The Spanish airlift of 1936 was a military operation carried out by the Nationalists during the early phase of the Spanish Civil War. It did not have any specific code name. Its objective was to bypass the Republican naval blockade of the Strait of Gibraltar and transport by air the Nationalist soldiers stationed in Spanish Morocco to the rebel-controlled part of Andalusia. The undertaking was hugely successful; during 85 days from 19 July to 11 October the Nationalists transported at least 14,000 men (with some sources claiming 23,000) and at least 270 tonnes of war materiel (according to some sources 400 tonnes).
The success was possible thanks to more than thirty aircraft provided by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy sent on the personal orders of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini respectively; these carried most of the troops and equipment. The operation is viewed as innovative, as it was the first ever large-scale military transport by air. Since there was no major Republican counter-action, the airlift was a challenge in terms of logistics and technology rather than combat. The opinion prevailing in historiography is that the airlift was vital for the Nationalists and helped to turn the failed coup into a long-lasting civil war.
Background
The coup of July 1936 commenced in Spanish Morocco; on 17 July the rebels easily gained control of most of the protectorate, overwhelming remaining pockets of resistance the following day. However, on the peninsula the coup was far less successful; on 18 July the insurgents gained rather shaky control over Seville and Córdoba, while the situation remained unclear in Cádiz, Granada, Huelva and Málaga. During the evening of that day, a few hundred Morocco-stationed rebel troops boarded the destroyer Churruca, which in the early hours of 19 July transported them to Cádiz, greatly contributing to the full rebel takeover of the city. However, on her way back, the Churruca's officers were overpowered by the crew. Other warships loyal to the government were deployed in the Strait of Gibraltar, blocking any would-be further transport of the rebels by sea. The southern tip of the peninsula, ranging from Cádiz to Seville, was now firmly controlled by the insurgents; however, they were isolated and in danger of being overrun. Francisco Franco arrived in Morocco on the morning of 19 July and took command of the troops. Since the protectorate was fully controlled, the battle-hardened Army of Africa was not required there; instead, the rebels needed the troops badly in Andalusia. The rebels initially had some 120,000 armed men; out of these, 40,000 were stationed in Africa.Casanova 2013, p. 24 As sea transport no longer remained an option, the decision to commence an airlift was taken during a meeting of high commanders, presided over by Franco;Permuy 2011 it was reportedly suggested by Francisco Arranz Monasterio, a pilot-observer, industrial engineer and artillery captain.
Airlift
Early phase During the early days of the rebellion, there were very few aircraft available for conducting an airlift from Spanish Morocco to Andalusia. Three Fokker F.VIIs were seized either at Seville airport or the airfield at Larache on the Atlantic coast of northern Morocco, and two military Dornier Do J Wal flying boats remained at the Cádiz naval base. Already on the evening of 19 July, a Fokker F.VII transported troops from Sania Ramel airfield in Tetuán (located on the Tingitan Peninsula south of Ceuta, a few kilometres inland from the Mediterranean coast of Morocco) to Tablada airport in Seville. It carried nine legionnaires and their commander. When approaching Tablada airport the aircraft was fired at by ground troops, who were earlier bombed by Republican aircraft and suspected another bombing raid.
Soon all five aircraft were engaged.Arrimada 2010 The transport capacity was very limited: neither the Fokkers nor the Dorniers could have accommodated more than fifteen troops. The first unit airlifted was 17. Company of the 5. Bandera of the Foreign Legion, which regrouped in Andalusia on 20 July.Bowen and Alvarez (ed.) 2007, p. 8 The same day, a that was being operated by Germany’s national airline Deutsche Luft Hansa on an airmail flight from Gambia made an intermediate stop in the Canary Islands; the pilot was forced to fly to Tetuán,Photographic details in Alpert 2019, pp. 24–25 but instead of joining the airlift he carried Franco's mission to Berlin.
Aware of the insufficiency of available resources, on 23 July Franco cabled Hitler and Mussolini requesting transport aircraft;Payne 2012, p. 132 he also sent his personal envoys to Berlin (on the previously-detained Luft Hansa ) and Rome. The envoys managed to see Hitler on 25 July and on the same day the German dictator agreed to provide assistance. Mussolini was less decisive, but within 48 hoursPayne 2012, pp. 132–133 he independently decided to do the same thing. Meanwhile on 25 July, the Nationalists seized a Douglas DC-2 – an American-manufactured fourteen-seat airliner, at the time one of the most-advanced aircraft types in the world – hitherto in civilian service with Spain’s national airline LAPE (Líneas Aéreas Postales Españolas – ′Spanish Postal Airlines′); this increased the maximum and purely theoretical daily transport capacity to some 130 men. Prior to the arrival of the , the four DC-2s operated by LAPE were among the largest and most capable aircraft in Spanish civilian or military service.Parks 2009
German and Italian buildup
The operation was a complex and previously unheard of logistical undertaking, which involved refueling (purchase of fuel, transport, storage, pumping), repair and maintenance (staff, spare parts procurement, workshop availability, tools), handling of troops (transport, accommodation, assembly, waiting, boarding and disembarkation) and air-traffic management. The German and Italian aircraft were dispatched to Franco under conditions of secrecy. Both German and Italian aircraft were re-painted and stripped of their national symbols.
In Germany, the logistics were co-ordinated by General Helmuth Wilberg.Caballero Jurado 2013, p. 14 The German effort was code-named Feuerzauber (‘Fire Magic’) and tried to appear as a civilian operation. The Germans set up a front company named Sociedad Hispano-Marroquí de Transportes (HISMA), to supposedly provide commercial transport services between Morocco and Spain; all were officially operated by this entity. The first Junkers sent by the Nazis arrived in Tetuán on 28 July;Alpert 2019, p. 28 others arrived during the next few days.Alpert 1994, p. 40 HISMA, ostensibly headquartered on Calle O'Donnel in Tetuán, was formally registered by the Spanish consul in Tetuán on 31 July.Sabín Rodríguez 1997, p. 227 The man initially chosen to command the German detachment sent to Spain was Major ,Corum 2020, p. 29 who was succeeded by Colonel Walter Warlimont from 31 August.Alpert 2019, p. 39. With Warlimont occupied by higher duties as the German operations in Spain expanded as the war intensified, the command was placed upon Oberleutnant .Westwell 2004, p. 16
German Luftwaffe pilots volunteered for the operation; they travelled in plain clothes and if detained, they were to pose as tourists travelling under the auspices of the Reisegesellschaft Union (Union Travel Association), part of the Nazi leisure organisation Kraft durch Freude (‘Strength Through Joy’).Alpert 2019, p. 34 On 9 August a civil-registered landed on an airfield at Azuaga, located north of Seville in territory held by the Republic, and its crew of four Germans was detained. Three of the four were carrying documents showing they were connected to Deutsche Luft Hansa, while the fourth had documents connecting him to the Junkers Dessau plant.López Mohedano 2017, pp. 236-7 It is not clear whether they were provided with false documentation, or whether indeed Luft Hansa/Junkers factory crew were manning a commercial Luft Hansa flight to Africa as claimed; this version of events was sustained officially by Auswärtiges Amt (the German Foreign ministry). Believing this or not, Republican authorities kept the aircraft but eventually allowed the four to return to Germany, before Republican Spain and Nazi Germany broke off all diplomatic relations.López Mohedano 2017 The German detachment included civilian mechanical and radio aircraft maintenance personnel, a medical officer, technicians, 25 Luftwaffe officers and 66 Luftwaffe non-commissioned officers.Antón 2023
The Italian personnel and their Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 Pipistrellos were drawn from Italy’s air force, the Regia Aeronautica. Similarly to the Germans, the Italians wore civilian clothes and were provided with fake documents. Both the crews and the SM.81s, which unlike the Germans’ , were unambiguously military aircraft capable of combat (they were dual-role bomber—transports, complete with two bomb bays, a bomb-aimer position and multiple defensive machine gun positions), were officially incorporated into the Tercio de Marruecos, (‘Tercio of Morocco’—the Spanish Foreign Legion) and posed as part of it, under the name Aviación del Tercio.Mas Godayol 1982, p. 682 The Italians soon established the Aviazione Legionaria (‘Legionary Aviation’) as their operations in support of the Nationalists expanded. The Italian air detachment was led at first by Colonel Ruggero Bonomi.Mattioli 2016, p. 47
On 30 July the first Italian SM.81s landed in Nador (the closest airfield to Italy) on the northeastern coast of Morocco.Alpert 2019, p. 122 They encountered strong headwinds on the delivery flight and as a result three of the twelve aircraft despatched never reached Morocco; they ran out of fuel en route and were lost. Other SM.81s arrived during the first few days of August; they were ready for operations by the end of the first week of the month. Whereas the either came on board a ship to Cádiz (the German passenger ship Usaramo arrived there on 6 August with at least sixteen aircraft), or flew via Italy, the SM.81s flew directly from the Italian island of Sardinia.
Despite all the effort at subterfuge, Fascist and Nazi assistance quickly ceased to be a secret. Two of the SM.81s lost on the 30 July delivery flight went down in French territory and the ensuing investigation soon revealed the nature of their mission.Romero Salvado 2009, p. 103 British intelligence got wind of German assistance when they intercepted a message from the Spanish consul in Tangier; in early August the British vice-consul in Tetuán reported twenty “large aircraft” and German anti-Nazi workers in Hamburg provided more information. Later in August, the Communist propagandist Arthur Koestler saw foreign airmen in Seville, though there was no proof they were military. By September it had become widely known that German and Italian aircraft and men were heavily involved in transporting Franco’s troops to the peninsula.Alpert 2019, p. 33
Airlift flight operations Initially, the flights were operated between Tetuán and Seville, a distance of approximately . However, once a few kilometers south of Jerez de la Frontera had been sufficiently developed to permit its use in early August, flights from Morocco were re-directed to land there. With a distance between the two airfields of around , this allowed considerable savings in fuel usage.Forsyth 2017, p. 26 Because of their need to operate from water and their low cruising speed, the two Dornier flying boats were employed on the route from Ceuta (between Tetuán and Algeciras, on the Peninsula of Almina at the northeastern tip of the Tingitan Peninsula) to Algeciras, a distance of ; as they were suffering mechanical wear and tear at a fast rate, they were later withdrawn from service altogether.