The Sinking of the Ciudad de Barcelona on 30th May, 1937

[John Simkin]

On 30th May 1937 the Ciudad de Barcelona, that was transporting over 500 members of the Iinternational Brigades, was torpedoed by an Italian submarine, twenty miles north of Barcelona. As Cecil D. Eby, the author of Comrades and Commissars: The Lincoln Battalion in the Spanish Civil War (2007), pointed out: " For weeks the fishermen of Malgrat salvaged unidentified bodies from a thick beach scum of oil, hemp, and lumber. An opaque curtain immediately dropped over the Barcelona disaster."

It was not until 1961 that the full story came out. The reason being is that Robert Minor, the leading official of the American Communist Party and the Comintern in Spain, came to the conclusion that the event would stop people from volunteering to join the International Brigades. Therefore, the story was never published. Eventually the steamship company admitted that the vessel had been torpedoed but declared that it had carried no passengers - only a cargo of fish, bread, and vegetables for Spain.

[John Dolva]

Strange twist of things.

Given that ''Robert Minor, the leading official of the American Communist Party and the Comintern in Spain'' controls the press to the extent that those whose interest in having Franco succeed were unable to get out this story of an ''event (that) would stop people from volunteering to join the International Brigades.'' were thwarted.

The kernel, imo, is the Italian involvement. Nazi support for the Falangists is well known. It was a great training/testing ground for the upcoming main feature: WWII.

To have it known that the Fascisti were also so operative may impact on that.