Peter Reed volunteered to join the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. When he arrived in Spain, he struggled with alcoholism and he attempted to desert.
From a Small Town
Abilene-Reporter News (January 26, 1939)
Reed was born in 1915 in the small town of Oyer, Missouri. When he turned 18, in 1933, he joined the United States Army for three years as an ambulance driver. He also worked in the East Texas oil fields. There, he connected with a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and was eventually recruited to go to Spain.
Reed departed from the United States on the American Importer on May 8, 1937. On June 1, he crossed the border from France into Spain through the Pyrenees mountains arriving in the town of Llansa with several other volunteers from the same ship. Like other volunteers, Reed may have assumed that he would be in Spain for only a few months. In fact, many had to stay for as long as the war lasted.
National communist parties recruited volunteers for the International Brigades in their own countries, but once the volunteers arrived in Spain, they could not simply leave even if they wanted to. A memorandum in the Archives of the International Brigades explained: “Many of our comrades had the idea that they are going for three, five, or six months, and as volunteers.” Once in Spain, however, many men feared that their only way home was to be “killed or wounded.” The American and Canadian communist parties were aware of these issues and the possibility of volunteers wanting to desert.
Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI)
Toll of Battle and Desertion
With his experience in the ambulance service in the U.S. Army, Reed appeared to be an ideal recruit for Spain. He was assigned to the 45th Division, 12th Brigade Auto Park and sent to Huesca, where the front lines were treacherous and the casualty rate high. Ambulance drivers, like Reed and Bali Kilas, another signatory of the fan, risked their lives transporting the wounded to hospitals. Reed’s superiors in the International Brigades documented his struggles with alcohol, one describing him as a “chronic drunk.” In July 1937, the head of the Division Hospital, Dr. Brill, reported to the International Brigades Headquarters:
“During the transfer of our [sanitary] Service from the front of Huesca to the Center, Comrade Peter Reed of American nationality, an ambulance driver, had been in a permanent state of intoxication since July 1, the day before our departure. Considering the repeated and ignored warnings, as well as the difficulties inherently caused by such a state … I urge you to apply the appropriate disciplinary measures and a new assignment.”
Translated from French original. RGASPI
Two weeks later, a Judicial Commission considered not only Reed’s repeated drunkenness but also his arrest for attempted desertion. Anthony DeMaio, who worked in military intelligence, wrote in his report on Reed in October 1938, that he was “arrested for abandoning his truck and papers and going to Valencia in an effort to leave the country.”
Despite his initial difficulties, Reed remained in Spain. He was jailed but later transferred to the 35th Artillery Battery of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. He spent seven months at the front, fighting in Teruel, Cordoba, and Levante. In May of 1938, he became a corporal. And in December 1938, Michael Sidorovich and Hans Maslowski, two signatories of the fan, signed a form evaluating Reed’s conduct as part of the repatriation process. Though they repeated that “he like[d] to drink” and was “politically weak,” they also noted that he was a “good worker” and “beloved” by his comrades.
After the War
Peter Reed returned to the United States on the President Harding on February 4, 1939. In 1943, he enlisted and served in the U.S. Army in World War II for three years. Eventually, he quit drinking and got married.
In 1988, Reed wrote a letter to Ben Iceland, the editor of The Volunteer, the magazine of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade:
Wikimedia Commons (Joe Mabel)
“You asked what I had been doing for the last 50 years. Man, it sure got away from me. I was a boomer – never in one place over six months. In the Army 3 years in the Pacific in W.W. II, a lot of logging camps, sheep and cattle ranches, and fruit picking, along with a hell of a lot of bottles. I had my last drink 2 years ago, even quit smoking and got married; no religion yet, but anything is possible.”
The Volunteer, 1988.
In 1998, Reed passed away at Spokane Veterans Hospital, a day before the dedication of a monument to the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade that Reed wanted to attend at the University of Washington. It was the first major monument in the United States dedicated to the American volunteers, especially honoring the eleven students from the university who had gone to Spain.
FURTHER READINGS
James Neugass. 2008. War Is Beautiful. An American Ambulance Driver in the Spanish Civil War. New York: The New Press.
Giles Tremlett. 2020. “The Death of Lukács: Huesca, early June 1937,” and “Blue Nose and the Deserters: Valencia, 20 April 1937.” In The International Brigades: Fascism, Freedom and the Spanish Civil War. By Giles Tremlett. London: Bloomsbury. Pp. 267-276, 317-324.
SOURCES
“The Medical Services. Making History and Serving Lives.” 1996. In Madrid 1937. Letters of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade from the Spanish Civil War. Edited by Cary Nelson and Jefferson Hendricks. New York: Routledge. Pp. 233-277.
“Memorandum.” (Recommendations of the Communist Parties of the United States and Canada). RGASPI. Fond 545, Opis 6, File 1.
“One Texan Among Foreign Volunteers.” 1939. Abilene-Reporter News [Abilene, Texas], 26 January. p. 15.
“Peter Leroy Reed.” Personal File. RGASPI. Fond 545, Opis 6, File 969.
“Peter Leroy Reed.” The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives. Biographical Database.
Peter Leroy Reed to Ben Iceland. 1988. Letter. The Volunteer. 10/3, p. 13.
“Peter Leroy Reed.” 1999. The Volunteer. 21/2, p. 18.
Bob Roseth. 1998. “Monument to Spanish Civil War Volunteers to Be Dedicated Oct. 14.” UW News.