The Washington times., 1936-10-05

NetUS Service.
BY H. r. KNICKERBOCKER
Copyright. 1885 by international
News Service)
IRUN, Oct. 5 GN.S).-All the
time we spent in this wrecked
town the explosions went on like
a Fourth of July; big cannon,
little cannon, machine guns, rifles
and the clatter of munitions
dumps going off. We stopped to
say How do you do" to Colonel
Beorlegui, commander of the
white troops assaulting Irun. He
bad just got a slight wound in
his foot from an anarchist sniper.
These fellows live up to the
name General Franco gave them
when he told me they were the
toughest of the tough. We got
clear up to fifty yards of the
railroad station when the colonel
told us to wait because one last
little group Of anarchists was
holding the station yards.
One of our homemade armored
cars, a frightfully clumsy thing,
moved down towards the station
and twenty men walked behind
it with hand grenades. While
they were grenading the station
we watched phalangist tear open
a mail-box to find letters of the
reds. There was only a postcard
from a little girl to her mama,
It had been dropped in TIE box
about three weeks before.
Captive Auto
Pretty soon the whites came
back from the railroad station
proudly riding in a brand new
American automobile they had
captured from the anarchists. One
Of them also had new sub
machinegun Of type popular
with our gangSters at home.
I was amazed at the fact that
we saw so few bodies. Irun had
been besieged for two months.
It had been under terrific bonn
bardment for two weeks. 1t had
finally been utterly looted and
burned by the reds before they
abandoned it. Its eighteen
thousand inhabitants? Where
were they? No signs Of them
either dead or alive. The place
was empty of everything but fire
and flame and white soldiers.
The whites said the reds had
carried off all their own dead. But
would they have been so tender
with the whites? 1t began to rain.
what an added note of melancholy!
The acrid odor of wetted charcoal
rose all around us. A white Off
Ger picked up bit of twisted
bullet and explained it was a dunn
dunn. A group of soldiers came up
the streets carrying, of all things,
umbrellas. One of the few un-
burned shops left in town was an
umbrella shop, so everybody got
himself one just in time for the
rain.
Reds Hold Bridge
Those tough anarchists had not
yet given up the international
bridge. I wondered what must in
spire that curious organization
the F.A.I., the Federation Of Iberian
Anarchists. 1t is a secret organl-
cation. Nobody knows who is the
head of it. But all over Spain, on
every front, two-thirds of the auto
mobiles captured by the whites
bear the initials "F.AI." Its pass
is more powerful than the passes
issued by the Madrid government
Nobody knows just how many
members the F.AI. has, but it con-
trolls absolutely the "C.N.T." or
National Federation of Labor,
which in turn claims a million
members. The new Madrid gov
eminent under Senior Largo Cabal-
lero includes communists and
socialists, but no anarchists. Be-
cause anarchists do not believe in
government.
We saw one such pair, just two
of them, at the international
bridge. 1t was raining hard now.
We walked along cautiously un-
til white soldiers jubilantly
yelled at us that the bridge mad
finally been taken. We got right
up to the bridge. Across the Span
ish end of it just a few feet in
side of Spain was the most pa
thetic barricade I ever saw. Just
a couple of office desks and a
flimsy wardrobe, and a couple of
mattresses, not enough to stop an
airgun bullet.
Poking it's machine gun right
over the barricade white
armored car stood there still and
cold in the rain. Under its nose
lay two men. They seemed to
hug the mud, with their arms
stretched out and their faces
pressed deep into the road. The
rain fell steadily on them but it
could not wash the blood away.
These two had preferred to take
it" rather than run the few feet
across the bridge to France and
safety. Their arm-bandS bore the
letters "F. A. l."
VOTE AMERICAN
Amnesia Victim Found