Séan F Scullion

Churchill's Spaniards

Very little, if nothing at all, is known and has been told about the over one thousand Spanish volunteers and their service as members of the British Army during the Second World War. Churchill's Spaniards tells their story, men who were "Continuing the Fight" against fascism from 1939 to 1946. The Second World War witnessed the bloodiest conflict in human history in which some 1,200 Spaniards enlisted to serve as soldiers in British uniform. Three key things marked out their experience as Spaniards fighting in the British Army. They served many units: from the elite SAS, Commandos and SOE to the ranks of the Infantry and Pioneer Corps. Spaniards fought in almost all battles and campaigns in the West from the Fall of France and the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940, to the campaigns in North Africa, Italy as well as France and Germany to the end of the war. Their service in the British Army was a seminal experience where, as exiles, they fought for survival and were obliged to look forward to a future outside of their Spanish homeland. Once integrated into an alien environment, they continued their fight for freedom and justice in British Army uniform. Using wide ranging material from Britain, France and Spain as well as previously unpublished eyewitness and official accounts along with groundbreaking new research, S an Scullion is able to finally tell the story of these fighting men.