The Washington times., 1936-09-23
BY H. r. KNICKERBOCKER
Copyright, 1896, by International
News SerVice)

News Service)
Seville anyone who says
or thinks that the reds have no
courage is silly. Only thought
less people on this side are say
ing that. General Franco him.
self thinks they have plenty, at
least the anarchists have, whom
the General respects for that
quality, though he intends to ex-
terminate them if they won't
give in.
Take that town of Almendra-
lejo, the one we just passed on
the road on our way to the
front with the legion. 1 heard
Of the church tower of Almendra-
lejo, so when we came through I
stopped to see it.
There is not much left. Just
trio of corner pillars showing
where the tower had been. They
Shelled it for eight days-I mean
the whites did. In the tower
there were to begin with one hun
dred reds.
Guns in Tower
The town itself had been taken
completely by the whites. save
for the church tower. The reds
in the tower had plenty of ma
chine guns and plenty of ammun.
tion. They commanded series
of streets running off from the
church.
About 1000 whites besieged
that church for eight days. The
name of the church is "Of the
Conception" It is romantic.
About the sixth day the whites
crept up by night and entered
the church itself on the ground
floor. The reds came down from
the tower and fought a pitched
battle inside the church. They
fired from sort of balcony on
the tower end right down into
the whites, who were firing from
the high altar. The reds exter-
minated the whites inside the
church. but before that happened
the whites had managed to cut
off the reds water supply.
The battle inside the church
set fire to it and it burned out
completely inside. But the reds
in the tower hung on, lived
through the smoke and on the
seventh day there were still so
left and the whites could not
reach them. The tower, built of
brick, did not burn. The whites
had no heavy artillery, but kept
shelling the tower with light
field pieces and riddling it with
machine guns until it seemed in
credible that human being
could be alive there.
But every time the shelling
ceased and whites began to ad-
vance along the streets, bursts of
machine gun fire from the tower
proved the reds still there.
It was the eighth day when they
gave up. And they only surren-
dered for lack Of water. Two days
without water was too much.
There were Al left alive out of the
100 who started.
Fate Unknown
I asked the trembling old
woman whose house, miraculously
intact, was opposite the church,
what became of the survivors.
She didn't know. That question,
in this war, is not much use
asking.
went inside this mournful evi-
dence of fanatic hatred. Evidently
the reds had used the church as
a garage before the battle started.
Half a dozen mounds Of blackened
metal had been automobiles. The
high altar was blown and burned
to dirty powder.
Certainly if previous genera
tions in the days of old Egypt,
Greece and Rome had possessed
the instruments of destruction
that we possess today, their wars
would have left us none of those
monuments of antiquity which
have come down to use despite the
fury of their conflicts. How much
of Spain will be left at all if this
war goes on much longer?