Abraham Lincoln Battalion, Spanish Civil War

Date: 1936 to 1939
Location: [unknown]
Surname/tag: Military_and_War

The Lincoln Battalion was the 17th (later the 58th) battalion of the XV International Brigade, a mixed brigade of the International Brigades also known as Abraham Lincoln Brigade (Spanish: Brigada Abraham Lincoln). It was formed by a group of volunteers from the United States who served in the Spanish Civil War as soldiers, technicians, medical personnel and aviators fighting for Spanish Republican forces against the forces of General Francisco Franco and his fascist faction. The Lincoln Brigade was the first American military force to include blacks and whites integrated on an equal basis.

Of the approximately 3,015 American volunteers, 681 were killed in action or died of wounds or sickness.

Notable members - American veterans

James Walker Benét – Author and journalist (San Francisco Chronicle)

Alvah Bessie – Hollywood screenwriter who was one of the Hollywood Ten.

Delmer Berg – Union organizer.

Herman Bottcher – Earned two Distinguished Service Crosses in World War II.

Edward A. Carter, Jr. – Earned the Medal of Honor in World War II.

Carmelo Delgado Delgado – Puerto Rican nationalist, among the first U.S. citizens to die in the war.

Leo Eloesser – Noted US thoracic surgeon.

Moe Fishman – co-founder and Executive Secretary/Treasurer of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

John Gates – Political Commissar of the Battalion, later editor of The Daily Worker.

Robert Klonsky – One of the defendants in the Smith Act trial of the mid-1950s.

Conlon Nancarrow – Composer.

George Sossenko – Also fought in the Durruti Column.

Robert G. Thompson – Awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in World War II; among the 1950s Smith Act trial defendants.

Harry Wayland Randall – Chief Photographer of the Photographic Unit of the 15th International Brigade.

William Herrick – Novelist.