Survivor

Albero Gomez Felipe

Description

This is the incredible account of Felipe Albero Gomez, who fought for both sides in the Spanish Civil War. When it ended, he was placed on a troop train, given a new blue uniform and told he would be fighting for General Franco's friend, Mr Adolf Hitler. Upon arrival at the German border he was told to alight and the next stage of his journey would be on foot. He would be walking 1500 kilometres to the Russia front, just in time for winter. At ninety seven years of age Felipe has decided to tell his personal story of survival.

Sujets

• Lettres et linguistique
• Military history

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 25 mai 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785385070
• Langue: English

Extrait

Title Page
THE SURVIVOR
The Incredible True Story of Felipe Albero Gomez
Written by
Felipe Albero Gomez & Ken Scott



Publisher Information
The Survivor
Published in 2016 by
Acorn Books
www.acornbooks.co.uk
an imprint of
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
Copyright © 2016 Acorn Books under exclusive licence from Ken Scott and Felipe Albero Gomez
The rights of Ken Scott and Felipe Albero Gomez have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of Acorn Books or Andrews UK.



Dedication
For all those soldiers and friends that I met along the way and who never made it home, you were never forgotten.



Acknowledgements
To my son Jose and my daughter-in-law, Jane. Immense thanks for her help whilst she was battling with her own ill health. Without her perseverance and dedication none of this would have been possible.
And to Ken Scott, my English speaking ghost-writer. My grasp of the English language is zero, his Spanish... not the greatest, but with everyone’s help, we made it.



Prologue
Writing your first book (and probably the last) is not something most 96 year old people think about doing too often. The average man in their mid nineties is content to make it out of bed in the morning, happy to take a little breakfast with his young wife (she is 84) and he is more than ecstatic if he makes it down the street to the local bar or café once or twice a week to share a coffee or a glass of wine and a good gossip with one or two friends.
I suppose I’ve always been a little different in my outlook on life, so when by pure accident I bumped into a man who was rather interested in what I had to say about surviving two major wars I was happy to talk to him. Why not? I said. I’ve nothing else to do these days and it’s not everyone who can say they fought in two wars, ended up on the losing side twice and even switched sides at one point. Who knows, someone may be interested in what it is I have to say.
War is a strange concept don’t you think? Bombing and shooting your fellow human beings because the politicians of the time decide that’s what the young working men of a particular country should be doing.
They tell you who you should fight, where you should fight them, how you should fight them and when, and depending on the outcome of certain events, how long you will be fighting them for. I had no choice but to pick up the gun I was given and I wasn’t even allowed to pick which side I was going to fight on. You may think that sounds strange but it’s true. In the Spanish Civil War I was involuntarily pitched into fighting against my brother, neither of us had any say in the matter and there was a lot of that sort of thing going on. The Spanish Civil War started in 1936, and I was on the side of the Republicans. The area I lived in near to Alicante happened to be supporting the elected government of the time which was Republican and they had decided to fight Franco’s Nationalists. No one asked me what my politic leanings were; they just gave me a gun and said get on with it, point and shoot.
So as I left my home town at just eighteen I thought to myself, how do I survive this war but more importantly how do I get through it without killing anyone?
This is my story.



Chapter One
I’ve always been a survivor, it’s just the way I am, I have had my fair share of accidents and misfortune but I’ve always seemed to pull through. My first brush with death I can remember came when I was around ten years old. It was 1928 and I lived in a village called Elda, twenty kilometres inland from the city of Alicante in the south of Spain. Times were hard but although my father was a strict disciplinarian, my childhood was relatively happy and we didn’t starve like many of the other poor children in the town. Yes we went hungry, but never for days on end. We had an odd night where we went to bed hungry but not that many that I can recall. When we were sent to bed hungry we were told that the whole world was in a depression and that’s just the way it was.
My father was a member of the Guardia Civil, well respected and relatively well paid in comparison to the poor farmers and factory workers at the time. His wages put decent food on the table for me, my three brothers and three sisters and we ate most days unlike some of my poor friends. I was the youngest of the seven, my mother Felicia, died of pneumonia when I was quite young and my father ruled the roost, his home was his castle and he was undoubtedly the King. I knew what time I had to come home in the evenings, what time I had to eat and if father asked you to do something there was no question you would do it without hesitation. He never beat me that I can recall but nor did he ever think to his arms around me to hug me. I can’t recall any warmth, any show of affection or pride in my achievements. There were times when I thought he was about to pull me in close and give me a cuddle but it never happened, not even as a small child. The best word to describe my father would be to call him cold... cold to the point of freezing but he taught me a great lesson in life and that was how not to bring children up.
My mother was different altogether, she was very loving and feisty with it. She would be described these days as a party animal, she loved the many fiestas in and around Elda and never wasted the chance to celebrate with her friends and neighbours. The overriding memory of my mother was that she had no teeth, not one single tooth in her head and yet I never found out how or why she lost them! That must sound very strange but I remember being asked to describe her in later life to my own children and my grandchildren and I just said - “she had no teeth.” What an image that conjures up.
She died far too young, within a few weeks of my little sister Paquita, who was two years younger than me. I would have been around seven years old and I was devastated when I realised I would never see either of them again. My sister died from the measles, I missed them both very much and turned to my father for comfort. I guessed that surely he would now take mothers place and at least show me some of the love and affection she had. It did not happen, if anything father turned even colder towards me and my siblings.
I was playing in a street called Calle Zorilla, this particular day when a motor car pulled into view. Motor cars were few and far between and not very fast and the game at the time was a relatively simple one. The young boys of the village would run alongside the motor car trying to keep pace with it while shouting at the driver who appeared to spend most of his energy telling us to get out of the way. I prided myself in being one of the fastest runners in town and was in competition this particular day with a boy slightly older than me called Pepe. Pepe had long legs, much longer than me and he ran like an African gazelle, who I’m told runs very fast with long almost clumsy legs, that described Pepe perfectly. But this day my heart was bigger than his and my legs stronger and faster than his African gazelle legs and as the car came up alongside us I edged into a half metre lead.
“Get out of the way you idiots!”, the driver was shouting furiously as he shook his fist at us but I wasn’t listening or taking notice as I left Pepe trailing in my wake. I turned for a split second, goading Pepe with some insult and was aware that a look of defeat had pulled across his face. Hah! I thought to myself, I have the beating of him, I will be the talk of the village tonight as I recount how easy it was and how I ran like the wind. But I didn’t see the football sized boulder at the side of road and as my foot hit it I heard a loud crack as my ankle bent like a wet stick. My leg gave way and I was pitched into the dusty road two metres in front of the car. The driver had no way of stopping and time seemed to stand still as half a ton of metal moved rapidly towards me. I wanted to close my eyes and place my faith in the Lord but for some reason the will to live kicked in and instead of praying I threw my arms up to ward off the screeching monster.
I could hear people screaming as I disappeared under the vehicle in between the two giant wheels, but wait, the Lord was looking out for me after all because being a small boy of just ten years, the length of my body was smaller than the width between the two wheels. I almost broke out into a smile as the two huge front wheels whizzed by me in a cloud of dust. I curled up in a ball as the rear wheels powered towards my body and I wanted to cry out ‘miracle’ as they too, sailed harmlessly by me.
If only I’d lain prone for three seconds more I would have escaped injury altogether, if only I hadn’t been so stupid but to lift my head as the rear axle floated by, but how was I supposed to know the exact make up of a motor car and the engine underneath? It had four wheels and two axles to hold them in place and a dirty great noisy engine in between, but my knowledge of a car was such, that I didn’t know that right at the back of this monstrosity of a vehicle was a steel pipe called an exhaust that spewed out all of its emissions into the countryside. This pipe had a heavy steel box on the end of the pipe and as I raised my head with a cheeky grin it sma