In the first days of March 1939, very few doubted it: the Civil War was about to end. After the failure of the Battle of the Ebro and the conquest of Catalonia by rebel troops, the feeling of imminent defeat throbs in the republican government. On February 27, France and Great Britain recognized the legitimacy of Franco’s government. Any minimal hope of foreign intervention in support of the Republic had completely vanished.
In these circumstances, any attempt to reach a negotiated peace is doomed to failure. As Gabriel Jackson points out in the classic The Spanish Republic and the Civil War (1985), Franco had expressed to the French and British representatives that “the war was over and he had no intention of negotiating with Negrín or with anyone.” Faced with this situation, the Republican president expresses that “there is no alternative but to continue fighting.” Not all Republicans agree.
Internal criticism regarding Juan Negrín’s position grows as the days go by and the movements that seek to depose his government intensify. Among them, the one commanded by Colonel Segismundo Casado, head of the Center Army, and which manifested itself through a coup d’état on the night of March 5 to 6. It is an almost definitive blow to republican morality and resistance.
The uprising in Cartagena, the only major Spanish port that remained under Republican command in the first days of March, took place in this situation. Late on the 4th, Colonel Francisco Galán, a member of the Communist Party, arrives at the city’s naval base, having been appointed by Negrín as the new head of the base. The intention is to put in command of one of the few war assets in the hands of the Republic, a soldier convinced of maintaining the war effort.
Barely two hours after their arrival the uprising took place. A group of officers, supported by members of the fifth column and Falangist sympathizers and with captain Fernando Oliva at the head, revolted. The mutineers arrest Colonel Galán, take the main batteries on the coast and take control of the radio. The rebels appoint retired general Rafael Barrionuevo as the new head of the base.
News of the uprising reaches Franco’s headquarters in Burgos during the morning of the next day. The reaction is immediate and the decision is urgent: it is urgent to allocate enough troops to Cartagena to reinforce and guarantee definitive control of the base. Franco’s commanders order the dispatch of a large fleet, made up of 30 ships and more than 20,000 soldiers, which departs from the ports of Málaga and Castellón.
That March 5, the soldiers of the 83rd Division are in Castellón and are preparing to attend a bullfight organized in their honor. Shortly before leaving for it, the order comes from Army headquarters. “Depart urgently for Cartagena in order to reinforce the insurgents and secure the base.” Among the ships destined for the mission is the Olite Castle.
The 11th Regiment of the 83rd Division embarks at Olite Castle, and Lieutenant Colonel José Hernández Arteaga is in command of the expeditionary force. Around 2,200 soldiers, equipped with weapons and ammunition, leave Castellón early on March 6. It is the last of the ships to leave. She is also one of the slowest in the entire fleet and the one in the worst condition.
One of the serious problems faced on a mission of this caliber is that the radio system does not work. During the journey you will not be able to receive any information about what is happening in Cartagena.
The crew of Olite Castle do not know, therefore, that the Republican army has counterattacked and sent an elite unit, the 206th Mixed Brigade, to the rebel base. After intense clashes with Franco’s forces, he managed to recover the key points lost a day earlier, including the main batteries on the coast. One of them, that of La Parajola.
Information about the loss of Cartagena reaches the ships approaching its bay by radio, which change their route to avoid attacks by enemy batteries. The Olite Castle, in addition to being isolated, does not have visual contact with the other ships of the fleet, which have left separately in order to reduce the risk of being identified en route by the Republican aviation.
Under these conditions, Olite Castle approaches the coast thinking that Cartagena is in the power of its side’s forces. The atmosphere on board is relaxed. Much more so when a national Heinkel He 60 seaplane flies over it, moving its wings at full speed. The crew understands that this action is a welcome greeting from their coreligionists. Nothing is further from reality. The message that Heinkel wants to convey is the opposite: it must turn around. Cartagena is, once again, in republican hands.
Very close to the base, at the height of the island of Escombreras, the Olite Castle maintains its course with the flag raised. As he advances, he places himself in the firing range of the La Parajola battery without suspecting the danger he is in.
Republican captain Antonio Martínez Pallarés is in command of that battery, which only has one artillery piece available. The others have been disabled during the clashes of the previous day. Martínez Pallarés hesitates about whether to order the firing of the howitzer from the battery’s Vickers cannon, but Captain Cristóbal Guirao, in charge of the 206th Brigade, orders him to do so.
The first of the projectiles misses the target. The following ones do, one of which enters obliquely from the bow and hits the bridge of the freighter. A huge explosion, multiplied by the ammunition it carries, instantly kills hundreds of soldiers.
The ship wobbles and begins to sink. Dozens of crew members drown (many of them do not know how to swim). The few who survive the explosion and manage to swim to the island of Las Escombreras, helped by its inhabitants, are detained by the republican forces.
The numbers of dead and injured are unprecedented. In June 1939, as reflected in an essay in the Naval History Magazine published in 2009, the Cartagena City Council paid tribute to the victims during which a figure of 1,200 deaths was mentioned. However, today there is consensus that the death toll was higher, approaching 1,500, and that the number of injured exceeded 300.
It seems clear that the disaster had a lot to do with precipitation. A ship in the conditions of the Olite Castle should not carry out an action of such risk. The realization of this reality meant that the episode was not well known during the first years of Franco’s regime. An official list with the names and surnames of all the deceased was never known, although this was also influenced by the fact that many bodies were never recovered.
The sinking of the Olite Castle occurred just 24 days before the end of the Civil War and, unlike other war events, it did not have excessive prominence in the epic history of Franco’s regime. The urgency to take one of the few strategic points that remained in the hands of the Republican army had led to the greatest naval tragedy by number of deaths in the history of Spain.
