The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939

In mid March the nationalist commanding general, Emilio Mola, issued his preliminary orders for the campaign. His chief of staff, Colonel Vigón, was the most capable planner in the nationalist army and about the only senior Spanish staff officer to be respected by his German colleagues, who described him as ‘one of the most oustanding phenomena in the new Spanish nationalist army’.⁶ However, even Vigón could do little to overcome Mola’s excessive caution. Richthofen claimed that ‘the leadership is practically in the hands of the Condor Legion’.⁷

The nationalist force was based on the Navarre Division of four Carlist brigades. In addition, there was the Black Arrows Division, with 8,000 Spanish infantry commanded by Italian officers and supported by Fiat Ansaldos. In this mountainous region, however, the Condor Legion was to prove the nationalists’ biggest advantage. The thin coastal strip allowed the defenders little warning of raids, while the terrain greatly restricted their choice of airfields from which defending fighters could be scrambled. The Basques had only a minute fighter force, so the Condor Legion was able to risk using obsolete Heinkel 51s as ground-attack aircraft while waiting for more of the new Messerschmitts to arrive.

The Condor Legion fighter wing was concentrated at Vitoria, the bomber squadrons at Burgos, because the airfield at Vitoria was too narrow. General Sperrle stayed with Franco’s GHQ at Salamanca, leaving Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen as the operational commander of the strike forces. On the northern front these consisted of three squadrons of Junkers 52 bombers, an ‘experimental squadron’ of Heinkel 111 medium bombers, three squadrons of Heinkel 51 fighters and half a squadron of Messerschmitt 109s, although they were suffering from engine problems.⁸ The Italian Legionary Air Force also flew missions in support of troop attacks, with Savoia Marchetti 81s and 79s as well as their Fiat CR 32 fighters.

After issuing his ultimatum that ‘if submission is not immediate I will raze Vizcaya to the ground’, Mola ordered an advance from the southeast. The offensive opened on 31 March with an assault on the three mountains–Albertia, Maroto and Jarinto–which had been taken by the Basques in the Villarreal offensive the previous year. The nationalists showed on this first day that they meant to make use of their crushing superiority in the air. The towns of Elorrio and Durango, behind the front line, were bombed in relays by the heavy Junkers 52s and Italian S-81s from Soria.

Durango, a town of 10,000 inhabitants, had no air defences nor any form of military presence. A church was bombed during the celebration of mass, killing fourteen nuns, the officiating priest and most of the congregation. Heinkel 51 fighters then strafed fleeing civilians. Altogether, some 250 non-combatants died in the attack. The objective of the raid appears to have been to block the roads through the town with rubble, though that does not explain the activities of the fighters.⁹ General Queipo de Llano stated on Seville radio that ‘our planes bombed military objectives in Durango, and later communists and socialists locked up the priests and nuns, shooting without pity and burning the churches’. On 2 April, the nationalists claimed on Radio Valladolid that ‘in Durango only military objectives were attacked. It has been confirmed, on the other hand, that it was the reds who destroyed the church. The church of Santa María was set on fire while it was full of church-goers.’¹⁰

The main objectives that day included the three mountains and bombing raids were combined with an artillery barrage just before the Navarrese troops of Alonso Vega went into the attack. Condor Legion bombers went in at 8 a.m.: ‘60 tons of bombs dropped within two minutes,’

Richthofen recorded. Richthofen, in his command post, had ‘a very good view’. The Navarrese troops, in order to be recognized clearly by the German aircraft ‘have white tunics on their back. The national flag is carried ahead.’¹¹ The Basque militiamen, known as gudaris, hardly knew what had hit them before they were overrun by red-bereted Carlists screaming their war cry of ‘Viva Cristo Rey!’. Reserves could not be brought up because of air strikes on all communications leading to the front. The artillery barrage had also cut field telephone wires from the forward positions.