take precautions from sa-boteurs. Fragments of rolling stock lay.

along the railway, mute evidence of air attacks. Several Interna’ tionals coming through ahead of us had been poisoned.

To avoid any incidents we were formed into -groups of twelve with military and political leaders to each group. There

were seven political commissars in our car. I was elected chair»,

man. We pla-cedl guards at each door so as to: intercept any fascist agents who might try to board the train. Train" men com’ ing on duty had to be “O.K.d”~by us. We stopped a Portuguese soldier from joining us until we were satisfied that his papers were in order. He had deserted from the Portuguese Army to ]O1I1 us.

No Training - ’

We picked up another group of Canadians and Americans in Valencia. Together we constituted more than half the strength of the first North American combat unit. Our bunch was at the base about two days before our marching orders arrived‘.

We had to take precautions from air raids and we had to prepared camp but it seemed that the fascist army was not‘ wait» ing for us to receive training. They were hitting the Valencia’ Madrid road with everything they had in a desperate attempt to cut this main artery to the Spanish capital. Our battalion, made up of workers, professionals, artist-s, who had never worked to’ gether as a unit, were given the task of filling in a gap on the

. Jarama Sector.

February 15th was a bad day. The fascists attacked and we had not built our trenches yet. Fierce fighting took place on op-en ground. Not only did. we hold our positions but we push’ ed them back in many sectors an-d began to build a system of zigizag trenches. This was how we got our training. During the lull orur commander ordered us to fire at a soft embankment at a two hundred metre range. This was to get the feel of our

rifles. VMachine»Gun Company Commander Seacord asked mea ,

__.7._._c