Tío Pepe and the
Rebel
Column
By Emilito
Rev. 2005-02-27
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Emilio & Carmen's 1936 trip to Spain
Esta página en español
This is a story
of Emilito's tío Pepe, Jose SIGNES GARCÍA, brother of
Emilito's father Emilio, during the Spanish Civil War. It
was told to Emilito by his
first cousin Julián SIGNES QUEROL, tío Pepe's son.
Tio Pepe and his family
(wife Trini, sons Julián & Pepet) in 1934
Pepe had been a Civil Guard (Guardia Civil) since 1919. During the
Civil War (probably 1938) he was part of a Republican Civil
Guard column that
went from Castellón to the front (somewhere in the vicinity of
Teruel). There were trucks, wagons, and on foot, 2000-3000
members of the Civil Guard.
Together with the professional Civil Guards there were 3000-4000
volunteers - militiamen of the left, very young, perhaps 17 or 18 years
of age. They were wearing old clothes, alpargatas
[canvas rope-soled
sandals], etc.
During their voyage
(in the
town of Valverde), several officers got together and decided to switch
to Franco's side. They killed the colonel and possibly the
lieutenant colonel. Then they began to kill all the youngsters
that they could.
Tío Pepe didn't know what was going on, as he was
sleeping. At 3 or 4 AM, he heard shots - "pim pom pim pum!"; he
got
up and saw the Guards killing the youngsters. He reckoned they
killed at least 200 or 300 while the rest escaped.
The column went
immediately to Franco's side.
Pepe heard a one of the guards say "We didn't see Guard Signes shoot
anyone."
Pepe ran away.
He fled through the small (communist) towns in the area. In the
town of Pitarque, province of Teruel, he found a family that he asked
to lend him clothes, because in his Guard's clothes he would have been
killed. They gave him some of their father's clothes - clothes in
which they planned to bury him - clothes that looked like they may have
come from a Goya painting. Pepe promised to return the clothes (a
promise he never kept).
Then he went towards
Morella (his wife's hometown in the province of Castellón)
through all the communist towns en route.
They captured him in the town of Alcoriza (province of Teruel), and put
him in jail where they were going to execute him. While in jail,
he was put to work as a construction laborer. When the young
volunteers of the
column arrived they were able to verify that "This person had nothing
to do with what happened."
They turned him free, and he went to Morella. Morella was then
either in
Franco's hands or on the verge of becoming so. [Emilito's note:
Morella fell to Franco in April 1938.] He then fled with
his family to his hometown of Gata de Gorgos (Alicante), still in
Republican hands. He
lived in a
little house called the "Pou de Pedreguer" (which at that time
belonged to his brother Emilio [Emilito's father], who was living in
the US).
Approximately
at the
war's end, the Civil Guard of Morella [now Franco's Civil Guard]
notified the authorities in Gata
that Civil Guard Signes was a leftist and that he had deserted his
column.
The Civil Guard of
Gata, although they liked Pepe, had no other option but to put him in
jail (probably in 1939).
He was taken to Alicante, and later Valencia, and was in jail for
nearly two years.
He was lucky not to be executed - it helped him that his father was on
the political right (and by the
end of the war, so was Pepe!)
"The Communists were going to kill my father," said Julián, "and
so was Franco."
*************
This
is the story the way Julián told it to Emilito. Emilito,
in February 2005, discovered the following web page, which tells the
story of what happend to what has to be the same column (the year is
1937). [Emilito promises to translate this - sometime.]
http://www.alasbarricadas.org/ateneo/modules/wikimod/index.php?page=Columna%20de%20Hierro
La primera columna republicana
que se lanzó contra Teruel procedía de Castellón e
iba bajo el mando del coronel de carabineros Fernández Bujanda,
el capitán Luis Sierra y el teniente Joaquín Oset Merlo,
y tenía como delegado político al diputado socialista por
Castellón Francisco Casas Salas. Esta fuerza la integraban un
millar de milicianos, más de cuatrocientos guardias civiles y
algunos carabineros, procedentes de Valencia, Castellón y
Cuenca. El eje de partida fue Sagunto, dirección Teruel. La
noche del 28 de julio llegó a Barracas, pueblo situado en la
carretera general. Y para poder seguir hacia Sarrión, la columna
se dividió en dos partes: una parte, bajo el mando del
capitán Sierra y del diputado Casas Salas, marchó sobre
Mora de Rubielos, que fue ocupada sin tener que hacer un solo disparo;
la otra, dirigida por Fernández Bujanda, salió en
dirección a La Puebla de Valverde el 29 de julio.
Una
vez llegada la columna a La Puebla de Valverde, la noche del 30, los
guardias civiles se sublevaron, apresando a los jefes de la
expedición, militares y políticos, y a numerosos
milicianos, incluidos los que volvían de Mora, dispersando a los
restantes y apoderándose de todo el armamento. Acto seguido se
pasó a las fuerzas nacionales que defendían los accesos
de Teruel por aquella carretera. La expedición Bujanda
terminó así, convirtiéndose en un poderoso
refuerzo para la escasa guarnición de la plaza». [11]
-----------------------
11. José Manuel
MARTÍNEZ BANDE, op. cit., p. 92. Ramón Salas, en su
Historia del Ejército Popular de la República
amplía con más detalles lo que sucedió en Puebla
de Valverde: «La columna de guardias civiles y milicianos
dirigÍda por Fernández Bujanda salió de Valencia
el 25 de julio, se unió en Sagunto con otra que venía de
Castellón, y siguieron hasta Segorbe, donde se les
añadieron milicianos y guardias civiles de los pueblos de la
comarca. Setecientos milicianos y cuatrocientos guardias en total.
Allí la columna se dividió en dos agrupaciones; una se
dirigió a Teruel por Puebla de Valverde y la otra a Mora de
Rubielos. Al llegar, el 30 de julio, a Puebla de Valverde, los guardias
civiles les tendieron una emboscada mientras reposaban, matando a 72
milicianos y apresando a 47, incluidos el jefe de la expedición,
Bujanda, y los mandos, Casas y Sierra, que acudieron desde Mora a
parlamentar. Los detenidos fueron conducidos a Teruel y fusilados".
Location of places
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