Bombing of Gernika

Between July 1936 and August 1937, 130 municipalities in the Basque Country experienced more than 2,000 bombings. Some included the first ever experiments with incendiary bombs. 

The first attack was against the small town of Otxandio only days after the military rebellion. On 22 July, residents watched as two planes dropped six bombs andmachine gunned the town. There were dozens of casualties, the vast majority civilians. That same day, the Republicans carried out the first bombing from the sea. A ship in the Concha bay in San Sebastian attacked the Gran Casino, to prevent the “rebels” from attacking a vessel of the Republican navy. 

After six weeks of attacks, the Francoists occupied Irún and closed the border with France. The city had endured 33 bombings. The following week, General Mola’s troops entered San Sebastian after rebel airplanes had cleared the way with 20 aerial attacks. 

The bombings continued until after Christmas when the weather became an obstacle. The great offensive against Vizcaya began on 31 March 1937. By that time, most of the pilots and planes in the air over the Basque Country were Italian and German. The Savoia-Marchetti bombers and Fiat Cr.32 fighters of the Italian Legionary Air Force and the Junker bombers and Heinkel He51fighters of the Condor Legion took turns taking off from the Vitoria-Gasteiz airfield to accompany Francoist planes. 

On 26 April, they attacked Gernika. The town was packed. It was the last Monday of the month, market day, which meant that people from the surrounding villages were there. In addition, people were being evacuated through the town. Suddenly, at 4:20 pm, 59 planes flying in formation at 800 feet appeared. Luftwaffe officer Wolfram von Richthofen of the Condor Legion was in command. For more than three hours, the planes dropped 41 tons of incendiary bombs and explosives on the old heart of the town. Noel Monk of the British paper the Daily Express, the first journalist to arrive, described the scene as an “inferno”. During the Francoist dictatorships, school children were taught that Gernika had been destroyed by “the reds”. 

After the destruction of Gernika, Francoist troops surrounded Bilbao and besieged the Basque capital for a month and a half. The city was attacked from the air 22 times between 11 and 19 July alone. The Francoists’ entry into Bilbao on 19 July was the final blow against the organization of the anti-Francoist forces in the Basque Country. 

Even so, the war, and the bombings, continued until the second half of August. In all, more than 40,000 bombs were fired at Basque cities and towns during the thirteen months after July 1936. More than 90 percent of the attacks were carried out by the Francoists. 

UB / MJV