Sources
Sunday Independent 12th June 1960.
�The Jarama,� say the Irish, �was no picnic.�
The Irish have taken over from Moorish troops in the ruins of Ciempozuelos, a small town on the Jarama River, south of Madrid. As Franco tightens his grip on the approaches to the red-occupied capital, the 15th Bandera is called upon to play its part.
Trenches ankle deep in mud, barbed wire entanglements, dugouts hewn in the walls of the trenches, rain that pitter-pattered unceasingly for days � that could be the word picture of any sector of the Western Front in the First World War. In fact it describes the sector held by the 15th Bandera of the Spanish Legion, Irishmen all, who fought at the side of Franco�s troops to keep Communism out of Spain.
Days of soaking rain followed nights of bitter cold for these men all through January, February and March of 1937. This was soldiering at its worst and at its best. The conditions in which these young Irishmen fought and lived were appalling. But to a man they were volunteers, the best fighting material any leader could desire.
Any one of those hundreds of Irishmen, who formed the 15th Bandera, or the Irish Brigade, as they were known, will say without exaggeration that the Jarama River fighting was no picnic. Comdt. Diarmuid O�Sullivan, who left Seafield Road in Dublin, to enlist in the Brigade as soon as it was formed, discloses one episode of those hectic days and nights in the ditch-trenches close to the shell ruined town of Ciempozuelos. Comdt. O�Sullivan was OC of the Irish Bandera when Major Dalton, a native of Co. Waterford, was invalided home.
Dugout
In a letter to his father he told how General O�Duffy, who led the Bandera, once returned to the trenches after a short visit to GHQ. General O�Duffy spent as much time as possible with the young men he had recruited. Immediately after his return to Ciempozuelos he went to his dugout in the front line.
That night was quiet, except for an occasional burst of machine gun fire. By now the Irish were used to being under fire. Morning came and the General seemed to enjoy his breakfast of coffee and bread, while the Red gunners behind the Ciempozuelos hills began their daily ranging on the positions held by the men from Ireland.
After breakfast General O�Duffy with Comdt. O�Sullivan and Captain Finnerty started on a round of inspection of the Brigade stores. These were in a shell-battered factory about a mile behind the trenches.
Up Front
Capt. Finnerty, a Dublinman, had been a member of the 1st Battalion, Dublin Brigade, IRA, from 1917 to 1922 and had afterwards served in the Free State Army. Neither officer wanted the General to take the route he did take. There was little cover and it led through an area to which the Red gunners paid particular attention.
The passage of that shell-torn strip was made in safety and General O�Duffy interviewed every officer in Capt. Finnerty�s quarters, discussing with them, food, clothing and water supplies. Later in the morning they returned to the General�s dugout in the front line. It was a dugout no more comfortable than those used by his men. It was built with sandbags and stones for sidewalls. It had a ground sheet for a roof. That night the general and his officers curled up on makeshift beds while the rain kept hissing and gurgling.
Night attack
Comdt. O�Sullivan�s account is this: �At 3.30 a.m. we were awakened by the din of intense rifle fire, coupled with fierce trench-mortar and hand-grenade explosions. The boys were in action again, repelling a determined night attack. Comparative quiet was restored about 5.30 a.m. and the reserves who had been rushed into the trenches were once more back in their dug-outs to continue their interrupted sleep.
�The General and the officers not on duty also retired tog et a few hours sleep before attending Mass, which was celebrated each morning at 8.30 in the front line by a Carlist chaplain.
Barrage
�We were tucked in (all we normally took off going to bed was our caps) when
we had to turn out again. This time our exit was, if anything, faster and
more determined than the first, as the Reds opened up an intensive artillery
barrage lasting about two-and-a-half hours. Capt. Quinn (from Gowran, Kilkenny)
and I made a beeline for the General�s dugout which was next to ours.
At the entrance we bumped into Capt. Finnerty and Lieut. Timlin. To the accompaniment of a whistling shell the four of us dived headlong into the dugout, burying the General as we did so. The shell left a gaping hole a few yards from the entrance to the dugout.
Shell burst
�But this was only the start as the Rojos (Reds) had not yet found an accurate range. They pounded away, lobbing shells on both sides and in front of us until at last they started to fall on the road immediately behind our dugout.
�Two shells burst almost simultaneously and more than two yards above and to the rear of the dugout. So great was the force of the explosions that Quinn and Timlin were hurled half way out of the dugout. Then General. Finnerty and myself were almost buried under a heap of falling sandbags and caved in walls. This was certainly a lucky escape for all of us.
Escape
�It seemed to indicate that the prayers of the Irish people at home and abroad were at that moment answered, as the Reds lengthened their range and started to shell the old factory. After dropping about 25 more shells they apparently retired for their morning coffee and rolls, leaving us in peace.� Comdt. O�Sullivan, writing in his dugout, continued his account of that morning: �
Devotion
�Later,� he wrote, �we attended Mass. It is a glorious sight and carries one back through the pages of Irish history to our forefather�s fight for the Faith at home in the Penal Days. All available officers, NCOs and men attend Mass every day and the majority are daily Communicants.
�I have often mentioned to you before the devotion to the Sacraments of the members of the Brigade, and I am sure you will be glad to learn that they are keeping up to the traditions of Catholic Ireland. Their outstanding devotion has been very favourably commented upon by high dignitaries of the Church in Spain, all branches of the Spanish army and the civilian population. This, as I told you before, was the talk of Caceres.�
Bond
The bond of Catholic faith later cemented the comradeship which the Irish Bandera formed with the Requetes. These troops were ardent Catholics, fought like tigers at Irun, San Sebastian, Bilbao and Santander, and would have been vastly insulted if they were not placed where the fighting was fiercest. They � like the Irish � were volunteers to a man. They asked for no pay and their food, clothing and equipment were provided by the Carlist organisation.
La Maranosa
When the Irish Brigade were later moved to La Maranosa, six miles from Madrid, they were moved in beside the Requetes � at the special request of the soldiers who wore the traditional red berets.
�Together, each morning, the Irish Bandera attended Mass and received Holy Communion in the trenches which they held within sight of their tortured country. [Sic, should read capital.] The priest who celebrated Mass for them was a Jesuit, Father Juan Alonzo.
Mass Rock
The Irish Bandera did [what] all Irishmen [would] do for their priest. As soon as they met him they asked if he had any safe place in which Mass could be celebrated. Father Alonzo said no � his altar was often a rock covered with cloth which he kept spotless in all the mud and grime of the trenches.
Father Alonzo did not know the Irish characteristic. That evening the young men of the Irish Bandera � �these fair complexioned youths�, he called them � had built a dugout church. Father Alonzo commented: �The respect and esteem of the Irish troops for their chaplain is something unusual in these countries.�
Scarred
These were the men of Ireland and Ireland can be proud of them. They did die � some of them � for Spain and its Faith. They did suffer � most of them - and some of them today still carry the wounds of bullets and shell splinters.
Many of them are dead. Many died prematurely after their return to Ireland as a result of the grim conditions of that terrible war. Those who were alive deserve honour. Before me is a neatly written diary kept by one of those men while in Spain. It was written by Lieut. George Timlin.
Diary
This is an excerpt:
�27/2/37: Tonight we occupy a position in front of the red lines. From about 8 p.m. until now (12.30 a.m.) it ahs been raining very heavily and there has been a wind that would pierce armour plating. The trenches which the troops occupy are dug out of ground which is soft, chalk-like substance. They are simply oozing with water and as slippery as glass � most uncomfortable.
At about 9 p.m. the Quartermaster sent down his service corporal � Dan Tully, a big lad about 6 feet 3 inches � to brave the storm and the awful conditions with steaming hot coffee for us all and I can say that it was appreciated, not least by myself.
Draughty
�The dugout which I share with my C.O. � Capt. O�Sullivan and Lieut. Lawlor is fairly comfortable. It is hewn out of rock and the walls are covered with coloured matting. The floor is strewn with goatskins and the remains of what at one time was a good red carpet.
�There is a small table at which I sit and a candle which flickers and splutters as the breeze comes through the entrance which is covered by a blanket. Good enough it is in its own way. But hardly sufficient protection under present circumstances.
Home thoughts
�I�ve just been around the different outposts and having got back safe and
sound with nothing but sundry falls in the marshy ground and my clothes dripping
wet as a result. I found everything quiet. There is not a sound tonight, save
a few dogs which bark the whole night through.
�As I sit and write my thoughts take flight far from Spain and her present difficulties � far away from myself and the discomforts and I think of those at home�.�
Like Dublin
Then under another date there is this entry.
�I often wonder whether I would decide as I have done were I to get the same choice again, and in my many wonderings I always get the same answer. I would do just the same.�
There are entries that deal with the period which the Brigade spent in Caceres. This is one: -
�A fine town is Caceres with a population of about 20,000. A fine square or plaza and one principal street called the Calle de Pintore which, of course, we christened �Grafton Street� because at evening time everybody parades along it, up and down, around the square and back again.
�There are plenty of cafes � the most popular with us is the Caf� Vienna, where there is a waiter who ahs a smattering of English: the Mercantile Caf�, which we call �the Gresham� and another which we name �The Red Bank.�
Titulcia
But while Lieut. Timlin was using whatever free time he ad in compiling his diary, General O�Duffy was writing a document that was more grim. He was sketching out in his neat handwriting plans for an advance on the town of Titulcia. And even the youngest member of the 15th Bandera knew that an advance on Titulcia would mean heavy casualties.
The Jarama
The line which the Bandera held stretched from Aranjeuz on the south to San Martin de la Vega on the north. In centre of the line held by the Irish was Titulcia. But before the Irish � or anyone else � could get to Titulcia they would have to cross a wide plain and then cross a narrow bridge across the Jarama River.
General O�Duffy was not a man to allow even a frown to convey his thoughts, but his men knew that all he wanted was to lead the attack himself. It was to be an advance on the Madrid front and on that front the red troops were fighting with fanatical fury.
A feint
Around a candle-lit table General O�Duffy stood with the officers of the Bandera. The advance which they were called on to make was part of a move that was as old as war itself � a feint to disguise the real attack which would come form another quarter. But a feint attack also means that the firepower of the defender must be drawn to the attackers and that they must continue to advance until the object of the move had been achieved.
Letters
Most of the young Irishmen did what all soldiers do when they know they are going into action. They found a quiet corner and began to write home�.Today these letters yield no hint that the drumming of artillery was on their ears as they wrote, or that the ambulance sections were quietly checking medical supplies and moving stretchers from outpost to outpost.
So it was that Sean Garrahan who now lives at Nenagh, Co Longford, a man who had made his way to Spain through Portugal on an American passport � a feat which can only be appreciated for all its daring by anyone else who tried to do it at that time.
Topics
So it was with John Cleary, now a chemist in Belfast, who wrote about everything except the attack in which he expected to take part. He wrote of the poor quality of the uniforms with which the Bandera had been provided. �The material is ersatz and shrivels up after every shower of rain.� He wrote as he crouched in a church tower with the light machine gun section of which he was a member.
March 13
It looked as if the waters of the Jarama River would have a mingling of Irish blood when the advance began. Irishmen did die in that attack and Irishmen were wounded. Bandera members will remember the date. It was March 13, 1937.
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