Spanish Republican Aces

Osprey Aircraft of the Aces #106

by Rafael A. Permuy López, Julio Caeiro (Illustrations)

At the start of the civil war, most young fighter officers joined the rebels (Nationalists). It was the high ranking officers, grupo or escuadrilla commanders, and the NCOs, sergeants and corporals who remained loyal to the government. The obsolete Nieuport Ni.52s and the three rare Hawker Furies were soon outpaced by the opposing more modern Fiat CR.32s and Heinkel He 51s. However, at this early stage of the war, there were several Republican airmen who became aces and famous in the process, despite the small numbers of enemy aircraft shot down. Subsequently, a relative handful ex-French Dewoitine D.372 and Loire Nieuport 46 fighters flown by foreign mercenaries and Spanish pilots managed to turn the aerial balance in favour of the Republicans. With the arrival of the Soviet Polikarpov I-15 Chato and I-16 Mosca fighters, the Republicans consolidated this superiority, but most of the fighter pilots flying these modern types were Soviet. Some Spaniards started to fly Chatos from February 1937 with the establishment of the first two Spanish I-15 escuadrillas, commanded by capitanes García Lacalle and Alonso Santamaría respectively. They made their debut in the battles of the Jarama and Guadalajara. In the north, by the spring and summer of 1937 most Chato pilots were now Spanish. During the battle of Brunete, in July 1937, the first pilots trained in the USSR to fly the fast I-16 Mosca monoplanes arrived in Spain, and they quickly began to take a toll of enemy aircraft. Widely speaking, the Republican military aviation did not keep an exhaustive record of individual shooting claims. However, sufficient documentation exists to make a reasonable assumption as to which pilots fall into the ace category. This volume details the exploits of those pilots, complimenting previous works in the Osprey Aircraft of the Aces series on Nationalist CR.32 Aces and Polikarpov I-15, I-16 and I-152 Aces.

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Cary Lackey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very thorough, by-the-numbers account(s) and mini-biographies of Spanish fighter pilots who flew for the elected government of Spain (the last Spanish Republic) during the Spanish Civil War.

The context/history of the Spanish Civil War could've been expounded upon a bit more, but for those familiar with the subject, the book provides a decent, fact-specific account of one part of the air war over Spain.

Would recommend.

[Shrike58 · Rating 3 out of 5]

A workmanlike accounting of the topic, though it gives just enough information to make one wonder about those Loyalist pilots who went on to serve in Soviet aviation during World War II.

Originally written: December 16, 2017.

[Hans · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite the fact that this is a really interesting topic, I did not enjoy reading this book as I did many of the other Aces books.

I do not think that the author is to blame for this. I think part of the reason might be the lack of source material being available to write it in the same style as most of the books in the series. The author mentions the source problem at the start of the book.

Reason why it did not read smoothly for me was the huge amount of names that are included in the text. Names of pilots, places, units are just everywhere. And they are long in the Spanish language... It felt more of a history of the units of the air force involved than that of the individual pilots. In their descriptions there are again many names etc. and only a small number of actions being described in some detail.

As usual the profiles are amazing and worth the price of the book.

The book is not bad, not at all, but I did not enjoy reading it as much for the reasons given above.