Gómez-Guillamón Maraver, Félix, El Correo Aéreo en la Guerra Civil Española, Zona Nacional (1936 – 1939), Biblioteca de Historia Postal Edifil, Madrid - Barcelona, 2003.
Félix Gómez-Guillamón Maraver has specialised in the mails and philately of the Spanish civil war (1936 – 1939). His collection won him prices at local, national and international level. He has written several books and monographs, including on the airmails in Spain and its North-African possessions during the Spanish civil war.
With his present book, the author intended to correct and update his book "Air Services in Nationalist Spain during the Civil War 1936-1939" published by the Spanish Bookclub, in 1994.
The first chapter discusses the airmail carriers that operated in Spain at the start of the military uprising. It continues with three histories that explain how the insurgents got their aeroplanes and sought support from the regimes in Germany and Italy.
Due to the dissolution of the Spanish operator LAPE, airmail in parts of Spain that were held by the nationalists and the North-African possessions was carried mainly by foreign operators. The ensuing three chapters describe the airmail services to and from the North African possessions provided by the newly established operator HISMA, the airmail service to and from the Canary Islands operated by Deutsche Lufthansa, and the airmail services to and from the Balearic Islands operated by Air France and Ala Littoria, respectively. Each chapter describes how the services were established, their routes, and applicable tariffs. The author reproduces documents and newspaper articles related to the establishment and annunciation of these airmail services. The overprinted airmail issues of Tetuán and the Canary Islands are introduced in the relevant chapters.
The sixth chapter describes the airmail services in the parts of the Peninsula held by the nationalists, during 1936. These services were run by Deutsche Lufthansa and Ala Littoria. After these descriptions of the situation in the different parts of Spain held by the nationalists, the author writes about the developments in the ensuing three years until the end of the civil war. He dedicates a chapter to each of the years 1937, 1938, and 1939. In 1937, the Spanish company IBERIA was re-established and operated regular services between major cities. The author poses his theory that the company did not operate a regular airmail service until the reforms that came into effect on 5 May 1938. In 1938, IBERIA expanded its network and became the main operator of airmail services in Spain, although Deutsche Lufthansa and Ala Littoria continued to carry some of the mails. 1938, also, saw the introduction of airmail stamps and the consequent suppression of the local issues of Tetuán and the Canary Islands. In 1939, Barcelona was added to the network of airmail services. Since Madrid remained in the hands of the Republic until the end of the civil war, it remains out of scope of the book.
Flight schedules and changes to the schedules are provided in the relevant chapters.
Chapter 9 is dedicated to the implications of the postal reforms of 1938 on the airmail services in Nationalist Spain.
The final three chapters contain more in-depth information on the airmail supplements (10), stamp issues in the different parts of Nationalist Spain (chapter 11), and the airmail etiquettes and cancels in use in different parts of the territories (chapter 12). For those who collect stamps, chapter 11 is very informative. The author discusses several issues. Most of these, if not fakes, were questionable private issues. Only those of Tetuán, the Canary Islands, and Menorca can be considered genuine local airmail stamps.
The book is an interesting read as it does not limit itself to the aerophilatelic and philatelic aspects of the airmail services in Nationalist Spain during the civil war. Instead, it provides a lot of background information that is illustrated with excerpts of letters, circulars, notices and newspaper articles. It reproduces many postal markings and airmail etiquettes. The book, however, is sparse in illustrations of covers carried on the many airmail services. The few illustrations are of album pages. Consequently, the items of mail are difficult to study.
Posted 11/10/2024 12:56 pm
