Tag Archives: josu aguirregabiria

Fighting Basques: Alfonso Garde Marcilla, Memoirs of a Prisoner of War in World War II

This article original appeared in Spanish at EuskalKultura.eus. Interrogated in Budapest “Alfonso Garde, Corporal, 3835273.” Those were the only words that came out of his mouth in response to the demands of his interrogator. Under the Geneva Convention, a prisoner of war only had to provide his name, rank, and serial number. “Alfonso Garde, Corporal, […]

Fighting Basques: Alberto Arregui: From Chile to Normandy through Paris to the Heart of the Third Reich

This article originally appeared in Spanish at Euskalkultura.eus on May 27, 2022. As the Basque-Chilean musician Alberto Arregui contemplated the Statue of Liberty as he entered the Port of New York, the words of Carl Vincent Krogmann, the mayor of the German city of Hamburg, echoed in his head, “Why did you not join us […]

Fighting Basques: Basque Women in the US Cadet Nurse Corps, 1943-1948

This article originally appeared in Spanish at Euskalkultura.eus on March 7, 2022. Joining the worldwide commemoration of Women’s Day, our colleagues from the historical research group of the Sancho de Beurko Association published another new and interesting article, on another little-known topic, the Nurse Cadets Corps of the United States and the participation of Basque-American […]

Fighting Basques: Joseph Etcheverry and Helene Santana, a Century of Basque Legacy on American Soil

This article originally appeared in Basque and Spanish at Euskalkultura.eus on January 13, 2022. On this Memorial Day, we bring you the story of Joseph Etcheverry and Helena (Santana) Etcheverry, a story of our diaspora that, like many others, unites and connects origins in Euskal Herria — in this case Ortzaize and Arrosa, in Nafarroa […]

Fighting Basques: Pete T. Cenarrusa, Love for All Things Basque

This article originally appeared in Basque and Spanish at Euskalkultura.eus on November 23, 2021. In memory of Gorka Aulestia (1932-2021) Pete Cenarrusa passed away on September 29, 2013 at the age of 95 in Boise, Idaho. With him we lost possibly one of the last figures of his time to go down in history for […]

Fighting Basques: Three Basque-Navarrese families from California in World War II

This article originally appeared in Spanish at El Diario on October 9, 2019. The bertsolaris Fernando Aire Etxart “Xalbador” from Nafarroa Beherea and Mattin Treku Inharga of Lapurdi arrived in the United States in June 1960 to participate for a month in the Basque festivals of La Puente, Bakersfield (both in California), and Reno (Nevada), […]

Fighting Basques: Basque Participation in the Resistance and Liberation of the Philippines (1942-1945)

This article originally appeared in Spanish at El Diario on December 11, 2019. After the surrender of the US armed forces on May 6, 1942, in Corregidor, Japan was free to extend its military occupation throughout the Philippine archipelago. The Philippines was the only Pacific country with a solid and consolidated Basque and Navarrese community […]

Fighting Basques: Basque-Americans in the Battle of the Philippines (1941-1942)

This article originally appeared in Spanish at El Diario on November 27, 2019. “The air attack on the airfields of the main island of the Philippines, Luzon, took us all by surprise and the ‘P-40’ fighters were destroyed on the ground the first day, without being able to take off.” Thus begins the first-person account […]

Fighting Basques: Basques in the US Merchant Marine in World War II

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 […]

Fighting Basques: The Basques and Navarrese of the Other ‘D’ Day: Saipan and the Pacific Front

This article originally appeared in Spanish at El Diario on October 23, 2019. 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 […]