John Palu: Medical Care in the Spanish Civil War

Wounded during the battle of Belchite, John Palu’s story sheds light on the medical care that volunteers in the International Brigades received in Spain.

Before the War

**John Palu in Albacete in 1938.**
National Archives of Estonia.

John Palu was born November 19, 1907 in Kihnu, Estonia. In 1918, in the aftermath of World War I, the country was plunged into war between Estonians fighting for national independence and the Soviet Union wanting to annex Estonia. The war lasted until 1920 and resulted in Estonia’s independence. We do not know whether Palu’s family chose sides during those years, but in 1928 Palu joined the Estonian national army for one year. In 1930, he immigrated to the United States and found work as a carpenter in New York City. Before leaving for Spain, Palu worked at the construction company of his maternal uncle, Michael Lane.

In New York, Palu became involved in organized labor but also maintained his ties to the homeland. In his application to join the Spanish Communist Party (PCE), he wrote that in the United States he had been a member of the Estonian Workers’ Club. He read the Daily Worker as well as Uus Ilm (“The New World”), a Estonian Communist weekly published in New York. Palu might have been a member of Uus Ilm’s editorial board in 1936.

**Editorial Board of *Uus Ilm* in 1936. John Palu is on the second row (first from left).**
National Archives of Estonia.

Palu sailed for Spain on the S.S. Paris on February 6, 1937, the same ship that Hans Maslowksi, the owner of the fan, had boarded. Palu crossed the border into Spain from France on February 14. His previous military experience may have been useful in the following months as he fought at Jarama, Brunete, Aragon, Teruel and Levante.

Injured in Battle

In the summer of 1937, the Republican forces were looking for a victory. After they were forced to retreat in July from an earlier attack against nationalist forces in Brunete, the Republican military leadership decided that another offensive was needed to put pressure on Franco’s Nationalists.

Republican officials chose Zaragoza, a city in northeastern Spain, which was important to the Nationalists as a center of communication on the Aragon front. Palu was one of the eighty thousand infantrymen who attempted to take back Zaragoza in the battle of Belchite. On August 24, 1937, the first day of battle, Palu was injured in the foot at Quinto, a town some twenty miles outside of Zaragoza. He was sent to hospitals in Benicassim and Murcia, recovering from his injury for four months. To get injured in the war was easy, to receive proper medical care not.

Ambulance Drivers

We have no records of Palu’s transport from the front lines to the medical facilities in Benicassim and Murcia. Throughout the war, hospital trains were used to transport the wounded from the front to hospitals in the rearguard. Some of the trains included operating rooms and pharmacies.

**Republican Army. Interior of a hospital train.**
Marx Memorial Library Collection.

Ambulances were also used. Peter Reed and Bali Kilas two of the fan’s signatories, were ambulance drivers. Many reports describe the hazardous road conditions that made rides in ambulances painful. James Neugass left an account of his experience as an ambulance driver from the battlefront at Teruel:

“The men I carry, mosty Americans, are very quiet … I drive as carefully as if I were carrying wet trinitrotoluene. I cannot very well crash my car when it is full of wounded. I think I hear a plane, I hold hard on the wheel, say nothing, and keep my eyes on the road.”
Quoted in Neugass, p. 112.

**Hospital in Valencia bombed in 1937 by Nationalist forces.**
Marx Memorial Library Collection

While many volunteers signed up to fight in Spain, others provided medical care. The international community considered the provision of medical help legal, while fighting in the International Brigades was not. Aid groups from many countries raised funds to send personnel and medical equipment to Spain, including ambulance vehicles and drivers. Often targeted by the Nationalist air force, ambulance drivers put their lives on the line to help the wounded. The Republican forces relied on their courage. Yet, always afraid of Spanish Nationalists clandestinely infiltrating their ranks, Republicans also feared that ambulance drivers could be enemies. In at least one case, an ambulance driver was arrested for treason.

A Mouth Full of Cement

When Palu arrived in the hospital in Benicassim, he must have noticed the lack of funding and resources. Medical units were consistently underfunded and personnel sparse. Many Spanish women of religious orders who traditionally provided healthcare in Spain had joined Franco’s side because the Spanish Catholic Church, by and large, endorsed the Nationalists. The Republican side desperately needed qualified health care personnel. Supplies were scarce. Doctors and nurses had to find ways to work with limited supplies. Official reports advised doctors to talk to the local “Electric Power House” before starting surgery to make sure that electricity would be provided.

In the trenches, dental hygiene deteriorated quickly. For rotten teeth, no silver or gold fillings were available. Instead, cement was used to fill the holes. Such improvisational medical measures were not restricted to lower rank members of the International Brigades. When, for example, Robert Merriman, one of the commanders of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, broke his arm, it was covered in heavy housing plaster.

Palu slowly recovered in Benicassim. Benicassim had not been designed as a hospital, but as former ocean resort town for wealthy Spaniards, it was a welcome contrast to the battlefields. Doctors and nurses may have lacked supplies but not dedication. Palu was under the care of doctors of the 6^thAmerican Unit: at Benicassim under Dr. Fried and Dr. Zauderer and at Murcia under Drs. Malbin, Vogel, and Chaudoff. Palu was able to rejoin the fight after four months of convalescence.

During the Civil War, the Voramar Hotel in Benicasim became Villa Frente Popular (Popular Front), a hospital. Many Republican soldiers and volunteers from the International Brigades, including John Palu, were hospitalized in the villas of Benicassim.
Hispania Nostra de Autor.

As Franco’s forces continued their drive to victory in 1939, medical personnel helped the wounded members of the International Brigades until they could leave Spain.

Aftermath

In 1939, Franco’s forces captured Benicassim and Murcia. Benicassim returned to serving as a resort for the rich. Medical personnel stayed after the end of the war, dedicated to helping the wounded members of the International Brigades until they could leave Spain.

Palu survived the war. However, like the fan signatories Ramon Pedrero Perez, John Stuivenberg and Hans Maslowski, he was detained in French camps together with thousands of Spanish exiles and former international volunteers. Not until a year after the end of the Spanish Civil War, in April 1940, was Palu able to return to New York on a ship sailing from Tangiers, Morocco. In 1950, John Palu returned to Estonia. He died in Kihnu in 1977.

Palu Profile