of the unit.

Later, I myself taught a method of fire against enemy aircraft by light machine guns though without knowing whether it was accepted doctrine in the Spanish army. This was as follows: the gunner should aim at a point at least 4 lengths ahead of the aeroplane passing him, or considerably above a plane which seemed to be diving directly towards him. He should hold his fire until the plane was not more than 330 yards away from the point at which it seemed likely to be nearest his gun. having begun to fire he should fire a full drum of cartridges.

He should not try to follow the movement of the plane with his gun, but should try to lay down a barrage of bullets ahead of the plane (or in the case of a diving plane just above it) in such a way that if the plane continued on its course it would invariably run into the fire of his gun.

"SCATTER, LIE DOWN, KEEP YOUR FACES DOWN"

So little reliable information was available about machines brought down by infantry fire that it is not possible to say definitely whether this way of using light machine guns worked better than alternate methods; and we had no towed targets on which to practice. But, whatever methods were adopted most commanders agreed that it was useful to employ all or a large proportion or their light machine guns against enemy aircraft when they came into range.

It was on the other hand necessary to restrain gunners from firing at planes which remained far too high from them to reach. It was even more necessary to emphasise continually that when attacked by aircraft while in the line, the infantryman's first duty is to look out for signs of movement by the enemy infantry. If the enemy infantry launch an attack under cover of bombardment by his own planes, no rifles or machine guns may be used against the enemy aircraft; all must be used or kept ready for use against the enemy infantry.

Our main protection remained dispersal and the discipline of troops who could lie in the open under air attack without raising their heads to watch the bombs. Our policy of hitting back at low flying raiders, whenever their attack was separated in time from the main infantry attack, was additional and secondary to our main rule, "scatter, lie down, keep your faces down."

By these methods we found it possible to do our job as infantry under any air attack except when this was so heavily coneentrated as to make our position untenable.