New book on the Spanish Civil War (1 Viewer)

john williams said:
Jason Gurney was born in Norfolk, England but his family moved to South Africa while he was still a boy. He finished his education there then returned to Europe, where he worked for the Norwegian whaling fleet and studied art at the Académie Colarossi in Paris, before moving to the King's Road in Chelsea, London (a bohemian neighbourhood at the time). He then worked as a sculptor for a few years before joining the International Brigades.

Although the above bio. suggests that he was more English than SA, as Wintringham (the captain of the British Battalion at Jarama) referred to him as 'South African' in his memoir (p.148 of English Captain), it seems his comrades considered him to be so.
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Thanks for posting that information.
That is interesting.
Roy Campbell was an old boy of my old school.
 
john williams said:
Which unit did he fight with?
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I think he was more of a propagandist. He was a well known poet who became a Roman Catholic and was horrified by the anti clerical nature of the Republicans. He spent a lot of time translating the poetry of St John of the Cross into english and helped smuggle the Saint's papers and relics to safety. During WWII he joined the Kings African Rifles as a seargant so that he could show he world he was not pro Nazi.
 
damian said:
I think he was more of a propagandist. He was a well known poet who became a Roman Catholic and was horrified by the anti clerical nature of the Republicans. He spent a lot of time translating the poetry of St John of the Cross into english and helped smuggle the Saint's papers and relics to safety. During WWII he joined the Kings African Rifles as a seargant so that he could show he world he was not pro Nazi.
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Interesting. Do you know about Peter Kemp?

Peter Mant MacIntyre Kemp, soldier and writer: born Bombay 19 August 1915; MC 1941; DSO 1945; twice married (marriages dissolved); died London 30 October 1993.

PETER KEMP was a distinguished irregular soldier during the Second World War, and long retained his nose for trouble spots thereafter.

His father was a judge in Bombay, where he was born. After conventional education at Wellington and Trinity, Cambridge, he started to read for the Bar, but was called away by the outbreak of civil war in Spain. Already alarmed at the menace of Communism, he joined a Carlist unit in General Franco's forces in November 1936 and later transferred to the Spanish Foreign Legion in which - rare distinction for a non-Spaniard - he commanded a platoon. He was several times wounded, but stayed at duty till a mortar bomb broke his jaw in the summer of 1938.

He had barely recovered from this wound when a chance meeting with (Sir) Douglas Dodds-Parker brought him into MIR, a small research department of the War Office which was one of the starting components of the wartime Special Operations Executive. MIR sent him on an abortive expedition to Norway by submarine. He was one of the earliest pupils at the Combined Operations Training School at Lochailort on the shores of the Western Highlands; sailed in intense discomfort to Gibraltar in the hold of that dubious craft HMS Fidelity; and went on another abortive submarine voyage in pursuit of a German U-boat. This aborted because a British destroyer attacked the submarine carrying Kemp by mistake. The operation SOE had planned for him in Spain was cancelled. He returned to the United Kingdom for further training in parachuting sabotage and undercover tactics.

With a small-scale raiding force he took part in a few cross-channel commando raids, including a successful one which captured all seven of the crew of the Casquets lighthouse (one of them still wearing a hair-net). When the force closed down after its leader's death in action he went out to Cairo, and was absorbed into SOE's Albanian section. He spent 10 months clandestinely in Albania, many of them in disagreeable proximity to Enver Hoxha, the Communist leader. He had several close brushes with death, and found the complexities of Balkan politics intensely confusing in a many-sided war. Eventually he walked out into Montenegro, across the border with Yugoslavia, and was safely brought back to Cairo.

He did one more mission for SOE in Europe, into southern Poland at the end of 1944, in a party commanded by Colonel DT Hudson, who had been a leading SOE agent in Yugoslavia. Their Polish friends protected them from capture by the Germans. They were then overrun by the Red Army, and imprisoned in odious conditions for three weeks by the NKVD. Two months hanging about in Moscow waiting for an exit visa followed.

He had still not had enough fighting. He parachuted once more, in the summer of 1945, into Siam and ran arms to the French across the border with Laos - again fighting a polygonal war, for both the Japanese and the Viet Min tried to stop him.

Tuberculosis forced his retirement from the Army, and his health thereafter was always precarious. His energies remained enormous. He sold life insurance policies for a living, and wrote some excellent books. One, Mine Were of Trouble (1957) described his part in the war in Spain, and No Colours or Crest (1958), his life with MIR and SOE. These were strong, spare narratives, in beautifully clear English, extremely readable then and since. He acknowledged many of his own mistakes and never said a word of his calm, gentle, unfailing courage.

He went to Hungary during the rising in 1956, nominally as the Tablet's correspondent, and helped some students escape to Austria. He was present during the troubles in the Congo that led to its independence as Zaire; he fought intermittently in Vietnam; he visited and reported on revolutions in Central and in South America; he could even bear to revisit Albania, where he predicted further racial clashes between Albanians and Serbs. He was always ready to advise a friend; and in The Forms of Memory (1990) produced a notable autobiography. He bore his last illness with his usual fortitude.

His memoir (Mine Were of Trouble) is excellent, but quite hard to get hold off. I read it in the British Library.
 
john williams said:
Interesting. Do you know about Peter Kemp?

Peter Mant MacIntyre Kemp, soldier and writer: born Bombay 19 August 1915; MC 1941; DSO 1945; twice married (marriages dissolved); died London 30 October 1993.

PETER KEMP was a distinguished irregular soldier during the Second World War, and long retained his nose for trouble spots thereafter.

His father was a judge in Bombay, where he was born. After conventional education at Wellington and Trinity, Cambridge, he started to read for the Bar, but was called away by the outbreak of civil war in Spain. Already alarmed at the menace of Communism, he joined a Carlist unit in General Franco's forces in November 1936 and later transferred to the Spanish Foreign Legion in which - rare distinction for a non-Spaniard - he commanded a platoon. He was several times wounded, but stayed at duty till a mortar bomb broke his jaw in the summer of 1938.

He had barely recovered from this wound when a chance meeting with (Sir) Douglas Dodds-Parker brought him into MIR, a small research department of the War Office which was one of the starting components of the wartime Special Operations Executive. MIR sent him on an abortive expedition to Norway by submarine. He was one of the earliest pupils at the Combined Operations Training School at Lochailort on the shores of the Western Highlands; sailed in intense discomfort to Gibraltar in the hold of that dubious craft HMS Fidelity; and went on another abortive submarine voyage in pursuit of a German U-boat. This aborted because a British destroyer attacked the submarine carrying Kemp by mistake. The operation SOE had planned for him in Spain was cancelled. He returned to the United Kingdom for further training in parachuting sabotage and undercover tactics.

With a small-scale raiding force he took part in a few cross-channel commando raids, including a successful one which captured all seven of the crew of the Casquets lighthouse (one of them still wearing a hair-net). When the force closed down after its leader's death in action he went out to Cairo, and was absorbed into SOE's Albanian section. He spent 10 months clandestinely in Albania, many of them in disagreeable proximity to Enver Hoxha, the Communist leader. He had several close brushes with death, and found the complexities of Balkan politics intensely confusing in a many-sided war. Eventually he walked out into Montenegro, across the border with Yugoslavia, and was safely brought back to Cairo.

He did one more mission for SOE in Europe, into southern Poland at the end of 1944, in a party commanded by Colonel DT Hudson, who had been a leading SOE agent in Yugoslavia. Their Polish friends protected them from capture by the Germans. They were then overrun by the Red Army, and imprisoned in odious conditions for three weeks by the NKVD. Two months hanging about in Moscow waiting for an exit visa followed.

He had still not had enough fighting. He parachuted once more, in the summer of 1945, into Siam and ran arms to the French across the border with Laos - again fighting a polygonal war, for both the Japanese and the Viet Min tried to stop him.

Tuberculosis forced his retirement from the Army, and his health thereafter was always precarious. His energies remained enormous. He sold life insurance policies for a living, and wrote some excellent books. One, Mine Were of Trouble (1957) described his part in the war in Spain, and No Colours or Crest (1958), his life with MIR and SOE. These were strong, spare narratives, in beautifully clear English, extremely readable then and since. He acknowledged many of his own mistakes and never said a word of his calm, gentle, unfailing courage.

He went to Hungary during the rising in 1956, nominally as the Tablet's correspondent, and helped some students escape to Austria. He was present during the troubles in the Congo that led to its independence as Zaire; he fought intermittently in Vietnam; he visited and reported on revolutions in Central and in South America; he could even bear to revisit Albania, where he predicted further racial clashes between Albanians and Serbs. He was always ready to advise a friend; and in The Forms of Memory (1990) produced a notable autobiography. He bore his last illness with his usual fortitude.

His memoir (Mine Were of Trouble) is excellent, but quite hard to get hold off. I read it in the British Library.
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If you have ever read George MacDonald Fraser's books "The General Danced at Dawn", "MacAuslan in the Rough" and "The Shiekh and the Dustbin", I wonder if Peter Kemp was the inspiration for his character "Captain Errol".
 
john williams said:
Interesting. Do you know about Peter Kemp?

Peter Mant MacIntyre Kemp, soldier and writer: born Bombay 19 August 1915; MC 1941; DSO 1945; twice married (marriages dissolved); died London 30 October 1993.

PETER KEMP was a distinguished irregular soldier during the Second World War, and long retained his nose for trouble spots thereafter.

His father was a judge in Bombay, where he was born. After conventional education at Wellington and Trinity, Cambridge, he started to read for the Bar, but was called away by the outbreak of civil war in Spain. Already alarmed at the menace of Communism, he joined a Carlist unit in General Franco's forces in November 1936 and later transferred to the Spanish Foreign Legion in which - rare distinction for a non-Spaniard - he commanded a platoon. He was several times wounded, but stayed at duty till a mortar bomb broke his jaw in the summer of 1938.

He had barely recovered from this wound when a chance meeting with (Sir) Douglas Dodds-Parker brought him into MIR, a small research department of the War Office which was one of the starting components of the wartime Special Operations Executive. MIR sent him on an abortive expedition to Norway by submarine. He was one of the earliest pupils at the Combined Operations Training School at Lochailort on the shores of the Western Highlands; sailed in intense discomfort to Gibraltar in the hold of that dubious craft HMS Fidelity; and went on another abortive submarine voyage in pursuit of a German U-boat. This aborted because a British destroyer attacked the submarine carrying Kemp by mistake. The operation SOE had planned for him in Spain was cancelled. He returned to the United Kingdom for further training in parachuting sabotage and undercover tactics.

With a small-scale raiding force he took part in a few cross-channel commando raids, including a successful one which captured all seven of the crew of the Casquets lighthouse (one of them still wearing a hair-net). When the force closed down after its leader's death in action he went out to Cairo, and was absorbed into SOE's Albanian section. He spent 10 months clandestinely in Albania, many of them in disagreeable proximity to Enver Hoxha, the Communist leader. He had several close brushes with death, and found the complexities of Balkan politics intensely confusing in a many-sided war. Eventually he walked out into Montenegro, across the border with Yugoslavia, and was safely brought back to Cairo.

He did one more mission for SOE in Europe, into southern Poland at the end of 1944, in a party commanded by Colonel DT Hudson, who had been a leading SOE agent in Yugoslavia. Their Polish friends protected them from capture by the Germans. They were then overrun by the Red Army, and imprisoned in odious conditions for three weeks by the NKVD. Two months hanging about in Moscow waiting for an exit visa followed.

He had still not had enough fighting. He parachuted once more, in the summer of 1945, into Siam and ran arms to the French across the border with Laos - again fighting a polygonal war, for both the Japanese and the Viet Min tried to stop him.

Tuberculosis forced his retirement from the Army, and his health thereafter was always precarious. His energies remained enormous. He sold life insurance policies for a living, and wrote some excellent books. One, Mine Were of Trouble (1957) described his part in the war in Spain, and No Colours or Crest (1958), his life with MIR and SOE. These were strong, spare narratives, in beautifully clear English, extremely readable then and since. He acknowledged many of his own mistakes and never said a word of his calm, gentle, unfailing courage.

He went to Hungary during the rising in 1956, nominally as the Tablet's correspondent, and helped some students escape to Austria. He was present during the troubles in the Congo that led to its independence as Zaire; he fought intermittently in Vietnam; he visited and reported on revolutions in Central and in South America; he could even bear to revisit Albania, where he predicted further racial clashes between Albanians and Serbs. He was always ready to advise a friend; and in The Forms of Memory (1990) produced a notable autobiography. He bore his last illness with his usual fortitude.

His memoir (Mine Were of Trouble) is excellent, but quite hard to get hold off. I read it in the British Library.
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Very interesting.
Kemp is quite a common name in SA.
 
Here's a review from Publisher's Weekly, an American trade magazine.

They Shall Not Pass: The British Battalion at Jarama
Ben Hughes. Osprey, $25.95 (288p) ISBN 978-1-84908-549-6
Hughes (Conquer or Die! Wellington's Veterans and the Liberation of the New World) ably narrates the incredible story of the unlikely triumph of a heroic British battalion in the Spanish Civil War. The outlook for the Spanish Republic early in 1937 was not good. Madrid managed to hold out against the Nationalist forces of Francisco Franco, but its only lifeline was a single road that ran to the coast through the olive groves by the Jarama River. That February, the International Brigades, motley formations consisting of assorted antifascists and adventurers, were brought up for a long-awaited offensive to secure that road. But Franco's forces struck first, with the brunt following on a battalion of British volunteers. In three days of ferocious combat, the Brits took horrendous casualties as a result of ill discipline, poor training, cowardly and incompetent leadership, and political interference. By the third night, the Brits had had enough and launched a night counterattack that gave the Republicans a much needed tactical and propaganda victory. and Hughes fleshes out the individual combatants while placing their sacrifices in the strategic and historical context, although not without a tendency to engage in pro-Republican hagiography. 36 color and b&w illus.; maps. (July)
Reviewed on: 05/16/2011

source: http://reviews.publishersweekly.com/978-1-84908-549-6
 
jazzeum said:
Congratulations. Do you agree with the mild criticism?
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More or less. With such a tightly focussed book, it's hard not to get caught up with the characters you're writing about. Also, the SCW is so political I think everyone takes sides - even now. I tried not to show bias and criticize the republicans and the British Battalion as much as I praise them, but reading the book probably gives the impression that I favoured them and wished they had won.
 
I have just recieved ''The spanish civil war from andrea miniatures/press by Catlon Medina from Historex agents in the UK.

Hardcover 300 pics many unpublished maps and pull-outs a good reference book
Mitch
 
I saw that you posted this book on the Axis History Forums and had some "discussions" with Iron Machine :)
 
not me this apart from a footy site for my team are the only ones I go on.
Mitch
 
Sorry, didn't mean you Mitch, but the author :redface2:
 
Nice article about the book Ben. Mr. Gibbons was lucky to survive and you had to admire his pluckiness. With that lot, I'm not sure I would have been too defiant.
 
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