The Spanish Civil War
The Guadalahara Offensive

Enter the Red Air Force

by Pat Condray
photos by the author

Mills Savage’s paper (11) on the air campaign carries an anecdotal account of the discovery of the Italian columns from the air. This kind of information was not uncommon. The U.S. Assistant Attaché for air, Captain Townsend Griffiss, seems to have been well connected in Republican aviation circles. He had taught some of the American volunteers at the Pursuit School (although the high scorer, flying I-15s, was Frank Tinker, an Annapolis man.) Griffiss was so well connected that he was at one point accused of “non-neutral behavior,” but vindicated and kept on hand at the Attaché’s request. In any case, the story of the discovery was reported as follows:

“On the tenth the biplane pursuit commander at Guadalajara received an order for one plane to make a careful reconnaissance along the main road between Guadalajara and Algora by flying east along the road going out and west on returning at the most advantageous altitude. -It should be kept in mind that the weather and the visibility were extremely poor. The pilot selected for the reconnaissance flew over Torija and received the OK signal from the Russian air commander. Due to low clouds, rain and dangerous flying conditions the pilot was unable to stay in continuous sight of the ground with the result that he was able to observe only through occasional cleared spots. Naturally his observations were limited and when he reached Algora and had begun the return flight he had observed nothing of importance. However, he instinctively felt that his mission was a great deal more than a routine reconnaissance and that he had failed to locate that which he was sent out to find even though it had not been so expressed. So when he was between Gajanejos and Utande he decided to make another circuit of the area that he had just covered, but taking in more territory to the east. He crossed the main road southwest of Gajanejos, flew south of and around Brihuega, and proceeded north to strike the main road again. By this time the clouds had broken a little more and the pilot had better sight of the ground. Suddenly antiaircraft shells began exploding uncomfortably close to his plane and he was forced to dive in and out of the clouds for protection. After a few minutes of such maneuvers the pilot was able to get a good view of the ground situation and saw on the main road near Almadrones and Ledanca a truck convoy advancing toward Guadalajara...By the time he reached the count of sixty -with an estimated twenty-five more to go he was again forced to seek protection in the clouds. When he again emerged he discovered that there was a second column of trucks on the secondary road extending from opposite Almadrones to Brihuega and that it was this convoy that had been firing at him. The pilot immediately returned to Guadalajara and rendered his report.”

There is some confusion since there was at least one, probably two secondary roads between the Caraterra and the Tajuna. The maps published in Mills Savage’s article, and those provided by Willoughby (doubtless from the same source) show the Caraterra Franzia on which the Penne Nere advanced, and another that ran along west bank of the Tajuna from Masegosa to Brihuega. But we know that another road ran from near the intersection of the Caraterra and the Masagosa road over to Brihuega, on which the foot march of the Fiamme Neri and Francisci’s 5th Regiment took place.

Especially south of the Torija-Brihuega road the heavily wooded Bosque de Brihuega region stretched almost from Torija to Brihuega, and in it about midway between the Almadrones-Brihuega and the Torija Brihuega road was the Palacio d’Ibarra, a stone chateau with outbuildings and walls. Later fighting developed between the XII Internationals and Fiamme Nere elements on the Torija Brihuega road. But the hapless Littorio Major and his fellow prisoners (12) said they were on their way to support Nuvolini. He probably reached the Bosque de Brihuega by a road between that followed by Francisci and the Caraterra. It may have been the one from which the Republican air scout was fired on.

By now the Republican high command had ordered all available reinforcements to the front. Leading elements were the XI International Brigade had moved to positions north of Torija, while the XII International Brigade, in trucks with motorcycle scouts out in front, was moving down the Torija-Brihuega road. Thus along the base of the triangle in which the heaviest fighting would occur.

Apparently on the 10th the scouts, drawn from the Garibaldi Battalion, would accomplish two critical feats. First, they encountered cyclists scouting ahead of the 3rd Blackshirts, giving them the famous advice that the road ahead was in friendly (Italian) hands. After deploying the XII IB to ambush the leading elements of the Penne Nere’s left flank column, the Garibaldini went on to make the celebrated capture already reported of Major Antonio and the Littorio MG Battalion’s staff platoon.

My guess is that the 2nd Blackshirts, and Francisci, moved on down to Brihuega. But there are other roads coming down to the Palacio area. These may have represented the easternmost line of advance for Penne Nere. In any case, after Francisci had seized Brihuega the Fiamme Nere attacked westward. But the Penne Nere, whose main line of advance went by way of Trijueque, seems to have been engaged just west of there.

By the night of the tenth the C.T.V. was encountering resistance along the whole somewhat porous front. Maija, the overall Republican Commander, had the two International Brigades, both somewhat battleworn from the Madrid/Jarama fighting, taking over from the 12th Division elements. Most of the latter were sent to contain the Soria Division over the Badiel. Elements of Pavlov’s Russian Armor were supporting the International Brigades, both of which had suffered casualties and been supplemented with Spaniards. But the Spanish replacements were spinoffs of the Spanish Communist Party’s(Partido Communista Espanol or PCE) elite “5th Regiment,” which served as a training ground for the Republic’s best soldiers. Moreover, the Garibaldini in particular seem to have taken a fiendish delight, and displayed an amazing competence, at fighting their Fascist countrymen.

Other reinforcements included the 70th Brigata Mixta, composed of Anarchist former militia formations pulled out of the Madrid front, disarmed, then rearmed and fed into the Guadalajara sector. More impressive was a smallish Brigata, the 65th, which lacked all supporting weapons except MMG, but was composed of converged Carabineros companies. Unusual among the participants, these men knew how to use their Mauser rifles and MMG.

The Spanish Civil War The Guadalahara Offensive

Back to Table of Contents -- Courier #84
To Courier List of Issues
To MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 2002 by The Courier Publishing Company.
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com