Between September 1936 and February 1939, the Soviet Union was covertly aiding the Spanish Republic in its civil war with the right wing forces of General Francisco Franco, which had revolted against the government and were being aided semi-covertly by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. The Soviets were not only supplying the Republic with oil, gasoline, and food stuffs, but also the aircraft, tanks, artillery pieces, and small arms they needed to conduct the war. The Soviets also began sending military advisers and personnel from all branches of the service, plus engineers, translators, merchant seamen and war industry factory workers. Of the approximately 3,000 people sent from the Soviet Union, 772 were from the air force, and of these 100 were killed in action or died as a result of accidents or wounds received in battle. AUTHOR: Paul Whelan is a seventy-three-year-old self-styled aviation historian. He lives with his wife of fifty-five years in the North Jersey town of Bloomfield. His working life was spent in the construction industry, but he has always been interested in aviation history and the Spanish Civil War. He has written several articles for Scale Aircraft Modelling, Skyways, Air Wars, Small Air Forces Observer and Historia y Vida. He has been working on the present project for many years. 568 images

"Spain Betrayed provides full documentation of the Soviets' activities during the Spanish Civil War. Documents in the book reveal that the Soviet Union not only swindled the Spanish Republic out of millions of dollars through arms deals but also sought to take over and run the Spanish economy, government, and armed forces in order to make Spain a Soviet possession, thereby effectively destroying the foundations of authentic Spanish antifascism. The documents also shed light on many other disputed episodes of the war: the timing of the Republican request for assistance from the Soviet Union; the rise and fall of the International Brigades; the internal workings of the Comintern and its influence on Spain; and much more."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The tragedy that devastated Spain for 33 months from July 1936 to April 1939, was, first and foremost, a brutal fratricidal conflict, the product of the fatal clash between diametrically opposed views of Spain and an attempt to settle crucial issues which had divided Spaniards for generations: agrarian reform, recognition of the identity of the historical regions (Catalonia, the Basque Country), and the roles of the Catholic Church and the armed forces in a modern state. Being a war between Spaniards, it was particularly brutal, but it was also part of the broader move toward war in Europe and thus sucked in many “volunteers” from abroad. And it left a deep imprint since General Francisco Franco remained at the helm of the country until his death in 1975. The Historical Dictionary of the Spanish Civil war covers the history of the war, first through a long chronology, which highlights the major steps from the incubation to the conclusion. The overall situation is summed up in the introduction. Then the dictionary section fleshes it out, with over 600 entries on persons, places, events, institutions, battles, and campaigns. More reading can be found in an extensive bibliography. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Spanish Civil War.

THE LINCOLN BRIGADE The day after Christmas in 1936, a group of ninety-six Americans sailed from New York to help Spain defend its democratic government against fascism. Ultimately, twenty-eight hundred United States volunteers reached Spain to become the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Few Lincolns had any military training. More than half were seriously wounded or died in battle. Most Lincolns were activists and idealists who had worked with and demonstrated for the homeless and unemployed during the Great Depression. They were poets and blue-collar workers, professors and students, seamen and journalists, lawyers and painters, Christians and Jews, blacks and whites. The Brigade was the first fully integrated United States army, and Oliver Law, an African American from Texas, was an early Lincoln commander. William Loren Katz and the late Marc Crawford twice traveled with the Brigade to Spain in the 1980s, interviewed surviving Lincolns on old battlefields, and obtained never-before-published documents and photographs for this book.

An in-depth biography of the top American ace under contract with Spain during the Spanish Civil War that recounts his rise from a teen enlisted seaman to a top fighter pilot and published author who socialized with Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn.

The air campaigns fought during the Spanish Civil War prompted technical and tactical developments for all parties - from the actual deployment of air power through to communications. This work examines the opposing air forces in the Spanish Civil War as well the intervention of the German, Italian and Soviet air forces in their respective guises.