Monument to fallen of the Battle of Cape Machichaco

This monument, located very close to the site of the Battle of Machichaco, was erected in March 2007, on the seventieth anniversary of the battle.  It was an uneven encounter of little military consequence, although for the Basques it had great symbolic importance. 

In October 1936, the new autonomous Basque government created its own navy, the Auxiliary Navy of Euzkadi. It consisted of six codfishing vessels armed with cannon as a number of other smaller boats that were armed and employed in tasks such as mine sweeping. None of them could stand up to a regular naval vessel, but what they lacked in firepower they made up for with the courage of their crews, as the battle of Cape Michichaco, which took place only a few kilometres off the Basque coast on March 5, 1937, demonstrates. 

The day before, the rebel heavy cruiser Canarias had been ordered to intercept a small convoy comprising the merchant ship Galdames en route from Bayonne in France, the Republican destroyer José Luís Diez, and the Bizkaia, Donostia, Gipuzkoa y Nabarra, four armed Basque vessels, or bous, commanded by veteran merchant seamen. After sighting the Canarias, the Republican vessels headed for the coast hoping to draw it within range of the coastal batteries. The Canarias caught up with the Gipuzkoa which, instead of withdrawing, returned fire and inflicting minor damage on the much larger vessel. When the Gipuzkoa headed for the port of Portugalete, the Canarias gave chase but withdrew after being fored on by the coastal batteries. For its part, the Bizkaia recued the Yorkbrook, a British merchant ship carrying a cargo of war materiel that the Canarias had captured earlier and took it to Bermeo.  

The Canarias then turned on the convoy, caputing the Galdames, many of whose passangers would subsequently be executed, and turne don the Nabarra, whose crew commanded by Enrique Moreno from Murcia, resisted staunchly. In the hour and a half of combate, half of the Nabarra’s crew, some twenty men,as well as its captain who chose  to go down with his ship, were killed. The Donostia managed to escape while the destroyer José Luis Díaz had refused to engage at all. The ship did not enjoy much of a reputation, having earned the nickname “Portside Joe” because of the little time it spent at sea – and even less engaged in combat.  When the sip was in Bordeaux shortly afterwards, its captain and officers went over to the rebels. 

The survivots of the Nabarra were taken prisoner and concemned to death. Only the intervention of Captain Salvador Moreno of the Canarias and his gunnery officer who told Franco that such brave men did not deserve to die, saved them from execution.   

The Battle of Cape Machichaco is part of the permanent exhibit of the Fishers’ Museum in Bermeo.