The brave Scots who risked all to fight fascism in Spain

Bernie Milton, photographed in Spain in 1937 (Image: Unknown)

The Spanish Civil War, a brutal, three-year-long conflict, pitted nationalist forces of the right under General Franco against an elected, Socialist-led Republican government. The nationalists received substantial military aid from Germany and Italy, and the war, which ended in victory for Franco in the spring of 1939, has often been seen as a precursor to the Second World War, which broke out that September.

How a few good men fought Franco and fascism

Milton was twice wounded in Spain, once by a grenade, while Bamborough flew planes against Hitler and Mussolini's forces. According to author Liam Turbett, who has researched the stories of both Scots for a new booklet, Bamborough was the only known Scottish pilot to have fought in the Spanish Civil War. Remarkably, he twice returned to the country as a blockade runner – a Merchant Navy seaman helping to carry vital supplies to the besieged country, only for both his vessels to be sunk in aerial attacks.

William Bamborough, photographed in 1936 (Image: Unknown)

Turbett, who grew up on Arran and now lives on the mainland, says he wanted to honour Milton’s and Bamborough’s contribution to the defence of democracy in Spain, as part of a much broader Scottish, British and international collective struggle against fascism. Both men died in their native land – Milton in 1986, in Arran, and Bamborough in 1979, in Galston, Ayrshire.

'They fought not for oil or gold, but for freedom'

Milton was born at East Knowe Farm in Brodick in June 1917, and grew up in the village. His sister Rita would become a leading figure in British anarchism.

By 1937 Milton was working as a postman in Kilmarnock. That October, he and a colleague, George Gowans, suddenly disappeared.

Soldiers from the International Brigade (Image: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Turbett says that by early November, both men had arrived in Spain and joined the British Battalion of the International Brigade. The British intelligence services were keeping a close eye on those departing the country for Spain, which was in contravention of the British government’s policy of non-intervention in the war.

Members of the British Battalion of the Spanish Government forces during the country's civil war (Image: Unknown)

A headline in the Glasgow Herald – dated May 6, 1938 - read: “Kilmarnock postmen said to be in Spain”. The Union of Post Office workers claimed that police officers had questioned their colleagues about the disappearance. One was asked if there had been any Communistic involvement, and whether he had received letters from Milton and Gowans.

Obituary: James Maley

The police’s questioning of the colleagues, carried out at the request of the procurator fiscal, was raised in the Commons in July 1938 by an indignant Tom Johnston, the outspoken West Stirlingshire MP who would go on to become a distinguished Secretary of State for Scotland.

Milton and Gowans spent six months at an XV Brigade training base in Tarazona de la Mancha, near Albacete. In May 1938, by which time Republican Spain had been cut in two, Milton and Gowans joined No. 2 Machine Gun Company of the British Battalion. The following month saw Milton in hospital after being injured by a grenade.

Republican militia on the move towards a battle front during the Spanish Civil War (Image: Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

On August 1 Milton was again wounded during the Battle of the Ebro as he and his IB colleagues tried in vain to take the heavily fortified Hill 481. “While neither the exact circumstances nor the extent of his injuries were recorded”, observes Turbett, “it is almost certain that this occurred during the assault on Hill 481, and his injuries were severe enough to land him in hospital for the rest of his time in Spain”.

Milton was able to return home, and by 1940 he was a private in the 1st Battalion, Highland Light Infantry and, in his civilian life, an accountant’s clerk.

Bamborough, who had learned to fly with the Scottish Flying Club at Renfrew Aerodrome, came to the attention of the British authorities as a result of his time with the Republican air force between late 1936 and March-April 1937.

In October 1937 he was on watch duty aboard the SS Jean Weems, a British-flagged merchant ship carrying grain, condensed milk and leather from Marseille to Barcelona – essential supplies for the besieged Republic. It was attacked off the Catalan coast and sunk by a Heinkel He 59, part of the notorious German Condor Legion.

Bertie Milton's headstone (Image: Liam Turbett)

Bamborough said the seaplane had first warned the crew to take to the lifeboats. “After some minutes the aeroplane machine-gunned the ship and then dropped her bombs. It dropped 16 bombs. four of which fell in our No.4 hold. The ship sank stern-first in about 15 minutes”. The crew made it to safety by rowing to the Catalan coast.

Turbett says Bamborough’s secret service file indicated he journeyed to Spain for a third time in 1938, leaving Newhaven bound for the French port of Dieppe that May, as a “suspected recruit for the Spanish Government Forces” and travelling without a passport.

A Scottish Sunday newspaper ran an article in June 1938, under the headline 'Millport Pilot Defies Franco', which said that Bamborough's ship had once again been attacked and badly damaged by fascist aircraft while in port at Alicante.

After being evacuated to Marseille aboard a Royal Navy ship, Bamborough told the paper that he would be "taking a short holiday in Millport before resuming his adventures on the Spanish coast".

He married in Greenock in 1939, and after the war he worked as a pilot in the US.

Bertie Milton (second left), harvesting at West Mayish, Brodick, in the late 1930s (Image: Courtesy of Arran Heritage Museum)

Turbett said this week: “I grew up on Arran, and still have family there, although I now live and work elsewhere. While I've always had an interest in radical history and social history, about a year ago I was quite surprised to find out that out there was a member of the International Brigades from Arran.

Scotland's oldest Spanish Civil War veteran dies at 99

“It seemed that Bertie Milton's story wasn't very well known on the island, so I wanted to see what I could find out. While a lot has been written about the history of the island, and also the Spanish Civil War, I found it fascinating that a story like this had gone untold.

“I then came across a reference to Millport's William Bamborough and broadened my scope to cover his unique story too. 

“At a time when the world is facing many challenges, the legend of the International Brigades continues to have a lot of resonance and is something that people, including myself, still find very inspiring - that these young men and women saw the menace of fascism and were willing to do whatever it took to stop it, well before their governments woke up to the threat”.

Liam Turbett's booklet is now on sale (Image: Liam Turbett)

As a reminder of how costly the Spanish Civil War was in human terms, author and historian Paul Preston writes this, in the introduction to his book, The Spanish Holocaust.

"Behind the lines during the Spanish Civil War, nearly 200,000 men and women were murdered extra-judicially or executed after flimsy legal process. They were killed as a result of the military coup of 17-18 July 1936 against the Spanish Republic.

"For the same reason, perhaps as many as 200,000 men died at the battle fronts. Unknown numbers of men, women and children were killed in bombing attacks and in the exoduses that followed the occupation of territory by Franco's military forces. In all of Spain after the final victory of the rebels at the end of March 1939, approximately 20,000 Republicans were executed. Many more died of disease and malnutrition in overcrowded, unhygienic prisons and concentration camps. Others died in the slave-labour conditions of work battalions".​

•  Island Brigaders: Arran, Millport and the fight against Fascism in 1930s Spain, is available (£5) from stockists listed here: https://islandbrigaders.bigcartel.com/stockists