Yes, Spanish Volunteers Did Fight Alongside Hitler Against Stalin
The fascists may have won the Spanish Civil War, but they were not eager to commit their country completely to the Axis cause.
Key point: The war between two totalitarian powers on the Eastern front was brutal and ugly. Here is how the Spanish Blue Division helped the Nazis in their doomed quest for victory.
The Russian winter of 1941-1942 hit with terrible ferocity. Battling the deadly, numbing cold as well as the massive numbers of Red Army troops were soldiers from sunny Spain. Yet the men, who were more accustomed to sipping sangria on a Mediterranean beach than trying to survive in a white, sub-zero arctic hell, were giving as good as they got. They were the men volunteers all of the Division Azul, or Blue Division, led by 45-year-old Maj. Gen. Agustin Muñoz-Grandes, himself one of the heroes of the Spanish Civil War.
By GUSTAVO ARELLANO | Los Angeles Times | Published: April 19, 2021 LOS ANGELES (Tribune News Service) – The word came in the morning, as Grace Cruz and her children gathered at the family home in Boyle Heights on Christmas Eve, 1943. Her oldest son, Jacob, was dead. A telegram from the United States Marines said the 18-year-old private was killed in action but divulged little else. The ongoing Pacific campaign meant Jacob would be buried in a temporary grave in the Tarawa atoll, where he and more than 1,000 other Marines and sailors died fighting the Imperial Japanese Army. Weeks turned into months and into years. The military finally admitted it couldn t find Jacob s burial place. His name was etched at the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii.
Lost for Decades, a Marine World War II Hero Finally Comes Home
A plaque on a memorial site hangs to commemorate the Battle of Tarawa on Betio Island, Tarawa Atoll, Kiribati, June 19, 2017. (MCIPAC Combat Camera Lance Cpl. Juan C. Bustos/U.S. Marine Corps)
19 Apr 2021 The Los Angeles Times | By Gustavo Arellano
LOS ANGELES The word came in the morning, as Grace Cruz and her children gathered at the family home in Boyle Heights on Christmas Eve, 1943.
Her oldest son, Jacob, was dead.
A telegram from the United States Marines said the 18-year-old private was killed in action but divulged little else. The ongoing Pacific campaign meant Jacob would be buried in a temporary grave in the Tarawa Atoll, where he and more than 1,000 other Marines and sailors died fighting the Imperial Japanese Army.
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In late 1943, Marine Corps Pvt.
Jacob Cruz was killed in action during the Pacific campaign in World War II. The ongoing fighting meant the 18-year-old from Boyle Heights would be buried in a temporary grave in the Tarawa atoll, where he and more than 1,000 other Marines and sailors died fighting
the Imperial Japanese Army.
Years later, the U.S. military admitted it couldn’t find his burial place. Cruz’s name was etched at the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii.
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His family tried to honor him for the rest of their lives. Cruz’s mother and two of his four siblings died without ever knowing where he was buried.