Scots in Rome in June 1944.

Did they actually wear kilts in combat?

Scotsmen in Rome

Croatia army

Major Frank Ryan (left) with Captain John Robinson, 15th International Brigade.  Robinson was an English Communist, and Adjutant Commissar in the Brigade.  He wears a rank tab of Captain in the Republican forces.  Ryan was the leader of the Irish "Connolly Column", whose members were divided between the British and American battalions of the Brigade.

Frank Ryan's life, in many respects, was enigmatic, and no less in regard to his service as an Internationalist as in any other aspect.  He was never appointed to an official command position in the Brigade - but proved a very effective field commander when required - as at Jarama, when he took field command of the British battalion, inflated by a scratch force of French, Irish and other Internationalists, and led a blocking action that secured the Republicans' victory (temporary though that may have been).  He mainly served as a staff officer with responsibility for publicity, propaganda and political and military liaison between the British and American battalions.  This was odd in itself.  While he was a member of the Irish Republican Army, unlike many of his compatriots in the Brigade he was not a card-carrying Communist.  Indeed, he does not seem to have been particularly keen on Communism, and does not seem to have favoured the ever-stronger Communist influence in the 15th.  This made him a slightly strange choice for what was essentially a political staff post.  On the other hand, his lack of a Party card may have blocked any possible appointment to an official field command.  One factor that did recommend him for this assignment was the respect he enjoyed among Irish volunteers of all stripe in both British and American battalions (he belonged, formally, to the latter).  This must have assisted him in his work, which spanned the two battalions.

Ryan was wounded on more than one occasion.  Eventually, he was seriously wounded, captured while (unlike in this photo) he was wearing official Republican uniform, and sentenced to death by a drumhead court martial as a Republican officer.  He survived this, however.  Witness accounts suggest that many Nationalist commanders, who often shot fellow-Spanish prisoners out of hand, were somewhat less hasty to shoot foreigners.  In the course of the delay, the Irish Free State's Prime Minister, Éamonn de Valera (remember, an old comrade from the "diehard" faction in the Irish Civil War) appealed for clemency, and Ryan's death sentence was commuted to a term of 20 years imprisonment.  Not that he served it.  He was eventually translated to Nazi Germany, a process that is as enigmatic as usual, and was peripherally engaged in various half-hearted German efforts to subvert Britain through Ireland.  He died of natural causes in Germany in 1944.

Perhaps the move to Germany is not really so inexplicable.  Perhaps Ryan's basic motive for his often apparently inexplicable actions was his innate Irish republicanism and  separatism - along the old lines, "not for King nor for Kaiser, but for Ireland".  He was no Communist, but he went to Spain to oppose what he perceived to be the injustice of Franco's insurrection against a democratically-elected (if chaotic) republican government.  His subsequent move to Germany may seem bizarre in that context; but not when one considers another old Irish Republican maxim - "England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity".  He would co-operate even with the Nazis if this could help secure the all-Ireland Republic which had always been his aim.  Well, we know that his hopes in this regard were not realized.

Viva la Quince Brigada, JR.