Jon Aske sent this set of postcards originally drawn in 1838. This is part of a set of postcards that a savings bank in Donostia put out in 1975. They offer a fascinating look at some of the iconic places of the Basque Country nearly 200 years ago. A little more information about these sketches can be found here.
Update: Jon Aske’s original scans, which are higher quality than those found below, can be found here.
The twelve illustrations in this set of postcards correspond to the originals lithographed in Hullmandel’s workshops.
They are drawings whose sketches are taken from nature – of places that witnessed the courage of the English – Henry Wilkinson, a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, during his stay in the Basque Country with the British Legion.
They were published in London by Ackermann y Cia, in 1838, in memory of the British soldiers who fought here under the Duke of Wellington; to those of Lord Hay, on the Cantabrian coast; and to those of Lacy Evans, head of the British Auxiliary Legion.
They belong to the work “Sketches of Scenery in the Basque Provinces of Spain”, which also contains a selection of music that includes several “zortzikos,” as well as notes and memories related to that expedition that, in the Carlist civil war, concluded with the assault and capture of Irun, in 1837.
John Harper retouched the sketches, P. Noble drew the plain of Vitoria, and E. Hassell the cemetery of the English officers in San Sebastián. And Boys did the lithography of all of them.
The Municipal Savings Bank of San Sebastián is grateful for the valuable personal collaboration provided for the edition of this interesting series by Mr. Manuel Laborde Welinden, owner of the originals, and Mr. Julian Marinez Ruiz, secretary of the Municipal Museum of San Telmo.
RenteríaPlains and City of VitoriaAlza, Rentería and LazoPosition of Lord John Hay, at PasajesPort of PasajesCarlist fort “El Parque,” with Fuenterrabía and the mouth of the BidasoaIrun, with Mount San Marcial and the bridge of BehobiaFuenterrabía, with the Convent and the bridge of CapuchinosFuenterrabíaHernaniSan Sebastián
Burial place of British officers on Castle hill of San Sebastián
During one of my visits to the Basque Country, we visited the hilerria, or cemetery, in Munitibar. I wasn’t clear what was going on, until they started digging up one of the graves. It seems that it was time to move my dad’s grandmother’s body. They dug up her grave — her son, my great-uncle, was there guiding the process — then placed the major bones in the family crypt. This was a shock to me, particularly since my great-uncle insisted that I take pictures of everything. Everywhere has their unique customs regarding death and the dead, and of course the Basque Country is no exception, though customs have changed dramatically over the centuries.
A harrespil, or stone circle, found on Okabe mountain in Nafarroa Beherea.
In the Basque Country, when someone died, a window in the bedroom was opened, or a tile on the roof removed, so that the soul could more easily pass through. Bells were rung and, depending on the series of bell tones, the bells announced if the deceased was a man — first the big bell was rung and then the smaller one; for a woman, the opposite sequence of bells tolled across the village. They would even announce the death to the domestic animals and the bees, as bees provide wax for torches and candles that give light to the dead.
The deceased was taken to the church and the village cemetery via special paths reserved for the dead. These were called, depending on the place, elizbidea, elizakobidea, gurutze-bidea, gorputz-bidea, auzotegiko bidea, or erribidea, which mean “way of the church,” “way of the cross,” “way of the body,” “way of the neighborhood or of the town.” Houses were usually not built near these funeral paths. In some cases, the bodies were buried, along with personal possessions, under dolmens. But, back in the Iron Age, there were also cases of cremation. The ashes were collected in vessels that were put into a baratz (“garden”) or harrespil (“stone circle”).
In more modern times, the funeral procession was led by children and young men carrying torches. These were followed by the coffin, carried by the youth closest to the deceased. After that came the family and the men of the village, followed by the women. Sometimes, they touched the houses they passed with the coffin to bid farewell. In some places, a girl would go in front of the casket, carrying a basket of bread. In others, meat, bread, and old cheese were brought to the funeral. And, in yet others, once in the church they placed a basket upside down, covered it with a black cloth, and placed a plate and cup upon the top, also upside down.
Interestingly, professional mourners were banned by law in parts of the Basque Country. Only a spouse could “pull their hair” or “howl” for the deceased — it was explicitly illegal for others to do so, with a penalty of ten marabedis.
Within the church itself, each family, based on importance and contributions, was assigned a specific place for the family burials. For larger towns, cemeteries, or hilerriak (cities of the dead), were built around the church.
In old times, the dead were buried under the eaves of the house itself. Lights of various forms, such as lamps or candles, were used to help guide the soul. It was believed that the soul might wander the local roads and even the house itself.
The Adventures of Maite and Kepa is a weekly serial. While it is a work of fiction, it has elements from both my own experiences and stories I’ve heard from various people. The characters, while in some cases inspired by real people, aren’t directly modeled on anyone in particular. I expect there will be inconsistencies and factual errors. I don’t know where it is going, and I’ll probably forget where it’s been. Why am I doing this? To give me an excuse and a deadline for some creative writing and because I thought people might enjoy it. Gozatu!
A couple of hours later, long after the sun had set and the night sky had filled with stars, they pulled into Javi’s driveway in Santa Barbara. Kepa had woken up just as Maite had pulled the car onto Javi’s street, the speedbumps jostling him awake. As they pulled in, the front door of the house burst open, and a figure silhouted by the bright lights from inside came rushing out.
“Kepa!” cried a voice as the figure reached the car. As Kepa opened his door, the man nearly pulled him out. “It’s been a long time!”
Kepa laughed. “It’s good to see you too, Javi!” They squeezed each other in a bear hug.
“Kaixo,” said Maite as she approached them from the other side of the car.
“Javi, you remember Maite, don’t you?” asked Kepa as he pulled her in, his arm around her waist.
“Of course!” exclaimed Javi. “I have to admit, I always thought you were the prettiest girl in the Basque Country.”
Maite blushed.
“She still is,” added Kepa with a smile.
Maite blushed even stronger.
“Anyways,” said Javi, “Let’s get you inside. Are you hungry? Do you need anything to eat before we head out?”
Maite winked at Kepa. “What did I tell you?”
Kepa just shrugged. “I got that power nap in, I can go all night if I have to.”
Javi laughed. “We don’t do gau pasa very often here. I was just thinking a beer or two at the nearby pub to catch up. I figured you might need some rest after that drive. The real fun will be tomorrow. My girlfriend will join us for dinner and some dancing?”
“Girlfriend?” asked Kepa incredulously. “You? Shy little Javi?”
“Well,” said Javi as he lifted their suitcases out of the car. “I have grown up.”
Javi led them into the house. In the light of the room, Maite got a better view of Javi. He had changed from the scrawny kid she remembered from his visits to the Basque Country. He had certainly grown into his body, the muscles on his arms and chest rippling as he carried the three suitcases. He clearly worked out. A lot. But his t-shirt said something Maite couldn’t quite make out about Hogwarts, which told her that he still had some of that geeky nerd inside.
Javi carried their suitcases to a room in the back. “I hope this meets your expectations,” he said as he set the suitcases down at the foot of the bed.
The room wasn’t big, but there was a queen bed nicely made up with nightstands and bottles of water on either side. A large ikurrina was hanging from one wall and on the other sat a flat screen television.
“Looks perfect to me!” said Kepa.
“Bai,” added Maite. “Eskerrik asko!”
“Ez horregatik,” said Javi.
Maite plopped down onto the bed with a dramatic fall. “Have fun you two. Gabon!”
“What?” asked Javi. “Aren’t you coming with us?”
Maite looked up at the two of them. “I’ve been driving all night. I think I’ll crash and rejuvenate for tomorrow. Besides, I imagine you two have a lot of catching up to do, especially since you both have girlfriends now.”
It was Kepa’s turn to blush.
If you get this post via email, the return-to address goes no where, so please write blas@buber.net if you want to get in touch with me.
“Echoes of two wars, 1936-1945” aims to disseminate the stories of those Basques and Navarrese who participated in two of the warfare events that defined the future of much of the 20th century. With this blog, the intention of the Sancho de Beurko Association is to rescue from anonymity the thousands of people who constitute the backbone of the historical memory of the Basque and Navarre communities, on both sides of the Pyrenees, and their diasporas of emigrants and descendants, with a primary emphasis on the United States, during the period from 1936 to 1945.
THE AUTHORS Guillermo Tabernilla is a researcher and founder of the Sancho de Beurko Association, a non-profit organization that studies the history of the Basques and Navarrese from both sides of the Pyrenees in the Spanish Civil War and in World War II. He is currently their secretary and community manager. He is also editor of the digital magazine Saibigain. Between 2008 and 2016 he directed the catalog of the “Iron Belt” for the Heritage Directorate of the Basque Government and is, together with Pedro J. Oiarzabal, principal investigator of the Fighting Basques Project, a memory project on the Basques and Navarrese in the Second World War in collaboration with the federation of Basque Organizations of North America.
Pedro J. Oiarzabal is a Doctor in Political Science-Basque Studies, granted by the University of Nevada, Reno (USA). For two decades, his work has focused on research and consulting on public policies (citizenship abroad and return), diasporas and new technologies, and social and historical memory (oral history, migration and exile), with special emphasis on the Basque case. He is the author of more than twenty publications. He has authored the blog “Basque Identity 2.0” by EITB and “Diaspora Bizia” by EuskalKultura.eus. On Twitter @Oiarzabal.
Josu M. Aguirregabiria is a researcher and founder of the Sancho de Beurko Association and is currently its president. A specialist in the Civil War in Álava, he is the author of several publications related to this topic, among which “La batalla de Villarreal de Álava” (2015) y “Seis días de guerra en el frente de Álava. Comienza la ofensiva de Mola” (2018) stand out.
This article originally appeared in Spanish at El Diario on December 25, 2019.
Discussion of the Basque participation in the Merchant Marines of the Allied countries and more specifically in the United States during the Second World War (WWII), despite some non trivial efforts, have certainly been tangential, perhaps due to the immense scope of the topic. Furthermore, these works, in general, have not treated these sailors and merchant marines as war combatants but as auxiliary elements, although certainly crucial in the war machine itself. Until not long ago, for example, studies on emigration spoke almost exclusively in a masculine key, discarding immigrant women and thus relegating them to a secondary and passive role of mere companion to the migrant man. In our research project, “Fighting Basques,” on WWII veterans of Basque and Navarrese origin, we not only include them as such but we also try to vindicate their key role in the face of public recognition for having been, although to a certain point of view understandable, made invisible by the role played by the different strictly military branches.
Of the dozens and dozens of war movies, few or none come to mind that focus exclusively on the merchant marine. To a certain extent, the public is largely unaware that without their participation in the war, allied troops, transported across the planet, would also have had enormous difficulties in obtaining the resources (weapons, fuel or food) they needed to continue fighting. Some 7 million soldiers and some 126 million tons of supplies were shipped from US ports during the course of the war. It took 15 tons of supplies to support a soldier for a year at the front. Possibly Action in the North Atlantic of 1943 is the most famous feature film of the time about the United States Merchant Marine (USMM) in WWII. Produced by Warner Bros., directed by Lloyd Bacon, and starring Humphrey Bogart and Raymond Massey, Action in the North Atlantic is a propagandist film about two merchant sailors, portrayed as patriotic heroes without uniforms, whose ship has been sunk by a German submarine and survive for several days adrift. But it was John Ford in The Long Voyage Home (1940) who – using great spotlights and shadows, according to his biographer J. McBride – was the first to show us the human drama and the fatality, not to mention longing, of those who went through life entrusting their fortune to their fellow crew members.
The drama of the crews of the merchant ships sunk by the German U-boats (submarines) is perfectly reflected in this photograph of the R.P. Resor sinking off the New Jersey shore on 2-28-1942. Many Basques went through this ordeal, in some cases twice (https://whyy.org/articles/the-history-of-submarine-warfare-off-the-jersey-coast/).
Perhaps it is pertinent to remember that the main means of transport at this time and during the war, due to the large volume of cargo, was naval. In the absence of complete and reliable statistics, all the sources consulted point to a high number of Basque sailors and mariners, many loyal to the Spanish Republic, serving not only under the Spanish flag, but also British or American. Some would collaborate, to varying degrees, with the Information Service of the Basque government in exile, particularly in South America, and others participated directly in the transport of troops and the supply of critical supplies to the Allies. Our investigation has not yet been completed and it would be very risky at this time to even venture an approximate figure on the number of people of Basque origin who sailed under the American flag between 1941 and 1945 due to the difficulty of identifying the crews of the hundreds of ships that formed part of the US Merchant Marine, mobilized in the service of the US government.
Photograph of Antonio Uribe from his application for a Seaman Protection Certificate from the 1936 New York Department of Commerce, Office of Navigation and Steamship Inspection.
Nor would it be wrong to remember that the merchant crew were not military personnel but civilians and volunteers, who consciously or not assumed the same risks as the soldiers themselves who were part of the military proper. Both the navy and the army lacked cargo ships, so they had to rely on the merchant marine, which became an essential element for the war effort. The demand for crew members grew exponentially. It was not necessary to wait for the official entry of the US into the war, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (Hawaii) on December 7, 1941, to see the consequence of this on the merchant ships and their crews. It is estimated that at least 243 sailors perished as a result of enemy action by Germans and Japanese before December 7, while 160 were taken prisoner by the Imperial Japanese Navy, becoming the first American POWs of WWII. They were not only exposed to enemy planes, submarines and mines but also to nature itself in the form of hurricanes and storms in all kinds of latitudes and climates.
The German declaration of war on the US on December 11 exposed the USMM to the fearsome Nazi submarine fleet or “Unterseeboot” (U-boats), which caused real havoc mainly in 1942. Between February and May 1942, about 175 ships were sunk by U-boats along the North American East Coast, a time when the navy provided little or no military cover even though the USMM was under the control of the Armed Forces. Some 500 American merchant ships were sunk or damaged, with a loss of 4,300 sailors, throughout 1942. The situation from the summer of 1942 gradually changed. The Navy provided the USMM with members of the Armed Guard – a military force constituted by the Navy in October 1941 as an armed force aboard merchant ships – and artillery, and organized convoys escorted by destroyers and aircraft carriers to repel enemy attacks. These measures prevented the catastrophe that occurred at the beginning of the war from repeating itself.
The American Merchant Marine at War association estimates that between 215,000 and 285,000 men were part of the USMM during the war. After the end of the war, most of them rejoined civilian life, without public recognition, tributes or military honors, and certainly without benefits reserved exclusively for the military, including doctors to treat disabilities and lasting injuries. Few know that the crews only collected their pay while they were sailing. From the moment their boats were sunk, the sailors stopped receiving pay until the survivors re-embarked, if they were unharmed or not seriously injured.
Photograph of Dan Solaegui from the 1936 Churchill High School yearbook.
It is not surprising, therefore, that among the identified sailors of Basque origin, there are those who, despite having survived a German attack, returned to sail as if nothing had happened. This was the case of Antonio Uribe Echevarria – born in Busturia, Bizkaia, in 1886 and living in Brooklyn, New York. He was a fireman (also called a stoker or watertender in charge of the levels of refrigeration in and maintenance of the boilers) on the passenger ship SS Cherokee when on June 15, 1942, en route from New York to Boston, it was torpedoed twice and finally sunk by the submarine U-87 commanded by Joachim Berger (who would receive the Iron Cross First Class on July 2 1942). 65 members of the crew, 20 soldiers of the Army the ship was transporting, and a member of the Armed Guard died. Uribe and 82 other people survived the attack, being rescued by the merchant ship SS Norlago and the Coast Guard cutter Escanaba. However, his fate was cast. Uribe embarked on the SS Coamo, another passenger steamship (also used as a military transport ship since January 1942), en route from New York on September 23, 1942, with a stopover in Liverpool (England), to Clyde (Scotland), where some 1,500 British soldiers embarked for Algeria, arriving in a convoy of 17 ships on November 14. Later the Coamo left for Gibraltar and from there to Land’s End, in Cornwall, England. On December 1, 1942, the British Admiralty ordered the Coamo to abandon the convoy and return to New York via the relatively safe Bermuda route. The next day she was fatally torpedoed, some 200 miles off the west coast of Ireland, by U-604, commanded by Horst Höltring. All 186 men on board died – 11 officers, 122 crew members, 37 armed guards and 16 soldiers from the Army that the ship was transporting – including Uribe, 45 years old. This was the largest single loss of a merchant crew on any US-flagged merchant ship during WWII.
The Battle of the Atlantic, which began in 1939, has gone down in history as one of the largest and longest-running naval battles in WWII. The fight for maritime hegemony, the blockade of the United Kingdom by Germany, and the counter-blockade of Germany by the allied powers placed in the center of the bullseye the convoys that formed from the warships and the merchant ships they escorted in their mission to transport all kinds of supplies to the United Kingdom and allied troops in preparation for the eventual invasion of occupied Europe. The military war also became a logistical war, of great strategic importance, which finally tilted to the Allied side with a cost in the lives of some 36,200 Army soldiers and some 36,000 merchant sailors, and the loss of some 3,500 merchant ships and 175 warships.
Part of the crew of the Victoria. Mikel Usatorre is in the last row on the right (courtesy of the Usatorre family).
Among the Basque sailors that we have identified in the Atlantic is Daniel Solaegui Mugartegui. Born in 1916 in Fallon, Nevada, to Bizkaian parents, he joined the Merchant Marine in San Francisco, California. He was part of the crew of one of the new Liberty-class artillery cargo ships, the SS Melville E. Stonewhich was launched on July 24, 1943. Solaegui was a qualified member of the engine room where he worked as a fireman. The Melville E. Stone carried a 101 mm gun, a 75 mm gun, and 8 20 mm anti-aircraft guns, which were commissioned by a crew of armed Guard gunners embarked for that purpose, but that was no problem for the German submarines, and less when traveling without an escort. She was destined to make the route between Antofagasta (Chile) and New York, and had already crossed the Panama Canal when she was torpedoed on November 24, 1943 by U-516 under the command of Lieutenant Commander Hans-Rutger Tillessen. The 88 men who made up the crew and the passengers (military personnel) abandoned the ship, but the suction caused by the sinking ship dragged 15 people to the bottom of the Caribbean, including Solaegui. He was 27 years old. Two of Solaegui’s brothers served in the army: Joseph (1925-2004) graduated with the rank of first-class soldier and Frank (1921-2009) became a lieutenant in the 101st Airborne Division.
Photograph of Mikel Usatorre in the uniform of a captain of the Merchant Marine (courtesy of the Usatorre family).
Straddling the European and Asian theaters of operations is Miguel “Mikel” Usatorre Royo, born in Lekeitio, Bizkaia in 1913. Like his brothers (Marcelino Juan, Vicente and José María), he was a career merchant sailor when his life was abruptly interrupted by the outbreak of the Civil War in Spain. He fought with the Basque Army and was taken prisoner by the rebel troops. His brother Marcelino (1902-1966) also participated in the war and became a lieutenant colonel in the 27th Division of the People’s Army. After the military defeat, Marcelino went into exile to France and later to the Soviet Union, serving in the Red Army between 1939 and 1947. Marcelino graduated with the rank of lieutenant colonel. After serving time in forced labor camps, Mikel was finally able, after four years of waiting, to embark as a sailor bound for Buenos Aires, Argentina. Later he went to sea as a boatswain on the Argentine-flagged tanker Victoria. Despite their neutrality, on the way to New Jersey the Victoria was torpedoed twice (by mistake according to the German authorities in response to the Argentine government after the attack) on April 18, 1942, by U-201, commanded by Adalbert Schnee. The crew left the ship in two life rafts, being rescued days later. To their aid came the minesweeper USS Owl, which towed them to the Island of Bermuda, where they were able to partially repair the Victoria. Once repaired, she was escorted by the destroyers USS Swanson and USS Nicholson until a tugboat took over for the tanker. The Victoria and crew arrived in New York on April 21. Mikel was 28 years old.
On American soil, Mikel decided to enlist on a ship dedicated to the transport of American troops bound for the United Kingdom, in preparation for the invasion of Normandy, work that he would later carry out in the Pacific, in the face of possible invasions of the islands occupied by Japan (from the Philippines to Okinawa). After the war, he was posted to the Philippines and, shortly after, to Okinawa, where he worked as a captain and portmaster for 25 years for the Second Logistics Command of the US Army. For a time, he met another Basque merchant seaman, Antón Brouard, in Okinawa. Mikel received the Two-Star Combat Medal, among other decorations. In 1950, he obtained American citizenship. He passed away in 2000, aged 86, in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
Photograph of Anton Brouard in 1943 (courtesy of the Brouard family).
The aforementioned Antonio “Antón” Brouard Pérez de Oxinalde, born like Mikel Usatorre in Lekeitio in 1916, was also a professional merchant captain. After the coup in Spain, Brouard as second officer of the yacht El Vita – under the US flag and owned by the Basque-Filipino financier and US citizen, Marino Gamboa – participated in the transport of a shipment of seized valuables and precious metals by the General Reparations Fund during the Civil War, between Le Havre, in France and Veracruz, Mexico, where it arrived on March 23, 1939. The so-called “Vita treasure” was destined, originally, for the Service of Evacuation of the Spanish Republicans, but ultimately it would be yielded to the Board of Aid to the Spanish Republicans. Both the captain, José Ordorica Ruíz de Asúa, his first officer, Isaac Echave, and the rest of the yacht’s crew were from Lekeitio. Despite having received Mexican nationality from Lázaro Cárdenas himself, Brouard was unable to captain ships, so after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he decided to work for the USMM, eager to recruit experienced sailors. He served in the Pacific where he supplied troops during the war. After WWII, he was sent to Okinawa as a port pilot, a position he held for five years. He passed away in his hometown in 1994, at the age of 78 (1).
The American Merchant Marine at War association estimates the loss of about 8,400 men out of a total of 243,000 merchant seamen, as identified by the War Maritime Transportation Department in 1946, to which should be added another 1,000 wounded who would eventually die. Altogether, some 12,000 were injured and some 700 became prisoners of war. Almost half of all casualties occurred in 1942. Among the Armed Guards, assigned to merchant ships since the summer of 1942, about 2,200 perished and 1,100 were wounded. The USMM suffered a higher casualty rate than any branch of the military during the war. One in 26 sailors died or were reported missing, much higher than casualties in the Armed Forces, where one in 133 soldiers died or disappeared. The overall loss by the USMM was very similar to that of the Marines, who had a ratio of 1 in 34. Between 1939 to 1945, some 1,600 US-flagged merchant ships (6 million tons) were sunk, while hundreds of other vessels were damaged.
Photograph of Anton Brouard in 1946 (courtesy of the Brouard family).
Despite their great sacrifice, it took 43 years for the federal government – after a lawsuit by the American Merchant Mariner association – to recognize USMM survivors as war veterans that could receive, albeit partially, the benefits related to this recognition. However, today it is still common to observe how they are not included in military monuments or memorials or in public tributes. In 2018, US Congressman John Garamendi, grandson of Bizkaia, sponsored and promoted the “Merchant Mariners of World War II Congressional Gold Medal Act of 2020,” which was approved by Congress on September 19 of 2019, and was ratified by the Senate on December 21. Therefore, the bill became law once it was signed by President Donald Trump on March 14, 2020. The goal of this legislation is to award, collectively, a Congressional Gold Medal – one of the highest honors in the United States – to the merchant seamen who supported the armed forces during WWII. From the Sancho de Beurko Association we congratulate the happy ending of the initiative and we hope that our public institutions and professional associations of merchant seafarers will join in this public recognition as part of our historical legacy. We hope this article serves as a small tribute to the merchant marines of WWII and that it can contribute to their knowledge and encourage young historians to investigate the role played by the thousands of sailors and merchant marines without whose effort and sacrifice the victory against totalitarianism would not have been possible.
Collaborate with ‘Echoes of two wars, 1936-1945.’
If you want to collaborate with “Echoes of two wars” send us an original article on any aspect of WWII or the Civil War and Basque or Navarre participation to the following email: sanchobeurko@gmail.com
Pierre de Fermat was one of the most recognized mathematicians of his time, and perhaps in all of history. He was infamous for making claims of mathematical proofs in the margins of documents without actually giving the proof. Ever since, mathematicians have struggled to prove his theorems. His Last Theorem, which relates to number theory, wasn’t proven until 1994, some 358 years after Fermat made his claim, by the mathematician Andrew Wiles. One interesting tidbit about Fermat is that many sources and sites state he was of Basque origin. But was he really?
Not much is known of Fermat’s youth. He was born in late 1607 in the French city of Beaumont-de-Lomagne to a family of leather merchants. His father, Dominique Fermat, was second consul of the town, and his mother was Claire de Long. (I’ve seen other sources say he was born in 1601 and his mother was Françoise Cazenove, but this seems to be a different Piere that was born to Dominique’s first wife Françoise, not the famous mathematician.)
Many places say that Fermat had Basque ancestry, and a few claim he spoke Basque fluently. Unfortunately, I’m not able to find any original sources for these claims. It seems this claim started with an Encyclopedia Britannica article that stated that “He was of Basque origin…” Other online sources claim that “He was born into a Basque family of leather merchants” and that he “was an accomplished linguist fluent in… Basque.” However, when I dig deeper, I can’t find any real evidence for these claims.
If you look at his ancestry, you don’t find any Basque names. Instead, in addition to Fermat (of course), there are names like de Long, L’Hospital, Bernuy, and Lagriffoul. Nothing obviously Basque that I can find.
What is clear is that Fermat was born in Gascony, and that his family had been in Gascony for at least a few generations. The current province of Gascony lies just north of Iparralde. The Gascons are certainly historically related to the Basques, and indeed the word Gascon comes from the same root. But those connections are quite ancient. If the Gascons spoke a language related to Basque, it was eventually lost and replaced with modern Gascon, a Romance language. Interestingly, however, Gascon does seem to have a Basque substrate, or influence.
Another piece of evidence that Fermat was Gascon and not Basque comes from René Descartes, another of the great French mathematicians and an intellectual rival. He is quoted as having said “Fermat is Gascon, not me.” At the time, calling someone a Gascon was to call them a braggart.
So, it seems clear that, in the end, Fermat was not Basque, but rather Gascon. This is of course neither here nor there. It seems that the original British author, when putting together the entry for the Encyclopedia Britannica, simply confused Basque and Gascon, and that confusion has then been repeated and spread without any further investigation.
Primary sources: All sources are linked in the article, but I’d like to give particular thanks to Eneko Sagarbide who helped track down these sources and claims about Fermat’s true origins.
The Adventures of Maite and Kepa is a weekly serial. While it is a work of fiction, it has elements from both my own experiences and stories I’ve heard from various people. The characters, while in some cases inspired by real people, aren’t directly modeled on anyone in particular. I expect there will be inconsistencies and factual errors. I don’t know where it is going, and I’ll probably forget where it’s been. Why am I doing this? To give me an excuse and a deadline for some creative writing and because I thought people might enjoy it. Gozatu!
“We should get going,” said Maite, her head resting on Kepa’s chest as they both lay on the dusty floor of the Noriega’s bar. She listened as his heart beat normally, and wondered if the effects of the bullet were really completely erased.
“Bai,” replied Kepa. “Javi’s still expecting us tonight.” He paused. “It’s so weird to think about tonight when we were literally gone for months. I’m having a hard time adjusting to the shift.”
Maite pushed up, resting on her forearm as she looked into Kepa’s eyes. “At least you are here with me. I don’t know how I’d do this without you.”
Kepa pulled her back for one last kiss. As they broke their kiss, he said “Berdin.”
They both stood up, dusting themselves off. Maite looked around the bar. “It’s so weird to think that, only moments ago, this room was filled with people playing cards, talking, and drinking. Looking at it now, all of that life is gone. It’s so sad. All of those people, just gone.”
Kepa nodded. “I wonder what happened to them all? Even Donny. What happened to him after he shot me?”
“Well,” said Maite, “he only shot you in the bubble. All of that was undone when you ‘got’ the zatia, when the bubble popped. So, you never got shot.”
“Right…” began Kepa. “But, I can’t imagine he didn’t go after someone else, the way he was.”
“When we have some time, we can try looking them all up and see,” replied Maite. “But, right now, we better get moving. We have at least a couple of hours of driving to get to Javi’s.”
Kepa sighed. “You are right. But I’m so damn tired. Feels like I haven’t slept for a month.”
Maite laughed as she playfully punched him in the arm. “This from the guy who does a week of gau pasas during the summer?”
“Yeah, but I never got shot during any of those,” replied Kepa with a smile as his hand again absentmindedly touched his chest. “I still remember how it felt when that bullet ripped through my chest.”
“Fair enough,” said Maite as she walked through the doors of the boarding house and onto the street. “I’ll drive and you get some rest. When we get there, you and Javi can go out while I go to sleep.”
“What?” cried Kepa as he climbed into the car. “I don’t get to go to sleep when we get there?”
Maite laughed. “Your cousin hasn’t seen you in ages. Do you think he’ll be happy with you just going to bed right when you get there? I bet he has some big plans for you tonight.”
Kepa moaned as Maite started the car and headed toward the highway. It wasn’t long before Kepa’s snores filled the car. Maite followed the signs that pointed toward Santa Barbara. At one point, the road forked, with signs pointing to San Luis Obispo. Maite vaguely remembered something she read saying it was an important outpost during Spanish colonial times. As she glanced in that direction, she saw another bright light hovering over the sign. She sighed and then shook her head. “Not right now,” she muttered to herself as she passed the exit and continued toward Santa Barbara.
If you get this post via email, the return-to address goes no where, so please write blas@buber.net if you want to get in touch with me.
When I lived in the Basque Country, feebly trying to learn Euskara, I spent a lot of time in Ermua, Bizkaia, where my aunt and her family lives. Just across the border, in Gipuzkoa, lies Eibar. As a relatively young kid, I never gave Eibar much thought — it was just a town that the train went through on the way to Ermua. Once or twice, what I might call my cuadrilla took me to Eibar and we wandered the streets, hopping from bar to bar, but that was about all I knew. However, with age comes some “wisdom,” and learning about these places I only passed through back then always offers new surprises. Eibar has a fascinating history that dates back nearly one thousand years.
Eibar was founded in 1346 through a charter granted by King Alfonso XI. The original town, which was encircled by a wall and towers, centered around the parish of San Andrés. However, the first mention of the name dates to the 12th century, regarding the marriage of the daughter of one Unzueta de Eibar. The groom-to-be made an offering of twenty-four pregnant cows to the Church of Cenarruza to praise and honor his bride.
During its history, Eibar has been destroyed at least twice, once by French armies in 1794 and a second time during the Spanish Civil War. This act followed in a long tradition of the town supporting liberal causes and being a bastion for social and labor movements. For example, in 1931, Eibar was the first city in Spain to proclaim the Second Spanish Republic, for which it received the title of Very Exemplary City.
Eibar is a sanctuary of the Basque language, still used every day by much of the populace. Being on the border with Bizkaia, their Basque has been related to those dialects, though there are certainly influences from Gipuzkoa and some loan words from Spanish. Historical documents from Eibar reveal a number of Basque words that are today anachronistic, but highlight the richness of the local dialect: words such as idacorri, to read; yrago, to pass; ustarrila, January; osteruncian osteantzian, otherwise; auttuba, arbitrate or appoint. Further, because of the importance of the local iron and steel industry, whole vocabularies devoted to these fields arose in Eibar.
Many of the inhabitants have worked in the local knife and gun factories. In fact, by the end of the 15th century, knives and guns from Eibar were well known throughout Europe. In 1538, Juan Orbea and Juan Ermua, residents of Eibar, were commissioned to manufacture 1,500 arquebuses and in 1570 armorers were taken from Eibar to Flanders to found the Belgian armory industry. In the 1800s, new factories to make six-shot cylindrical revolvers and arquebuses were established. In 1889, the town manufactured more than half a million weapons. In the early 1900s, some of these factories shifted directions, making for example bicycles, with Orbea being a prime example. However, there are still some 60 companies dedicated to various aspects of weapon manufacture in Eibar today.
Of course, many might know Eibar because of the success of their soccer team. In 2014, SD Eibar was promoted to the La Liga, an impressive feat given the small size of the town — only about 30,000 people. They lasted in the premier division for seven years. This is one of the coolest aspects of the European system, where even small clubs have a chance to play in the big leagues.
The Adventures of Maite and Kepa is a weekly serial. While it is a work of fiction, it has elements from both my own experiences and stories I’ve heard from various people. The characters, while in some cases inspired by real people, aren’t directly modeled on anyone in particular. I expect there will be inconsistencies and factual errors. I don’t know where it is going, and I’ll probably forget where it’s been. Why am I doing this? To give me an excuse and a deadline for some creative writing and because I thought people might enjoy it. Gozatu!
Kepa felt a sudden stab of pain shoot through his chest. Panic rose as he felt another as something slammed into his chest. Were more bullets ripping through his body? Again, he felt something smash against his chest. Was Donny standing over him, emptying his gun into Kepa’s mangled body?
He opened his eyes. Maite was kneeling beside him, slamming her fists into his chest.
“You bastard!” she screamed. “How could you do that to me?”
Kepa took a moment to reorient himself. He was laying on the floor of the Noriega, but in its older abandoned state. Donny was nowhere to be seen. He smiled to himself. It had worked! They were back home.
Maite slammed another fist into his chest.
“Ow!” he cried. “Would you stop hitting me?” He looked up to see tears flowing down Maite’s cheeks.
Maite slumped away, nearly collapsing to the floor as she sobbed. “How could you?” she whispered.
“What did I do?” asked Kepa as he sat up, his chest on fire, though he couldn’t tell if it was Maite pounding on him or Donny’s bullet he was feeling. Instinctively he reached up to feel his chest. There was no hole. “I just wanted to get out of there as fast as possible and I didn’t see any other way.”
“But sacrificing yourself like that?” cried Maite as she looked at him, her vision blurry with tears. “What if you were wrong, and that wasn’t the zatia? Or it didn’t work the way we thought it should? You would have died! Why take the chance?”
“It worked, didn’t it?” said Kepa with a weak smile.
“But you couldn’t be sure it would!” screamed Maite. “Do you know what it was like, seeing you die? Feeling your body jerk as that bullet hit you?”
“But it didn’t really happen, right? The time bubble popped and we’re back where we should be.”
“It did happen, at least for me! For a brief moment, I thought I’d lost you.”
Kepa reached up, but couldn’t bring himself to touch Maite. He let his arm fall to his side.
“I’m sorry,” was all he could manage to say, his words barely audible over Maite’s sobs.
Maite looked at him again. “I love you, Kepa. And I can’t imagine going through all of this with anyone else but you. But if you are going to be so reckless, I don’t think I can do this at all. I can’t watch you die a thousand different ways. Even if, in some way, it isn’t real. To me, it is. I saw, I felt, you die. Wasn’t it real for you too?”
Kepa thought again about the bullet tearing through his chest and exploding his heart. The pain had been unbearable. Any other time, his life would have ended and he wouldn’t have to relive that pain, but here and now, he remembered every detail. He realized that his dreams might never be the same again.
He nodded. “Bai, it was real for me too.” His hand reached for his chest, where he had felt the bullet enter his body. “I thought it would all disappear when the time bubble popped, but I forgot that our memories of it don’t.”
“We really experienced what happened in the bubble, even after it pops. Our memories don’t get wiped out. Somehow, the magic of the zatia keeps the bubble alive inside of us, in our memories.”
Kepa looked up at Maite. “I never meant to hurt you.”
Maite sighed, her cheeks still wet but her voice stronger. “I know.”
“And, I love you too,” added Kepa.
Maite threw her arms around him as her lips found his.
If you get this post via email, the return-to address goes no where, so please write blas@buber.net if you want to get in touch with me.
This article originally appeared in Spanish at El Diario on October 23, 2019.
“Echoes of two wars, 1936-1945” aims to disseminate the stories of those Basques and Navarrese who participated in two of the warfare events that defined the future of much of the 20th century. With this blog, the intention of the Sancho de Beurko Association is to rescue from anonymity the thousands of people who constitute the backbone of the historical memory of the Basque and Navarre communities, on both sides of the Pyrenees, and their diasporas of emigrants and descendants, with a primary emphasis on the United States, during the period from 1936 to 1945.
THE AUTHORS Guillermo Tabernilla is a researcher and founder of the Sancho de Beurko Association, a non-profit organization that studies the history of the Basques and Navarrese from both sides of the Pyrenees in the Spanish Civil War and in World War II. He is currently their secretary and community manager. He is also editor of the digital magazine Saibigain. Between 2008 and 2016 he directed the catalog of the “Iron Belt” for the Heritage Directorate of the Basque Government and is, together with Pedro J. Oiarzabal, principal investigator of the Fighting Basques Project, a memory project on the Basques and Navarrese in the Second World War in collaboration with the federation of Basque Organizations of North America.
Pedro J. Oiarzabal is a Doctor in Political Science-Basque Studies, granted by the University of Nevada, Reno (USA). For two decades, his work has focused on research and consulting on public policies (citizenship abroad and return), diasporas and new technologies, and social and historical memory (oral history, migration and exile), with special emphasis on the Basque case. He is the author of more than twenty publications. He has authored the blog “Basque Identity 2.0” by EITB and “Diaspora Bizia” by EuskalKultura.eus. On Twitter @Oiarzabal.
Josu M. Aguirregabiria is a researcher and founder of the Sancho de Beurko Association and is currently its president. A specialist in the Civil War in Álava, he is the author of several publications related to this topic, among which “La batalla de Villarreal de Álava” (2015) y “Seis días de guerra en el frente de Álava. Comienza la ofensiva de Mola” (2018) stand out.
In contrast to the public commemorations of D-Day in Normandy, the Mariana island of Saipan attracts little or no institutional or media attention, despite its strategic importance in the Pacific Ocean theater of operations and the significance it had in the becoming of the war itself. On June 5, 1944, prior to the European “D” Day, 71,000 US Marines and soldiers – nearly half the American force in Normandy – left Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, for the Marianas. Despite intense aerial bombardment flowing from 15 battleships for two days prior to the invasion itself, resistance on the ground was fierce. More than 3,400 American soldiers and about 29,000 Japanese soldiers died. Among the latter, an estimated 3,000 launched various suicide charges or banzai for 15 hours against American troops on July 7. To these figures must be added the 22,000 civilian islanders, the Chamorro people, who died as a result of the invasion, largely victims of a campaign of forced suicides incited by the Japanese military that was unparalleled until that moment in the Pacific campaign, civilians who already knew horrors of all kinds perpetuated by the fanatical Japanese troops. With nearly 10,000 wounded, the US suffered the largest losses to date on the Pacific front. In contrast, the European “D” Day witnessed some 4,400 casualties among Allied troops, of which about 2,500 were Americans. The conquest of Saipan by the American forces, between June 15 and July 9, 1944, became not only a military victory but also a moral one, despite the high human cost.
Pagoaga, the Basque-American hero of Iwo Jima, passed away on January 30, 2017. (Photo courtesy of family).
Among the Japanese military leaders who died in battle or chose to commit suicide is the general of the Japanese army and one of the highest authorities in Saipan, Chūichi Nagumo. Nagumo had supervised the attack on Pearl Harbor. He committed suicide on July 6 and his body was found by the Marines in a cave. The iconic and all-powerful Prime Minister, Minister of War, and Chief of Staff of the Imperial Japanese Army, Hideki Tōjō, was forced to resign on July 18. Tōjō had ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor. Final victory against the Japanese imperial troops seemed possible. The main islands of Japan were about 2,100 kilometers away and the new air bases of Saipan, together with those of Guam and Tinian (conquered in mid-August), allowed the Boeing “B-29” super fortresses, with a radius of action of 5,230 km., to attack the principle cities of Japan, including its capital, as part of a brutal napalm incendiary bombing campaign similar to that of Dresden (Germany) in February 1945. The most destructive air attack in history of humanity would occur over Tokyo on March 9. 40,000 square kilometers were razed and more than 90,000 civilians perished.
On its way to Japan, Iwo Jima became another strategic target for the United States. It was necessary to conquer the volcanic island as a supply and repair point for the “B-29s” on their long round trip between the main islands of Japan and the Marianas, and what was even more important: to ensure the protection of escort fighters. The bloody battle for Iwo Jima took place between February 19 and March 26, 1945. It became the most aggressive, overall, in the entire history of the Marine Corps. More than 6,800 Americans and approximately 20,000 Japanese soldiers perished in the fighting. Another 20,000 American soldiers were wounded, practically all the vanguard units being decimated. En route to the invasion of Japan there was only one obstacle left. Okinawa – the largest island of the Ryukyus and the southernmost of the main islands of Japan – was the last bastion of Japanese resistance before the eventual invasion of the country, and it was only 2,100 km away from Tokyo. The invasion of Okinawa began on April 1 and after almost three months of fierce fighting and tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians killed, the Allies won a decisive victory. It is estimated that between 30,000 and 100,000 civilians of the 300,000 inhabitants of Okinawa perished as a direct result of the invasion, re-enacting, but on a much larger scale, the atrocious scenes experienced in Saipan.
Ordoquihandy’s body was never recovered. However, he is remembered at the memorial at the National Cemetery of the Pacific, in Honolulu.
If in Normandy, we estimate that approximately fifty men of Basque and Navarrese origin participated in “D” Day under the command of the British and Americans, to date we have identified another 157 soldiers, enlisted in the Marines, Air Force, Army, and Navy, which participated in the Pacific Front. Considering that the investigation of the “Fighting Basques Project” is still ongoing, the final number could be much higher. Of these, at least about 60 were involved in the Mariana, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa campaigns.
Within the fleet that supported the invasion of Saipan with crew members of Basque or Navarrese origin, the heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis stands out, where the first-class radio operator Ernest Richard Bordagaray and the second-class administrative officer Alfred Arnaud Lapuyade served, participating in the invasion of Tinian; the destroyers USS Bell, with Lieutenant Raphael Antone Goñi on board, and who also participated in Guam and Okinawa, and the USS Izard with Lieutenant Ricardo “Richard” Ydoyaga (Guam, Tinian, Iwo Jima); and the battleships USS New Jersey (musician 2nd John Louis Facque), which in turn fought off Guam, Tinian, and Okinawa, the USS Idaho (gunner 1st Ralph Hirigoyen) (Guam, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa), and the USS Tennessee (second-hand gunner Joseph Thomas Goyeneche), who was also present throughout the Marianas campaign and the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
Of the twenty Marines who fought on the Pacific Front and more specifically in Saipan, the soldier of Navarrese origin Lawrence “Larry” Michael Erburu, from the 4th Marine Division, stands out. He was mortally wounded in the course of the battle. Erburu is buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii. As we have commented previously, after the occupation of Guam, the “B-29s” could carry out their missions over the skies of Japan with a greater degree of operability. Among them was First Lieutenant Julius Andrew Beterbide, who was in the 30th Squadron of the 19th Group. With five aerial medals, gunner Beterbide, born in Lovelock, Nevada, in 1917 to a Navarrese father and a mother from Lapurdi, also served in North Africa and Italy. Also flying in the “B-29s,” Lieutenant José Luis Beitia (Shoshone, Idaho, 1923), of Biscayan parents, had already been forced to land without an escort back from a mission to his base in Saipan. He did not reach it, although he was able to survive. Less lucky was the Nevada gunner Johnny Montero (son of Navarre and Lower Navarre parents), who crashed with his B-29 in the Himalayas (known to North American aviators as “The Hump” or “Hump”) when he was flying from his base in China.
After suffering serious injuries and losing a leg, Julián Aramburu received the Silver Star from Colonel Proust on August 17, 1945, while he was still convalescing from his injuries.
In the preparation for the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, we identified Administrative Officer John Elordi aboard the battleship USS Wisconsin, Cook 2nd Class Emile J. Iratçabal on the destroyer USS Taussig, and Aviation Armaments Specialist 2nd Class Donald Dale Jauregui on the aircraft carrier USS Hancock. In Okinawa they were joined by the battleship USS Mississippi, where the First Class Sailor Edward Valentine Barrenechea was serving, and the escort carriers USS Shipple Bay and USS Makassar Strait, where the aviation lieutenant Raymond Jay Garteiz and the sailor Peter Paul Parisena sailed, respectively. Flying from an aircraft carrier (the USS Yorktown) in the Okinawa area and off the Japanese coast, we find Genty “Santi” Louis Harriet, pilot of an F-6 “Hellcat” fighter.
In the combat for Iwo Jima, Marine Corps 5th Division soldier Albert Philip “Al” Pagoaga was seriously injured, losing a leg. Pagoaga, whose parents were from Gipuzkoa, was born in 1925 in Boise, Idaho. Only 32 of the 200 men from Pagoaga’s company, the Easy Company of the 27th Marine Regiment, made it off the island alive. Amongst the marines taking the beaches of Iwo Jima and Okinawa was Ramón Isidoro Oyarbide (of Biscayan parents), a university student from Battle Mountain (Nevada) who served on the infantry landing craft USS LCI (L) 632. Soldier of the 17th Infantry Regiment, Dominique Laxague (of Navarrese parents), and the Marine of the 1st Division Lawrence Amoriza (of Biscayan parents), died in combat in Okinawa. Corporal Felix François “Red” Ordoquihandy (of Zuberoa origin – the Baretous valley to be specific), also of the 1st Marine Division, died in an accident after surviving two of the bloodiest battles in the Pacific, Peleliu and Okinawa. Rudolph Iglesias, of Biscayan parents, obtained the precious Silver Star in Okinawa as a platoon leader of the 1st Marines in Okinawa.
Barrenechea died tragically at the age of 22 in a traffic accident in 1948 in Nevada.
In the Philippines, where there was a large Basque colony, another Silver Star was won a sheepherder from Bedarona (Bizkaia) named Julián Aramburu Goicoechea, from the 33rd Infantry Division, while Higinio Uriarte Zamacona, a member of one of the Basque families of the island of Negros, became a prominent leader of the local resistance. The Battle of Manila (February 3-March 3, 1945) saw the total devastation within the walls of the splendid colonial city and the massacre of the Spanish community. The masses celebrated in the Basque communities of the western United States in memory of their relatives murdered in Manila by the Japanese occupiers are the only clue to many stories yet to be investigated, such as the one about the “Fighting Basques” battle tank that the very same Higinio Uriarte saw there.
The war ended in Europe on May 8, 1945, with the surrender of Germany. After a month of occupation of the island of Okinawa, the Allies asked Japan for its unconditional surrender on July 26. On August 6 and 9, the United States detonated two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. Japan surrendered to the Allies on August 15, 1945. The “B-29” bombers from which the atomic bombs were dropped had taken off from the island of Tinian. On September 2, the terms of surrender were signed aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, “officially” ending World War II. Barrenechea (of Gipuzkoan father and Navarrese mother) and Hirigoyen (of origin Lower Navarrese), aboard the USS Mississippi and USS Idaho, respectively, were historical witnesses of the capitulation. Hirigoyen continued his military career and participated in the Korean War.
Only nine days apart, both the Normandy Landing and the Battle of Saipan marked a point in time before and after in World War II. Seventy-five years later, Saipan and the Pacific Front have been relegated to the background, without any political prominence or media coverage that could compete with their French counterpart. Saipan has gone down in history as the decisive battle of the Pacific offensive, but the passage of time has not been kind to this battle or the men who fought it. It has been unjustly overshadowed by the events commemorating the anniversary of Normandy in response to public policies of memory that serve the interests of the present more than the memory of the past. Without world leaders, without the global media, Saipan continues to inevitably fade into oblivion, perhaps in an effort by the Western powers, and more specifically the United States, to move away from a military front that forces them to confront the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons for the first time in human history.
Collaborate with ‘Echoes of two wars, 1936-1945.’
If you want to collaborate with “Echoes of two wars” send us an original article on any aspect of WWII or the Civil War and Basque or Navarre participation to the following email: sanchobeurko@gmail.com
Get some kids together and throw in a rope and it won’t be long before they are trying to pull each other from one side to another. Tug of war is one of the most basic and raw competitions you can imagine and is a fixture at Basque festivals across the western United States. But, did you know that there are international competitions, pitting teams from across the globe in a quest to show they are the best at tug of war? And that the Basque Country just hosted the world championships in tug of war?
Tug of war, as a competition, is as old as humanity. Etruscan friezes show teams pulling on ropes. And in The Iliad, Zeus brags how he could pull all the other gods put together. Tug of war was even an event in the original Olympic Games held in Ancient Greece and in the first few modern Olympics. It was played all over Europe, and indeed across the world in places like Cambodia and India.
While tug of war is as old as time in the Basque Country, it may be connected to the daily work of sailors, who had to tug boats into dock, or whalers that had to pull their catch to port. And organized competitions go back at least a century when, in 1915, Sokatira contests were held in the Atocha soccer stadium.
In the Basque Country, there are numerous clubs that participate in Sokatira, or tug of war, competitions. These competitions come in two varieties. There are open matches, in which anyone can participate, and closed or more regulated events in which there are strict weight categories, based on the weight of the team. Teams consist of 8 competitors. Only the last one can wrap the rope around their bodies — for everyone else, they can’t support the rope with any part of their body except their hands.
Over the last three years, about 50 different teams from all over Euskal Herria have competed in the Sokatira Euskadi Championship, representing all seven provinces of the Basque Country. As a national team, the Basque Country first competed in 1978, but under the name of Spain. They won the gold medal in 1991. After sitting out the 2005-2008 competitions to support the formation of an official Euskal Selekzioa team, the Basque Country was formally recognized as a full member of the Tug of War International Federation in 2014 and won their first gold as their own team in 2016.
The Tug of War world championships (Sokatira Mundiala) were held in September in Getxo, just outside of Bilbao. Teams from around the world, including multiple teams from the Basque Country, competed in a number of different classes, involving different weight classes and genders, including men’s, women’s, and mixed competitions. The Basque Country won the 560 kg men’s and the 500 kg women’s titles, and placed in a couple other events. The best teams move on to the World Games, to be held in 2022 in Alabama.
