On this day, 28 March 1939, the “Stanbrook” ship departed from Alicante carrying around 3,500 refugees fleeing Spain following right-wing general Francisco Franco’s victory in the civil war.
It was one of several ships which departed along with a flotilla of small civilian vessels, laden with defeated anti-fascist fighters and their families. The “Stanbrook” became the most famous as its captain, Archibald Dixon, had refused instructions by Socialist Party and Communist Party officials to leave the harbour, stating that he would not depart until he was sure that it had taken as many refugees as possible. It eventually left at 10:45 PM, travelling to the North African French colonies, where many of the refugees were promptly interned in concentration camps and used as forced labour in the Sahara desert.
Two of “Stanbrook” passengers, numbers 764 (Juan Beneito Casanova) and 1797 (Vicente Ruiz Gutiérrez), were Spanish anarchists who eventually settled in Australia, where they and other exiles established numerous Spanish-speaking anarchist organisations and publications.
Learn more about the Spanish civil war in our podcast episodes 39-40: https://workingclasshistory.com/2020/06/17/e39-the-spanish-civil-war-an-introduction/ https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1951770308341443/?type=3