The Newry Curfew- Making War on Rebellion

 

Men of the North - Part 4: Making War on Rebellion

 

"WHAT WE CANNOT STOP."

    "Pour les Irish" TE Lawrence wrote to a bedraggled English general during the Irish War of Independence, "Only one horrid word: you cannot make war upon rebellion."[i] General Brian Kimmins assumed charge of British troops in the north in 1955 and, a veteran of both World Wars with experience in directing raids, he appreciated Lawrence's view. So did the Prime Minister, Lord Brookborough, "What we cannot stop are these sporadic raids," Brookeborough told the press. "You can disperse the military all over the country but you would lose your striking force."[ii] Meaning: the army would cease to be effective combating the threat and become targets themselves. By summer of 1957 it was not hard to figure out that although fond of land mines, ambushes, and timed explosions, the IRA was no longer capable of organized assaults. Instead of confronting a ghost, Kimmins kept the army in a highly subdued role in which they withdrew into their barracks like a turtle into its shell and refused the IRA's enticements to come out. The better informed, locally-run RUC and B-Specials took up the dirty day to day business. This deprived the IRA of the targets it sought - needed- for its war to gain momentum, and forced them to settle for inglorious "incidents." "Though the people might be irritated by the pin-pricks," Brookeborough reminded Unionist leaders, "the important was that the IRA were not accomplishing their objective."[iii]

      Despite the latter's efforts to soothe feelings, Unionist politicians continued to hold the view that the stricter the measure the better. In early July the Home Minister, W.B. Topping assured them the question of "curfew, armored vehicles and allied matters were continually under consideration and review."[iv]

  "The situation in Newry seemed touch and go for a while," Bowyer Bell writes, "to the delight of the IRA GHQ."[v] Jim Rowntree and his unit were depleted by arrests but still present, as sporadic attacks over the summer months showed. On the night of July 14, they planted a bomb, consisting of 22 sticks of gelignite inside a tin, at the base of the War Memorial- a granite pillar- and timed it to go off in the early hours. A second bomb of the same make was planted at an electric terminal just outside the town. An Orange march was to go through the area the next day as part of the "Marching Season" and since the memorial commemorated the British army it was a non-sectarian way for the IRA to voice its position. The memorial bomb was discovered the next morning, burned out during the last 3 inches of fuse, and the terminal bomb was similarly found. The nuances of timing and intent were lost on the 1,000 or so Orangemen.[vi] Towards the end of the month an army lorry was hijacked and set alight in an unclaimed and unexplained incident.  

DAN MOORE

   In August the IRA wrote up a notice addressing the people. Copies were posted up simultaneously across the north, as well as to embassies, and Republicans in New York distributed it to UN Delegates.

"The manifesto said the Resistance campaign 'is now more firmly based among our people and grows stronger by the day'. It said that attempts to portray the struggle as sectarian had failed and it was clearly a fight for national unity and independence. It regretted that the members of the RUC and B-Specials had ignored the IRA’s statement at the start of its campaign that they would not be attacked if they did not co-operate with the British Army. Now the RUC and B-Specials 'have been put on a war footing and are used in conjunction with British forces'.[vii]  (The full text can be found in the endnotes below.)

 On the night of August 8th two young volunteers drove out with a stack of these to tack up around Newry. One was Dan Moore, an 18 year old with a day job at a saw mill. He had recently graduated to the army from the Fianna. As they went up Drumolane they were accosted by an RUC constable; the police duly found Dan's car, complete with a stack of announcements. Dan was sentenced to the Crum, where he was placed in the juvenile wing. [viii] (Police throughout the north spent the day removing the posters).

    Dan later recalled for the Newry Journal:

  "The authorities were convinced that a bit of military discipline was enough to correct the misguided views and attitudes of the miscreant youths in their care. Joe Leslie, Moody and the other screws in charge of us were ex-marines.  In good old-fashioned British war-film tradition they interpreted this as the need for regular ‘square-bashing’. It was supposed to frighten us and turn us into ‘good citizens’.

    “I really enjoyed this square-bashing and threw myself enthusiastically into these exercises. I felt I was learning something every morning. As a young volunteer of just eighteen years who hadn’t yet had any drill training on the outside I was convinced I was doing something useful! Arms training we had had, but not drill. Priorities, I suppose!

    “After about two months Joe Leslie approached me and asked why I was so patently enjoying the drill exercises. I was young and lacking in subtlety. I answered immediately and with transparent honesty that if we were to do this on the outside, it would be sufficient reason – if one were needed – to imprison us. Sadly, that was the end of my square-bashing!"

    As a punishment he was tasked with chopping wood but the sawmill worker naturally enjoyed this as well. Dan was interned when his sentence ended, and remained in prison for the duration of the campaign although it would not be his last term. [ix]

 

 CURFEW

   The posters were preliminary to a renewed offensive. On August 10th and 11th units in South Derry, Tyrone, and Fermanagh launched attacks on a variety of targets, from customs posts to police barracks at Swartagh and Cranagh. South Down's contribution was a blitz on infrastructure on the night of the 11th.

     That night a "very heavy bomb" which "must have been centrally planted" destroyed the Northern Ireland Electricity Board's offices. It "completely wrecked the interior of the building and blew off the roof," and people returning home late had a “first hand view of the explosion, which littered the street with debris, account bills, and other items of office furniture.”[x] Nearby windows were shattered and debris rained down for 50 yards around. A simultaneous attack on the GPO's garage destroyed 12 heavy vehicles. "The fire was so intense that the gates of the garage glowed white in the flames, which licked the walls of the nearby Town Hall."[xi] The firemen abandoned attempts to put out the GPO fire and focused on preventing the conflagration from spreading to the Hall.[xii] 

    Within hours Topping made good on his promise of “curfew, armored vehicles and allied matters.” He announced that a curfew was placed on Newry from 11pm to 5:30 am, effective that night. The curfew was applied to 9 areas that stretched for 20 miles around the town. The order enumerated that those who needed to be out after hours could obtain a pass from the police. The penalty for breaking curfew was 3 years imprisonment and/or 500 pounds.

     Designating curfew was within the legal rights assigned to Topping, but an explanation as to why Newry and why then wasn’t given in his order. Newry's bombings paled in comparison to East Tyrone and Fermanagh, where full scale attacks on the police happened almost nightly. It was unclear to people, one commentator calling it “a mystery buried in the mind of the Six County Minister of Home Affairs."[xiii] Bowyer Bell analyzed that Topping "felt it advisable to impose a curfew rather than risk the Nationalist population being converted to open defiance of the government."[xiv] Topping himself was unclear, giving a variety of explanations after the fact. In one of his statements after the curfew he explained it “was necessary because the large number of outrages there could not have been carried out without the connivance of sympathisers in the area."[xv] In another he ascribed it to the region's uncooperative response to police investigations.  In still another he said it was “owing to the number of incidents involving loss of property,”[xvi] an aspect that indeed distinguished Newry from the rest of the north. In this latter point one can read a certain level concession to those unionist objectors who had been hounding him for some sort of reaction.

      Aside from Topping, the RUC Inspector General Sir Richard Pike Pim is sometimes credited with the idea. If true, then to understand the Curfew it helps to consider the man behind it. Pim was a soldier like General Kimmins, and unlike the homegrown bigots (a la Brookeborough) that dominated the Unionist political scene. During World War Two he headed Churchill's map room, a veritable google earth that collected information on every allied plane, ship, and unit, and translated the data to maps. Its effectiveness was such that it earned the envy of President Roosevelt, who subsequently designed one for himself. After the war he returned home to Belfast and became the RUC's inspector General, in which position he combated rising crime rates by plotting out areas as he had in the war. As a professional rather than a loyalist, Pim sympathized with the plight of Catholics in their relation to the police. He went so far as to oppose the Emblems act which caused so many altercations around the flying of the Tricolor throughout the 50's. What that background, one can safely assume that Pim's suggestion of a curfew in Newry, if indeed his suggestion, was a strategically educated one rather than a knee-jerk response to the bombing. South Down, via the Newry Brigade, was the primary facilitator in smuggling arms and men across the border, and many of the attacks on communications and electricity were to provide cover for units going through the area (explained by Mick Ryan in his 2018 memoir My Life in the IRA.)

    There has been little or no scholarly examination of the curfew through government documents, and only cursory reference in the major histories of the period. As more files are declassified we may be able to draw a more complete picture.

  

REACTION

    The demographic most affected by the measure were the youth and workers. Irish night life does typically not commence until around 10 pm and ends long after midnight. Workers typically worked late and the late evening and early hours after that were their time to wind down at pubs, clubs, cinemas, and sporting events- all of which now closed at 11, and taking into account the time needed for people to conclude business and get home, the effective end of social time was fairly earlier than that. Newry also was and remains the primary passage for traffic between north and south on the east coast. Travelers and commuters found themselves diverted from the highways to rural, winding back roads. It took up to an hour to navigate through what used to be a brief drive.   

   On the first night of the curfew, youths gathered around Margaret square to defy the curfew. Others, movie-goers and , who came out to stand in line for films (now cancelled) and other events swelled the numbers until about a thousand people had assembled in an impromptu protest. The atmosphere was like a fleadh as music started and a sympathetic bottle plant owner allowed cases of beer to be passed around. When the bell struck 11 the lights went out on cue, and the crowd took to the forbidden streets, marching in the direction of the town hall. [xvii]

   As they did they started singing The anthem of the Republic, "The Soldiers Song," which vividly expressed spirits that night:

We'll sing a song, a soldier's song,

With cheering rousing chorus,

As round our blazing fires we throng,

The starry heavens o'er us;

Impatient for the coming fight,

And as we wait the morning's light,

Here in the silence of the night,

We'll chant a soldier's song.[xviii]

    Among those who were marching that night was Dickie Rodgers, a laborer in between stints working abroad in England. Breaking curfew was the least exciting thing he had done: "I joined the British Army when I was just fourteen (and) fought through the Second World War. I was a paratrooper. I was injured three times; shot twice, once in the shin and once in the groin."[xix] He stayed on with the Paras after the war and served in Jerusalem, where one of his regiment's duties was to enforce a curfew on Zionist guerillas. Rather than reducing their activity it stoked tensions. He had the correct march and brusque manner of a Para, but when it came to his hometown his sympathies were increasingly on the side of the insurgents.    

    A convoy of police tenders raced ahead of the crowd, and a line of 50 policemen in riot gear formed across the road. A voice echoed over a loudspeaker entreating the crowd to turn back. They pressed on; the police charged, batons flew, and the protester reversed their course. The lucky ones, including Dickie Rodgers, were able to reach a series of side roads which provided cover. "I can vividly recall the feeling of real fear, fleeing along with the crowd," a journalist wrote later. "I could hear the heavy thud of boots from the pursuing, baton-wielding “Specials,” a few yards behind. Nipping down O’Hagan Street I escaped, as the chase continued up Mill Street."[xx]

 A handful were injured –from 3 to twelve depending on the source- and 12 arrested. A republican, Barney Larkin, was alone charged with "breach of the order" and fined one pound. His defense pointed out the curfew was enforced only 6 hours after being announced. 

    Although it was commonly described in the papers as a "riot" there was little or no actual disturbance that night, and no attacks on people or property. It was however the opening salvo of a month of unrest. The next night the crowd grew to over 1500, overseen by several hundred policemen. Protests continued nightly, following the pattern of the first with communal gathering and good-natured "great craic."[xxi] The objective was to break the measure symbolically. When the baton charges became tiresome to both police and protestors, they took to using police cars to force the people back. Wee Joe Campbell, no doubt miffed to not be involved himself, recalled anxiously awaiting news in his cell.[xxii]

    The town took on the appearance of one at war. A visitor from the James Connolly Society described "sandbagged strongpoints with ominous machine-gun slits, yards-deep barbed wire entanglements up the walls and all around the roof, the armoured car of the 'border patrol,'...tenders for carrying loads of abuse-shouting B-Specials careening around the streets after dark..."[xxiii] The B-Specials tasked with enforcing the curfew were unruly, made their authority known with violence, and were hostile to Catholics regardless of politics. Although no one was killed during the curfew a number of people had died in recent years through B-Special carelessness with arms and the possibility was very real to the people of Newry. 

    Some youths commandeered an abandoned linen factory known as Linenhall to make a stand. In a different life it served as a police barracks and its layout, a square with a courtyard with two entrances, was ideally designed for the task of repelling invaders. 

   They "barricaded themselves into their own self-made citadel.  They would then light a bonfire and wait to repel assailants. Sometime after the appointed hour for the beginning of the curfew the Crown forces would make an appearance. . . The outcome was simple to predict. The B-Specials would drive their Commer armoured tender through the barricade at one of the gates, and the youths of Linenhall Square would try to prevent them from doing so by whatever means they deemed necessary. After a bit of a scuffle and stone throwing the youths would make a tactful withdrawal back to their homes. They had made their point and honour was upheld."[xxiv]

     Another barricade was thrown up on High Street, a steep, narrow lane that winds up "to where the first purpose built Protestant church in Ireland, St. Patrick's stands, (which may have inspired Sean Jonathan Swift's famous rhyme about the town 'High church, low steeple, dirty town proud people'), in the predominantly Protestant North Ward of Newry. The United Irishman Patrick Cochrane is buried in its cemetery. Some of Newry's oldest and best known families came from there, and it had a strong Republican tradition." A barricade like the one at Linenhall was erected, built and manned by "crowds of mainly young people, boys and girls." They defied the B Specials sent to quell the scene and sang songs atop the barricade. 

   There was, appropriately, "We Won't go home till the morning:"

We won't go home till the morning
We won't go home till the morning
We won't go home till the morning
Til daylight has appeared.

 Then there was "Step Together," now little known, but then a classic marching song from the Tan War:

Step together, boldly tread

 Firm each foot, erect each head
 Fixed in front be every glance
 Forward at the word advance
 Serried files that foes may dread
 Like the dear in mountain heather
 Steady boys! And step together.

    Despite or because of the threat of baton-charges, children across town snuck away to join the excitement. From his bedroom in nearby Drumolane 9 year old Brian could hear the singing on High Street and watched his friends run off to join the festivities. His father Frank, an Old IRA man, was watching too and chuckled to himself at seeing the old spirit of defiance rekindled. Brian had his own curfew of 9pm which Frank enforced. His day to protest would come later.[xxv]

 

"THE NEWRY BRIGADE" 

    A series of notices from the Newry unit were posted up encouraging people to join in the resistance, but aside from these the IRA remained in the background.

   The curfew inspired a song in their honor sung to the tune of the "The Belfast Brigade" (based on the American "Battle Hymm of the Republic") 

W. B. Topping put the curfew on Newry Town
He thought that he could keep the Newry people down
But he got a rude awakening at eleven o' clock that night 
When all the people came out to shout, 

Glory, Glory, to old Ireland,
Glory, Glory to the Sireland
Glory to the memory of the men who fought and died, 
No surrender is the warcry of the Newry Brigade

Overnight, the IRA had turned from unknowns with a curious choice of targets into folk heroes. "We never had the full backing of the people up to that point," Oliver McCaul remembered, "after that, we did." Oliver arrived home from at midnight one night: "The streets were deserted, I was walking over Francis Street when a door opened, and the lady of the house called me and said 'Come in son, they are due any minute' meaning a patrol was due. I went into her house and sure enough, within minutes, a patrol passed. She then said to me, you can go now, they won't be back for another half hour. She never asked me who I was, or what I was doing out after curfew. This was the spirit of the people."[xxvi]

 

CURFEW ENDS

    The curfew was removed in early September as quickly as it was instated. The people celebrated with an 11 pm march down Main street, jubilantly singing and banging pans. "The order has now been in force for four weeks," Topping said, "During which there has not been any further incidents."[xxvii] The IRA punctuated its end with an attack in Newcastle, a resort town on the rocky coast, sleepier then than today, that destroyed a transformer and empty prefab buildings that comprised a camp for the Girl Guides (the RUC's female equivalent of the Scouts or Fianna.)  At the end of the month, Kimmins and Topping met along with a select few government officials and cryptically announced a new security policy would be put in place. 

     A question loomed: did the curfew affect the IRA's movement or did they only step back to let the civil resistance take its course? Both answers, locked in the memory of men unknown and not given to talking, are equally possible. Non-involvement in popular events had precedent going back to the Outdoor Relief Strike of 1931, when republican leaders feared IRA involvement would be used as a reason to crack down, while if the strikers were left to themselves, real unity might develop. This is the popularly accepted reason which the "dogs on the street" tell to this day. And republicans were confident the tactic worked. The ever-informed Sean Cronin wrote in a booklet published during the campaign that:

  “Stormont grew afraid of what it saw happening in Newry. It had over-reached itself. The mood of the people was ugly. The people were being driven and their point of no return seemed not far away. One week later when in Coalisland, Co. Tyrone, an R.U.C. sergeant was killed after military and police surrounded a deserted house and a booby-trap exploded, Home Affairs Minister Topping was asked if he would apply the curfew to East Tyrone. His reply was “No.” The curfew weapon had failed.”[xxviii]

      But the curfew had no political sequel. It did not spark risings in other cities. The IRA tried to capitalize on it with yet more posters, for which Two Tan war veterans in Belfast were arrested (one died from lack of medical treatment.) But without the infrastructure to attack barracks, and political power to supplant the Northern State, the IRA receded once more into little more than a nuisance, just as Brookeborough had predicted.

   September and October were checkered with a few, but only a few, “pin-pricks”. Then a column from Wexford, the Vinegar Hill Column, arrived in Dundalk to recover after a frustrating stint in Armagh before venturing back out. Newry continued to be one of the few areas that could field columns of their own, and the Dundalk O/c assigned a handful of on-the-run Newry volunteers to supplement the Wexford men. Their enterprise resulted in a tragedy that reshaped the war.

---

[i] http://www.telstudies.org/writings/letters/1919-20/201116_newcombe.shtml

[ii] Irish Independent 08.03.1957, page 6

[iii] Ibid

[iv] Irish times Friday, July 5, 1957

[v] Bell, The Secret Army

[vi] Irish News, July 15^th 1957

[vii] 9 August 2007 Edition “The Resistance Campaign 50 years on” An Phoblacht

[viii] https://www.newryjournal.co.uk/history/living-history/prison-notes/

[ix] ibid

[x] Irish Examiner 1841-current, 12.08.1957, page 5

[xi] http://www.newrymemoirs.com/stories_pages/postofficeaccolade_2.html

[xii] Irish Independent 1905-current, 12.08.1957, page 7

[xiii] Irish Democrat, October 1957, page 3;  http://www.connollyassociation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/154-Oct57.pdf

[xiv] Bowyer Bell, The Secret Army

[xv] Northern Whig, Wednesday 21 August 1957

[xvi] Fermanagh Herald 1903-current, 14.09.1957, page 3

[xvii] http://www.newrymemoirs.com/stories_pages/newrycurfew_2.html

[xviii] Cork Examiner, Tuesday August 13^th 1957

[xix] https://www.newryjournal.co.uk/reminiscence/places/dickie-the-paratrooper/

[xx] http://www.newrymemoirs.com/stories_pages/newrycurfew_1.html

[xxi] ibid

[xxii] ibid

[xxiii] Irish Democrat, October 1957, page 3;  http://www.connollyassociation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/154-Oct57.pdf

[xxiv] https://www.newryjournal.co.uk/reminiscence/places/barracks-curfew-2/ 

[xxv] Brian Patterson

[xxvi] Song and account from Oliver McCaul, to author.

[xxvii] Fermanagh Herald 1903-current, 14.09.1957, page 3

[xxviii] Sean Cronin, Resistance, retrieved from https://www.cym.ie/documents/Resistance.pdf 

 

 The full text of the appeal from the IRA that was posted in early August (printed in Cronin's 'Resistance", see above)

 "To the people of Occupied Ireland

The campaign of Resistance in Occupied Ireland which opened on December 12, 1956, is now more firmly based among our people than ever before and grows stronger by the day. The fight is directed against British Occupation of the Six Counties only. Attempts by our enemies to misrepresent the struggle for national unity and independence, and, to further their own ends, channel it along sectarian lines, have failed and will continue to fail. No Irish man or woman is deceived any longer by this blatant British propaganda tactic. When events during the last nine months exposed the falseness of the ‘cross-border’ raiding cry, the new one of ‘Nationalist versus Unionist’ had to be adopted.

The struggle of the Resistance Movement is most certainly not against the Unionist population of the Six Counties. It is not directed against any section of the Irish people or against any Irish man or woman. Its only target is the British Occupation of our country and it will continue until that Occupation ends The Irish people know this well, as they know that British interference in Irish affairs is backed up by military, naval and air garrisons and bases. They know that Ireland will have no peace until this imperial garrison is withdrawn. When this has been done the Irish people themselves will resolve their differences and their nation’s future in friendship, mutual understanding and peace. False propaganda slogans, which are designed to divide us, serve 57 only to maintain British Imperial control over the affairs of the Irish nation. At this hour we appeal to all our people to rally around the banner of a free Ireland and to ignore the differences that have kept us divided in the past. We must end foreign exploitation of our country so that its resources will be handed back to their true owners, the Irish people, and used for the benefit of all. We want to build here a free nation and people with full control over their own political, social and economic life. If this nation is to survive beset as we are by emigration, unemployment and poverty—this is an imperative need.

In a proclamation issued to the people of Occupied Ireland on December 12. 1956, we warned members of the R.U.C. and BSpecial Constabulary that they had nothing to fear from the Resistance provided they did not allow themselves to become the tools of Britain’s armed forces We told them their place was on the side of the freedom fighters. We asked them to stand aside from the struggle altogether if they found such a step too big at this time. Since then these forces have been put on a war-footing and are used in conjunction with British forces to screen military installations, terrorise the civilian population, patrol and search the countryside, engage in punitive expeditions, and generally hound, harry, torture and imprison Irish freedom fighters. This is doing England’s bidding with a vengeance.

 The Resistance can hardly be expected to differentiate between men, trained, organised and equipped along military lines (although clad in police uniforms) and British troops. To members of the R.U.C. and B-Special Constabulary, we repeat our call of December 12, 1956. We ask them to remember that they are Irishmen. We ask them to stop being England’s dupes in Ireland. We regret to see the 26-County authorities embarking on a policy of coercion and repression. We ask them to look at Irish history and recall the ruinous effects for Ireland and her people in the past of political repression.

Such measures are no solution for the problems facing our people. Such policies can only result in giving aid and comfort to British Occupation. They do not have the consent of the Irish people to proceed against Republicans. Their actions will not stop the Resistance although they may make more difficult the lot of our people in Occupied Ireland. The people had hoped for, at least, the moral support of that part of Ireland styling itself free.

To all the Irish people, to our glorious dead, to our imprisoned comrades, we pledge this struggle will go on until British Occupation ends and our country is allowed settle its affairs in 58 peace. In the days ahead, the men and women of the Resistance will find courage in the knowledge that history is watching them and is on their side; that their cause is great and is unconquerable.”

 

Memoirs from the Cuban Revolution

                             Memoirs from the Cuban Revolution

 

"I do not wish that this fragmentary history, based on memories and a few hasty notes, should be regarded as a full account. On the contrary, I hope that those who lived through each event will further elaborate....There are many survivors of this battle and each of them is encouraged to fill out the story by contributing what they remember. I ask only that such a narrator be strictly truthful"

                                - Che Guevara, "Reminisces of the Cuban Revolution." 

     The Cuban revolution of 1959 is a textbook example of a successful revolution and the kind of underdog story everyone loves. It provided inspiration to fledgling nations like no event had in decades. "All our heroes were losers," Irish Republican leader Thomas Mac Giolla recalled later; "Che and Fidel were the first winners."(1)  Much ink has been spilled over the event, but polarization of academics along Cold War political lines renders impartial studies difficult to find, and there was unfortunately only scattered follow-up to Che's appeal for the rank and file to tell their story. (ie, there was no collection along the lines of the Irish Military History Bureau's collection of accounts from the 1916-23 period, or Cypriot Government's archive from EOKA members). But for all that, many participants did tell their stories. The following is a compendium of books by those who took an active part in the revolution as combatants, activists, or opponents. 

General Histories

   
   Two general histories by participants stand out: 
     Cuban Insurrection 1952-1959 by Ramon L. Bonachea is possibly the finest and most complete history, written in the tradition of Anthony Beevor or Alistair Horne.
    Bonachea has the historian's eye for what details to magnify and minimize when telling a story on a grand scale, and in this case it involves far more than the simple guerillas-in-the-jungle narrative. There is an alphabet soup of organizations, each with their own industrial strikes, actions, failed coups, political statements, and feuds, which Bonachea distills into a readable narrative. His status as a former revolutionary (he now lives in the US) gave him access to other former participants, enabling him to reconstruct otherwise unknowable background information to events, especially where minor players and organizations are concerned.
    The history is supplemented by charts illustrating battle plans and structure, making it a uniquely helpful stand-alone resource.

   Armando Hart wrote a history of the urban conflict in his book Aldabonazo: Inside the Cuban Revolutionary Underground, 1952–58.
     Aldabonazo (meaning a "knock on the door") is meant as a gap-filler, as most histories focus on the war in the countryside. The book tells of the activists in the cities ("llanos") who carried on their own conflict in sync with the guerillas in the mountains. The dominant figure is not Castro but Frank Pais, leader of the Llanos, who organized and directed urban unrest before his death in 1958.
     Hart writes with the cautious use of information, characteristic of underground men once responsible for others' lives, detailing strategy and ideology rather than nitty-gritty details of ambushes. He backs up his narrative with dozens of letters and documents.
    The one major drawback is that it is uncritical to the point of feeling artificial, and may not be as complete as it seems. In a telling passage he notes that some "were omitted from this history of glory" for having turned against the revolution afterwards. Many people receive a nod at some point in the book but several major players who later defected are unmentioned- one only wonders who, at ground level, was also written out.

Memoirs

   A good many personal accounts can be found in periodicals and newspapers (particularly the early issues of Granma), but there has been no concerted effort to collect accounts into a single, authoritative archive That aside, most major players in the conflict published memoirs.

    The starting point remains Che Guevera's Reminisces, both military history and a personal story. The prose that later elevated the Motorcycle Diaries to literary fame serves him well here. Like one iconic scene:

"A compañero dropped a box of ammunition at my feet. I pointed to it, and he answered me with an anguished expression, which I remember perfectly, and which seemed to say, 'It’s too late for ammunition.' He immediately took the path to the cane field. (He was later murdered by Batista’s henchmen.) This might have been the first time I was faced, literally, with the dilemma of choosing between my devotion to medicine and my duty as a revolutionary soldier. There, at my feet, was a backpack full of medicine and a box of ammunition. They were too heavy to carry both. I picked up the ammunition, leaving the medicine, and started to cross the clearing, heading for the cane field."

    Many things can be debated about Che's politics, but he is brutally honest on paper regarding war, and rarely digresses when discussing it. The book was studied by fighters in contemporary conflicts like Palestine, yet its focused realism turned out to be a pitfall for this audience as they were left uninformed of other key ingredients- like the urban movement and Castro's masterful PR - which were outside the scope of Guevera's experiences. "For him," Robert Oltuski writes, "the guerrilla forces in the Sierra Maestra were the reason for everything." The Reminisces is complimented by his Diary of a Combatant, the raw, unedited diary he kept during the revolution. There's no factual difference but the latter Diary chronicles day-to-day events which, like a microscope, shows life details a little more powerfully than his initial work. 

    Many people have written memoirs around Che and how they knew him. The most deserving of the accounts by former comrades is that of his second wife, Aleida Guevera March. A soldier in the July 26th Movement, Aleida met him while fighting in the Sierra Maestra. Her memoir Remembering Che is deeply felt and simply told, and as much a story of a woman at war as it is the titular subject. His first wife, Hilda Gadea, covered the early part of his career- meeting Castro, early days of training-  with remarkable honesty in My Life With Che. Gadea's intellectual background contrasts starkly to Aleida's simple style and she is more at terms with events.

    Castro wrote prolifically on the revolution, producing volumes of his prison letters, a two-part memoir, memories of Che, his youth, and numerous books of interviews with journalists. The most comprehensive of these is My Life: A Spoken Autobiography, an interview with Ignaciano Ramonet. This is the complete Castro: in the course of its 500 pages they discuss everything from his family background to his opinion of JFK and 911. The revolutionary days are covered in depth and take up the first half of the book.

    Batista wrote memoirs, entitled Cuba Betrayed, part memoir, part political statement. Simply comparing his autobiography to Castro's give some insight into the broader conflict: like his nemesis, Batista has an axe to grind and an array of views which are difficult to substantiate, but he suffers from not being able to make himself look interesting or heroic. There's little depth of feeling, no self-analysis, and quite a lot of finger pointing at everyone else for his loss of power. However, how a person views themselves is itself informative.

      Vida Clandestina  by Robert Oltuski is possibly the finest memoir after the Reminisces despite its novelized style. In his introduction Oltuski protests that he did not intent for this to be treated as a formal "history;" his intention was rather to present to younger readers what it was like to live through those times. Yet he surpasses the rest in his vivid descriptions of people, settings, and events. He describes the nitty-gritty of every day life as a "Llano"- from balancing work, love, and clandestine activities to the stains on his hands from newspaper-wrapped bombs. And although a fervent supporter of Castro, he makes no bones about disputes. He clashes with the movement on reform issues, calls out dead revolutionaries for incompetence, and credits those who later defected without questioning their commitment at the time of the revolution.
     (Of all the books on this list, I would recommend it to anyone who is new to the history of the revolution, or wants to read a heartfelt "war story" type account as opposed to an academic history.)

   Carlos Franqui played a crucial role before producing copious literature from exile. His Diary of the Cuban Revolution was groundbreaking when first published, and remains a standard reference for English-speaking students of the revolution (particularly for its information on left-wing opposition to Castro within the opposition.) He also wrote "The Twelve" detailing the early days of the revolution, Family Portrait with Fidel and others.

   Cuba and Castro by Teresa Casuso Morin tells a story of both adventure and intrigue, and heartbreak. Morin was a classic Cuban conspirator- a woman of mystery who dabbled in the arts while financing revolutions. She was heavily involved in the planning of the revolution, purchasing the Granma, and the training in Mexico but parted ways in the early 60's. She provides a detailed sense of place and writes with the weight of experience (she was involved with the 1930's revolution against Machado).

   Marianas in Combat by Teté Puebla and Mary-Alice Waters.  

 ""How can we give rifles to women when there are so many men who are unarmed?'”
 "Fidel answered: 'Because they´re better soldiers than you are.'"

  Tete Puebla joined the revolution in 1956 at the age of 15. She was a part of the all-female Mariana Grajales Women's Platoon. What it lacks in length, it makes up for in content. The book is framed through an interview between Puebla and Waters in which she tells her own story while exploring that of the Platoon. 

    The Cuba Story and Revolution In Cuba, by Herbert Matthews. A New York Times journalist, Matthews uncovered Castro when he was long believed to be dead, elevated him as a guerilla-hero, and the revolution quickly turned in the latter's favor afterwards. Its a Stanley and Livingston type story that should be a classic when told in Matthew's words; however the book is falls a little short of that as he struggles to vindicate his motives for supporting Castro in 1957 in light of events in 1960. Yet his memoir is a valuable view into a pivotal incident in Cuban history. Anthony DePalma told the story to critical and popular acclaim in The Man Who Invented Fidel: Castro, Cuba, and Herbert L. Matthews of the New York Times.

   Niell MaCaulay's A Rebel in Cuba (1970) is the autobiography of a Korean War veteran who joined the 26th of July Movement, one of the few to do so. His memoir is part boys-own adventure, part grisly realism a la The Things they Carried, and could take its place among classics were it not for the politics surrounding the experience (MacAulay himself is completely apolitical).

    Victor Dreke, From Escambre to the Congo. Dreke fought in the jungle during the later stages of the revolution. He later directed the counterinsurgency operations during the Escambray Rebellion (which MacAulay was running guns to) and oversaw Cuban expeditions abroad. The focus is on the latter events but the initial chapters talk about the revolution from the perspective of one of its most loyal cadres.

  The Unsuspected Revolution, by Mario Llerena is an important book on the network of supporters that sustained the revolution. Llerena, one of the "30's generation" that opposed Machado, was the 26th of July Movement's representative in New York. In his memoir he recounts activities from gun-running to media statements, and the underground networks facilitating them in both Cuba and America. Llerena opposed the Communist turn, and while he touches on that he does not let it dominate his narrative.

Our History is Still Being Written and Making History: Interviews with Four Generals of Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces, edited by Mary Alice Walker, The former gives the long-obscured story of the Chinese immigrant community's involvement through accounts by 3 Chinese revolutionaries who became generals. The latter documents the experiences of four other prominent generals. The focus is on post-1959 political developments, but they still have a good deal of information on their experiences during the war.

Women in Cuba, the Making of a Revolution Within a Revolution. Also edited by Mary Alice Walker, presents interviews with three women activists, Vilma Espin, Asela de los Santos, and Yolanda Ferrer, from their activities organizing before revolution, to their days afterwards with the Cuban Federation of Women.  

 Fidel Castro & Company, Inc.: Communist Tyranny in Cuba. Urrita was selected president in between Batista's abdication and Castro's seizure of the government. Stylistically reminiscent of Batista's memoir, the author has little force of personality, and unfortunately is more occupied here with the issue of communism than his own experiences.

Moncada, Memories of the Attack that Launched the Cuban Revolution, by Haydee Santamaria. Santamaria was one of the key behind-the-scenes players from the very beginning. She unfortunately left no memoir, but in Moncada she describes her memories of the seminal event in her life (and that of the revolution).
  
 Before Night Falls by Reinaldo Arenas. Arenas joined the Revolution as a student and came close to death during the expedition against Trujilo. Although he saw little action and his story is more concerned with sexuality, his brief account conveys the tragi-comic atmosphere of those days.

Revolution in Cuba by Jose Morrell Romero. Romero fought against Machado in the 30's, and in the 50's, as a supreme court justice, he faced the wrath of Batista when he called for the latter's impeachment. Like Morin he writes with the weight of a veteran of two revolutions, and covers a good deal of general history- what went on behind closed doors- in addition to his own experiences. (He was sworn in as provisional president of Cuba by the Tampa community in 1995.) 

Flight 13: 13 Years with Castro by Mike Bove. Bove provided support to the July 26th movement via his aviation company in Florida, and gave the same service to anti-Castro rebels in later years. Bove appears to be a Marine WW2 veteran, but more than that is hard to find as the book is very rare and information on Bove even rarer.

In Spanish

Those who are literate in Spanish have a much more extensive range of material available to them.

General Rafael del Pino joined the revolution as a teenager and was a significant part of a small air force developed at the end of the conflict. He defected in the 1980's on account of corruption in the government. He authored Los Anos de la Guerra and 9050 Horas in Spanish, and Inside Castro's Bunker in English.

    Juan Almeida Bosque, a commander in the Sierra Madre, enjoyed a singular literary career in Cuba. His most prominent work is a memoir trilogy, later published in one 400+ page tome titled Atencion! Recuento! A second history Crónicas de la Revolución Cubana focuses on the revolution in general. Other writings include a man-versus-nature account of life after a hurricane in 1963 (Contra el Agua y el Viento), memories, and biographies.      

    Memorias De Un Soldado Cubano / Memories of a Cuban Soldier by Dariel Alarcon Ramirez. Ramirez joined the revolution in 1957 and fought in the Sierra Maestra under Camilo Cienfuegos. Later he was a part of the Cuban expeditions to Africa and Bolivia, before defecting to France, citing the contrast between the revolutionary ideals and the lifestyle of the government. (Dreke's autobiography, mentioned above, was written partly in response to Ramirez's).  

   Cómo llegó la noche / How the Night Came by Huber Matos. The first half of his 500+ page memoir details his experiences as a gun runner and one of Castro's supporters in the Sierra Madre: the second half, the story of his arrest and imprisonment by his former commander for almost 20 years.

   Colonel José Quevedo was a commander in the government army tasked with finishing off Castro. Instead he was himself surrounded and captured with his troops. Quevedo was impressed enough with the benevolent treatment he received that he switched sides and became a fervent "fidelista." He later wrote three books on the war: La batalla de Jigue / The Battle of Jigue, El ultimo semestre / The Final Six Months, and Vale la pena recordar / Worth Recalling.

    Mi aporte a la Revolución Cubana by Alberto Bayo. Bayo was a veteran of a variety of conflicts and like Morin a conspirator-poet. Bayo conducted a boot camp for the would-be guerrillas on a ranch in Mexico prior to their embarking for Cuba. He attempted to recreate the hardship of actual combat with endurance hikes and tests in which future leaders showed their rising star. He discusses this, as well as their hide-and-seek conflict with the Mexican government in his memoir. Paladin Press later released aptitude tests he gave trainees in book form, titled 150 questions for a Guerrilla.

     Memorias del Dueño del Yate Granma by Antonio Del Conde. Another figure in the prehistory of the revolution, De Conde bought and repaired the Granma in Mexico, at the time a wreck. The story of buying and refurbishing a scrap-worthy boat is material for Farley Mowat and while Del Conde doesn't quite reach his level of writing he still delivers a great tale here. De Conde did not take part in the actual crossing but was a significant smuggler and gun runner.

     Collado: Timonel del Granma. Collado was a war hero long before the revolution, having taken part in sinking a U-boat during World War Two. His anti-Batista sentiments landed him in jail, after which he joined Castro's circle in Mexico. As one of the few with actual maritime experience he was tasked with steering the overloaded, leaky Granma from Mexico to the far tip of Cuba. 

     Dias de Combate edited by Luis Pavon in the early 70's, presents a collection of accounts (spanning over 400 pages) by people involved in various ways in the anti-Batista movement.

     Nicolas Rodriguez Astiazarain, a member of the underground in Havana, told of the clandestine struggle in that city in Episodios de la Lucha Clandestina en la Habana 1955-1958/ Memories of the Underground Struggle in Havana.

     Yolanda Portuondo collected memoirs of many former participants into oral histories, including two reconstructing the life of Frank Pais (La clandestinidad tiene un nombre: David and Frank: Sus últimos treinta días), one on the life of his cadre Otto Parellada, and the chaplain Guilliermo Sardinas.

Others 

Several key players left no memoir, but a reading list would be incomplete without mentioning them.

Celia Sanchez was the real brains behind many of the revolution's successes. After the war she founded the Cohiba Cigar factory, which only employed women, a pioneering concept in Cuba's male-dominated factories. She chose obscurity over hero status, hence she left no autobiography, but Nancy Stout has filled the gap to some degree with her book One Day in December, a history drawn from participants that is both comprehensive and delightfully readable. There are times where she leaves interviewees' accounts at face value when it would have been nice if she pried deeper into their motives and feelings, but its a minor complaint into an otherwise excellent book.

As mentioned above, Frank Pais was the urban counterpart to Castro from the early 50's to his death in 1958. His life (and controversy surrounding his death) is covered in Frank Pais: Architect of Cuba's Betrayed Revolution.  The writing is clunky, even choppy at times, and pales in its appeal to readers compared to Stout's breezy biography of Sanchez, but it fills in a critical gap and presents Pais as an equal to Castro as a leader and organizer. Pais, who appealed to groups across the political divide, may in fact have surpassed Castro in influence had he not died in 1958- a point whose implications Alvarez explores. Alvarez was a member of the July 26th movement and drew on his experience in writing this as well as other books on Cuban-related topics.

Tad Szulc's biography of Castro, Fidel, stands head and shoulders above its counterparts for completeness, readability, and impartiality. Szulc met with Castro many times from the days of the revolution right through to the 1980's, and was a key correspondent on the Bay of Pigs. In his biography Szulc has plumbed the depths of written material, complimented by his own relationship with the subject, and the result is a biography one can enjoy and walk away from confident they've learned a true story.

The General History
   
For decades an impartial, accessible, general history for lay readers was non-existent. Tony Perrottet remedied that in 2019 with his delightfully readable and detailed book, Cuba Libre. The book jacket description in this case is spot on, and worth reposting:     

  In this wildly entertaining and meticulously researched account, historian and journalist Tony Perrottet unravels the human drama behind history’s most improbable revolution: a scruffy handful of self-taught revolutionaries—many of them kids just out of college, literature majors, and art students, and including a number of extraordinary women—who defeated 40,000 professional soldiers to overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.

Cuba Libre!’s deep dive into the revolution reveals fascinating details: How did Fidel’s highly organized lover Celia Sánchez whip the male guerrillas into shape? Who were the two dozen American volunteers who joined the Cuban rebels? How do you make land mines from condensed milk cans—or, for that matter, cook chorizo à la guerrilla (sausage guerrilla-style)?

Conclusion

     After 60 years the Cuban revolution continues to polarize both the Americas and the world. There are times when it would be nice to go back and see for ourselves what the truth is; we can't in the literal sense, but in reading the accounts of those who fought we can see for ourselves what they saw, and how they saw it, and perhaps learn something for today.

 

 

_____________________________________________________

1- Quoted in Brian Hanley and Scott Millar, The Lost Revolution.