Yankee Squadron
Encyclopedia
Mercenary
A mercenary, is a person who takes part in an armed conflict based on the promise of material compensation rather than having a direct interest in, or a legal obligation to, the conflict itself. A non-conscript professional member of a regular army is not considered to be a mercenary although he...
American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
military aviator
Military aviation
Military aviation is the use of aircraft and other flying machines for the purposes of conducting or enabling warfare, including national airlift capacity to provide logistical supply to forces stationed in a theater or along a front. Air power includes the national means of conducting such...
s who flew for the Spanish Republican Air Force
Spanish Republican Air Force
The Spanish Republican Air Force, , was the air arm of the Second Spanish Republic, the legally established government of Spain between 1931 and 1939...
, during the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
.
History
In November 1936, representatives of the Spanish RepublicSecond Spanish Republic
The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....
(Spanish Republicans, or Loyalists) began a campaign to hire American pilots to fight in the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
. They used a New York lawyer to find American pilots. Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine reported on December 21, 1936 that six U.S. fliers were on the ocean liner SS Normandie
SS Normandie
SS Normandie was an ocean liner built in Saint-Nazaire, France for the French Line Compagnie Générale Transatlantique. She entered service in 1935 as the largest and fastest passenger ship afloat; she is still the most powerful steam turbo-electric-propelled passenger ship ever built.Her novel...
, headed for Spain, to join their leader, Bert Acosta
Bert Acosta
Bertrand Blanchard Acosta was a record setting aviator. With Clarence D. Chamberlin they set an endurance record of 51 hours, 11 minutes, and 25 seconds in the air. He later flew in the Spanish Civil War in the Yankee Squadron. He was known as the Bad Boy of the Air...
. They were to be paid $1,500 a month, plus $1,000 for each "White
Aviación Nacional
Aviación Nacional or Fuerza Aérea Nacional may refer to any of the following military air units supporting General Franco in the Spanish Civil War:*Condor Legion, of Nazi Germany*Aviazione Legionaria, of Fascist Italy...
" plane destroyed.
Time reported that the six men were: "[h]ilariously celebrating in the ship's bar of the Normandie with their first advance pay checks from Spain's Radical Government... en route last week for Madrid to join Bert Acosta, pilot of Admiral Byrd's transatlantic flight, in doing battle against Generalissimo Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
's White planes."
British and French pilots were given two weeks of training, but the Americans were expected to fly as soon as they arrived. Another American flyer, Hilaire du Berrier
Hilaire du Berrier
Hilaire du Berrier was a pioneer American pilot, barnstormer, and spy.-Biography:He was born as Hal du Berrier in 1905 in Flasher, North Dakota....
, was already in Spain by time they arrived. Frederic Ives Lord
Frederic Ives Lord
Frederic Ives Lord or sometimes Frederick Ives Lord, was a Captain, a World War I flying ace, and a soldier of fortune who fought in five wars.-Early years:...
became their squadron commander, and he tried to convince the Loyalist authorities that the planes they were given were too dilapidated to fly. When the commandant insisted that the planes were safe, Lord took him up for a test flight, and at two thousand feet up one of the four wings broke off. The commandant motioned Lord to climb higher so they could escape by using their parachutes. Lord wanted to try to land with the remaining lower wings intact. He landed the plane safely but he was arrested and was going to be shot. The airplane mechanics intervened and explained that his loss of the wing was accidental, not intentional. Things became so difficult and dangerous for the Americans that each time one of them landed they pulled out their pistols in case someone was coming to arrest them. They went to Valencia, Spain to complain to the air ministry, but the ministry was only interested in reading to the flyers the reports on Bertrand Blanchard Acosta and his heavy drinking. Berry, Lord, Acosta and Schneider decided it was time to demobilize and return to the United States. Acosta, Schneider and Lord planned to escape from Bilbao
Bilbao
Bilbao ) is a Spanish municipality, capital of the province of Biscay, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. With a population of 353,187 , it is the largest city of its autonomous community and the tenth largest in Spain...
to Biarritz, France by motorboat after they had been refused a promised Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
leave. Their plan was discovered and the pilot of their boat was arrested and executed. The pilots were then jailed for 18 hours.
Frederic Ives Lord
Frederic Ives Lord
Frederic Ives Lord or sometimes Frederick Ives Lord, was a Captain, a World War I flying ace, and a soldier of fortune who fought in five wars.-Early years:...
wrote:
I've had a wing fold up at a thousand feet while sitting on a dud parachute. I've been backed up against a wall looking down the rifle barrels of a firing squad. I've felt the automatic of my own commanding officer poked in my ribs. While being smuggled from Spain into France to visit my wife, I've had a speed boat pilot killed by Fascist bullets in the Bay of BiscayBay of BiscayThe Bay of Biscay is a gulf of the northeast Atlantic Ocean located south of the Celtic Sea. It lies along the western coast of France from Brest south to the Spanish border, and the northern coast of Spain west to Cape Ortegal, and is named in English after the province of Biscay, in the Spanish...
. I've fought half a dozen GermanGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
pursuit planes in the air with an orchestra leader as a gunner. And of all places to be during a bomb raid I was there - locked up in jail - and with my wife. And these events have not been an accumulation of my war service in FranceFranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, or RussiaRussiaRussia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, or MexicoMexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, but happened during the past few months while serving as a pilot with the Government forces in Spain. ... A Spanish pilot, Jose Galarza, bailed out from a crippled ship, during a fight, and landed safely in Franco's line. But the next day a Junkers bomber droned over our field and dropped a box. It contained the chopped up cadaver of Jose ... LafayetteGilbert du Motier, marquis de La FayetteMarie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette , often known as simply Lafayette, was a French aristocrat and military officer born in Chavaniac, in the province of Auvergne in south central France...
! Pulaski! RochambeauJean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de RochambeauMarshal of France Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau was a French nobleman and general who participated in the American Revolutionary War as the commander-in-chief of the French Expeditionary Force which came to help the American Continental Army...
! Who were they? Glorious foreign volunteers who aided us in time of need. We name bridges, boats, and towns after them now. Our kids read about them in our histories. ... And over in Spain foreign volunteers are fighting that a friendly democratic nation may survive. In most instances those volunteers came from the army of unemployed in their countries where they were without hope. In all cases they are highly skilled technical men. Their hope is a new lease on life; but the usual reward has been a nameless grave. ...
Return to United States
Four of them resigned and returned to the United States in January. The Associated PressAssociated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
reported that "the flyers protested they were given nothing but unarmed sports planes with which to fight, while Russian
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
pilots were assigned "regular American army planes." The Spanish Air Force had no US-built planes; the main fighters used by the Republicans during the war were the Soviet-built Polikarpov I-15
Polikarpov I-15
The Polikarpov I-15 was a Soviet biplane fighter aircraft of the 1930s. Nicknamed Chaika because of its gulled upper wings, it was operated in large numbers by the Soviet Air Force, and together with the Polikarpov I-16 monoplane, was one of the standard fighters of the Spanish Republicans during...
and I-16
Polikarpov I-16
The Polikarpov I-16 was a Soviet fighter aircraft of revolutionary design; it was the world's first cantilever-winged monoplane fighter with retractable landing gear. The I-16 was introduced in the mid-1930s and formed the backbone of the Soviet Air Force at the beginning of World War II...
. The latter was often mistaken for the Boeing P-26, but was not related to it. The flyers said both the socialist and fascist air forces in Spain were staffed almost entirely by foreigners.
The fliers later told the Washington Post that they had quit because "'it would be suicide to continue' and because their actions 'might not be in tune with the spirit of neutrality'... While other airmen — British and French — were afforded a two-week courtesy for training, American fliers were just shown to loyalist hangars, given a plane and ordered to do their stuff. 'We were flying old crates,' Acosta said, 'while other nationalists were given modern ships. But for the protection afforded us by Soviet pursuit planes we would not be alive now to tell you this tale.'"
Eddie August Schneider
Eddie August Schneider
Eddie August Henry Schneider set three transcontinental airspeed records for pilots under the age of twenty-one in 1930. His plane was a Cessna Model AW with a Warner-Scarab engine, one of only 48 built, that he called "The Kangaroo". He set the east-to-west, then the west-to-east, and the...
explained his motives in flying for the Republic: "I was broke, hungry, jobless ... yet despite the fact that all three of us are old-time aviators who did our part for the development of the industry, we were left out in the cold in the Administration’s program of job making
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
. Can you blame us for accepting the lucrative Spanish offer?" The flyers had their passports confiscated, and they were to be returned when they attested that they had never withdrawn their allegiance to the United States.
The flyers claimed that they were not paid what was promised them by the Spanish Government. Acosta and Berry started legal proceedings against the Spanish steamship Mar Cantabrico to try to collect the back pay that was due each of them. The consul general for the Spanish government, Luis Careaga, arrived in the US and paid some of the money, and declared that they were now paid in full. Their lawyer, Lewis Landes
Lewis Landes
Lewis Landes was a US Army Colonel and a lawyer.-Early life:He was born on December 12, 1891 in New York City, and he attended the University of Florida and formed the Florida National Guard. When the National Guard was mobilized against Pancho Villa, Landes was sent to Texas. He married Kathryn G...
, claimed Acosta and Berry were still owed $1,500 and Schneider $1,200.
Members
- Bertrand Blanchard Acosta (1895–1954), co-pilot on America, the third plane to fly the Atlantic (1927).
- Eddie August SchneiderEddie August SchneiderEddie August Henry Schneider set three transcontinental airspeed records for pilots under the age of twenty-one in 1930. His plane was a Cessna Model AW with a Warner-Scarab engine, one of only 48 built, that he called "The Kangaroo". He set the east-to-west, then the west-to-east, and the...
(1911–1940) - Thomas George Lanphier, Sr.Thomas George Lanphier, Sr.Thomas George Lanphier, Sr., was a Major in the US Army, and was Commanding Officer of Selfridge Field in Michigan from late 1924 to early 1926.-Biography:With Charles Lindbergh he was a partner in Bird Aircraft Corp. and T.A.T...
, it is disputed whether Lanphier actually went to Spain or not. - Frederic Ives LordFrederic Ives LordFrederic Ives Lord or sometimes Frederick Ives Lord, was a Captain, a World War I flying ace, and a soldier of fortune who fought in five wars.-Early years:...
(1897–1967), a.k.a. Frank I. Frederick Lord - Gordon Berry (1898-?), he is sometimes listed as "George F. Berry" or "Gordon K. Berry" or "Gordon O. Berry". He was a 39 year old flying and drinking companion of Bert Acosta, who served in the RAF towards the end of World War I. He was from New York.
- Eddie Semons, sometimes listed as "Edwin Semons" or "Edwin L. Semons". He may have helped recruit other pilots.