Lincoln Brigade Survivors Relive Wartime Exploits

They had been lying in the tall grass since daylight, watching across the river where the opposite bank marked the enemy lines. Irving Goff had joined about 3,300 other Americans who enlisted in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade to fight fascism in Spain. He was now a member of a six-man team of guerrillas. Their mission was to infiltrate Gen. Francisco Franco’s Nationalist lines, destroying railroads and bridges to cut supply routes.

Goff had come to Spain two years earlier when the civil war that would claim thousands of lives on both sides had begun July 17, 1936, as Franco launched a successful revolt against the Republican government. Two days after hiking across the Pyrenees from France with other American volunteers, Goff had blown up his first train, later learning that it contained Italian soldiers en route to the front to fight his fellow Loyalists. He knew little about dynamite then. By now, he had learned his craft.

Now as they waited, Goff wiped the morning dew from the barrel of his Czech submachine gun. He was proficient with the weapon, remarkable in that his only prior practice in marksmanship was in a Coney Island shooting gallery when he had a spare quarter. That was seldom. Like millions of other Americans, Goff had been a victim of the Great Depression.

Now, under cover of darkness, his group had crossed in a small boat, evading sentries and setting the charge under a railroad tie. When the locomotive passed over the tie, its weight would trigger the detonator.

Always there was the possibility of a fascist cavalry patrol coming in pursuit. Today he was certain that the enemy was across the river that divided the two adversaries.

Now there was the sound of an oncoming train, the chug chug of a coal-burning locomotive, a mournful whistle announcing its approach.

“It’s nearing the charge,” the Spaniard beside him exclaimed excitedly.

Goff focused his binoculars, observing the locomotive, smoke trailing from its stack over a caravan of freight cars like a dirty white ribbon. The explosion followed, a blast that reverberated across the valley, tossing the locomotive and its tender from the track like a toy engine where it rolled on its side, vanishing from view in a cloud of black smoke. The freight cars derailed and went spinning from the roadbed like scattered ten pins in a bowling alley.

Goff and his companions cheered, hugging one another. Climbing into a truck, they headed for Loyalist headquarters where they could report a successful mission. There would be hot food waiting and perhaps a bottle or two of the fiery conac . Possibly there would be tobacco. Cigarettes were scarcer than bullets. Goff didn’t mind. He didn’t smoke.

Irving Goff, now 74, was seated in his Venice apartment, joined by two former members of the Lincoln Brigade. Fred Keller, 73, was the brigade commissar, the second in command who was responsible for the men’s welfare. During a retreat before a Nationalist attack, he swam across the Ebro River twice to save comrades. During World War II, he would serve in the U.S. Army as a paratrooper. Bill Wheeler, 76, had been a captain in the brigade. Wounded in battle and evacuated back to the United States, he insisted on returning to Spain and fought to the end of the conflict in 1939. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, he went into the U.S. Navy as a machinist’s mate.

“I’ve been asked if I was the prototype for Ernest Hemingway’s Robert Jordan in the novel ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls,’ ” Goff said. “You remember if you read the book that Jordan was a Loyalist sent on a mission behind fascist lines to blow a bridge. He teamed up with a small guerrilla band loyal to the Republic. With them was a girl named Maria. So Jordan and Maria fell in love. Did I ever meet a girl like Maria during my forays behind fascist lines? Sadly, no. If I had, I would have remained in Spain.”

Goff’s mood turned serious. “For us, it was a war of national liberation against fascism represented by Franco, Hitler and Mussolini. In New York, I lived in a Jewish community, an overflow of Lower East Side garment workers. We’d gather in delicatessens where we would discuss the Depression and what was happening to Jews in the German concentration camps. We were all supporting the Spanish Republic. I remember soliciting money on the subways for the cause. People would drop coins into an empty milk carton I carried. They were working people from every walk of life. We used the funds to purchase medical supplies for the Loyalists.

Hike to Spain

“In 1936, the word went out that an International Brigade was being formed. I got a passport and joined up in New York. About 200 of us boarded a liner bound for Le Havre. In Paris we were met by the Parisian Spanish aid committee. France had closed the Spanish border, so we had to hike across the Pyrenees, using smugglers who were familiar with the trails to escort us. Some of the men barely made it. I was in good physical shape. I’d been an acrobat, an adagio dancer, and a champion gymnast and diver.”

It was Goff’s top physical condition that was later to save his life, as he related the tale.

The Lincoln Brigade was just one of a number of groups composed of men from throughout the world. They were mixed into the ranks of the Spanish Republicans who represented the political parties aligned against Franco--socialists, communists and anarchists. Basically, they were idealists who were resisting the imposition of a Fascist regime. Their principal support came from the Soviet Union.

Franco had the aid of Italy’s dictator Benito Mussolini, who sent thousands of Italian troops to Spain. Hitler dispatched his Condor Legion, an aviation squadron that was to prepare fighter pilots for future combat and provide excellent practice in precision bombing, killing countless women and children in the process.

Peter Wyden, author of “The Passionate War--The Narrative History of the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939” (Simon & Schuster Touchstone Edition) commented on the number of intellectuals who were drawn to Spain by the cause of the civil war. Speaking from his Connecticut home, he said:

“It was absolutely astounding, and they didn’t merely look around and write. Andre Malraux, the French author, organized an entire air force for the Republicans; Ernest Hemingway showed Lincoln Brigaders how to shoot their rifles; Arthur Koestler, the Hungarian-born author, worked as a spy; W. H. Auden, the poet, drove an ambulance, while Stephen Spender, another English poet, fought for the release of a friend victimized by political persecution, as did John dos Passos, the American novelist. There was George Orwell, who was wounded as an infantry rifleman. He would later win literary acclaim as the author of ‘1984.’ The list is endless.”

Goff recalled the time when his luck nearly ran out. “There was a fort near Malaga on the Mediterranean,” he said. “It held 315 Republican prisoners. Our mission was to free them. Thirty of us reached the fort at night. We were armed with light machine guns and grenades. One of our men went up to the window of the guards’ quarters, where most of them were sleeping. He tossed in a few grenades. We had a brisk firefight with the ones on duty, but we got the prisoners out.”

Everyone escaped but Goff and three men, who found themselves being pursued by fascist soldiers. They ran for the sea, stripped off their clothes and plunged into the surf. Two were Spaniards, while the third was Billy Alto, a Finn. Bullets whined over their heads.

“I was an expert swimmer,” Goff said, “but I knew we couldn’t make it to North Africa. I yelled to Billy to follow me, and we finally reached a rocky ledge in the darkness. High above was a fascist parapet. They kept dropping empty ration cans in the water around us. We stayed there 24 hours, naked, thirsty and hungry. It took three days for us to get back to our lines . . . The two Spaniards who had been with us drowned.”

Idealistic Farmer

Delmar Berg, 70, remembers Goff well. A farmer, Berg had joined the Lincoln Brigade because he wanted the Spanish people to keep their land, which he believed the Fascists would confiscate if they were victorious. Retired, he now lives in Columbia in Northern California’s Mother Lode country.

“I was hit by shrapnel and was sent to a convalescent hospital,” he said. “It was the Duke of Alba’s estate on the Mediterranean. Irv had come there to be treated for scurvy, and when they transferred the fellow running the hospital, he got the job.”

The closing days of the civil war were at hand. Late in January, 1939, the fascists surrounded Barcelona, one of the last bastions of Loyalist resistance. Others in Madrid and Valencia were forced to surrender. The International Brigades were released to make their way home. Nearly half the Americans who had volunteered to fight Franco’s Nationalists had been killed.

On March 28, 1939, Franco’s forces occupied Madrid. It was the final curtain. Britain and France had already recognized the Fascist government, and on April 1 the United States followed suit. The victorious Fascists executed thousands of Republican sympathizers. The Condor Legion returned to Germany. Hitler was proud of his men who had gone to Spain to fight Bolshevism, decorating many of the 14,000 veterans. On Sept. 1, 1939, the Germans invaded Poland and the European war began. For the Nazis, Spain had been a training ground and a prelude to a global conflict that would take millions of lives.

During World War II, Goff was recruited by the OSS, the U.S. Army’s Office of Strategic Services whose members were specialists in clandestine operations. Once again he was working behind enemy lines, this time German in North Africa and later in Italy. He was discharged with the rank of captain and awarded the Legion of Merit. The citation read in part that in Italy “he recruited, trained and placed in the field and directed teams of men whose missions and assignments were of a secret and hazardous nature . . .” Settling in Los Angeles, Goff became a salesman for a printing supply firm and raised a family.

Relaxing in his Santa Monica apartment, Herman Rosenstein, 70, a retired electrician, described his experiences as a member of the Lincoln Brigade. “I was working as a bookkeeper in New York when I decided to go to Spain in 1937,” he said. “Not only was the motive Hitler’s anti-Semitism, but it was romantic, and Americans like to help the underdog.”

As a volunteer for the Lincolns, he participated in numerous battles. Alvah Bessie, another member of the brigade and the author of “Men in Battle--The Story of Americans in Spain” (New York: Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, 1954) in his book described meeting Rosenstein after a fierce bombardment. The young infantryman declared:

“I got buried twice yesterday by air-bombs. They sent over 200 planes at once . . . I got bounced all around like a cork. I ran through their fire lots of times. They can’t get me, they’re lousy shots; I’m just beginning to enjoy this war.”

Bessie commented: “I think he did.”

When the United States entered the war, Rosenstein joined the army, becoming a warrant officer.

“This year marks the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Spanish civil war,” he said. “There are only about 320 members of the Lincoln Brigade left. A number of us are going to Spain this fall. We’ll visit some of the battlegrounds we will never forget. Those of us who shared the civil war experience in Spain remain very close. We’re a band of brothers.”