I was looking up furrier/lynx-cat buyer Michael Pappas and happened to stumble on his father's obit from 1982. It mentioned that both Michael's father and his uncle were both American volunteers in the Lincoln Brigade which fought to defend the Republican side in the Spanish civil war in 1937. I had never heard of this group of American volunteers so I looked it up. Pretty amazing that most of us have likely never heard of them.

The brigade suffered very high casualties but Michael Pappas' dad survived. His uncle unfortunately did not.

Franco's Nationalist forces ended up prevailing with help from Hitler and Mussolini. Foreign volunteers were most often summarily executed if captured.

The Spanish Civil War was a testing ground for Germany's and Italy's new weapons, and maybe some British and French weapons on the Republican side (I can't remember). Yes, there were several foreign volunteer groups fighting on the losing side.

The ironic thing is that Franco kept Spain basically neutral when WWII started in earnest. I'm sure that po'd both Hitler and Mussolini. Franco lived to be a ripe old man. The other two not so much...

P.S. I wonder what old Franco would think now that Spain has become one of the favorite countries for U.S.Hollywood liberals to go live fleeing DJT..? How things can change. .