Irujo Ametzaga - Gernika, 1937: the market day massacre

With respect to the German bombers involved in the attack on Gernika, twenty-six Junker Ju52s were stationed at the air base in Burgos, divided into three squadrons, led respectively by Lieutenant Colonel Karl von Knauer (who flew with Major Robert Fuchs), Colonel Hans Henning von Beust, and Captain von Krafft Ehrhart Dellmensingen. The three Ju52 squadrons attacked in numerical order, based on their official numbers. Colonel Beust said in 1955 that they flew in four squads of attack of six aircraft each, making a total of twenty-four Junker Ju52s.

There are some German documents that provide information or figures but lack credibility. For example, the Scientific Section of the German Air War Weapon stated that the raid ordered over the bridge and road junction east of Gernika on April 26 was carried out by nine aircraft from 7,545 feet in a single pass over the town. The report states that only 9 551-pound bombs and 114 110-pound bombs were dropped (the report does not mention the incendiaries), or a total of 17,527 pounds of explosives. The document states that Gernikas situation as an open city was respected by the German airmen, who did not drop bombs on the city center, and that the destruction was due to the incendiary action of the Reds. The same Scientific Section had even denied in a previous report that Gernika had been bombed at all. The lack of credibility of these documents requires that we reject the data based on their propagandistic nature.

Karl von Knauer never mentioned how many Ju52s took part in the bombing, but he specified that the K/88 bomber unit bombed Gernika, as a group, and never mentioned that only some of the bomber planes participated in the attack. From Knauers testimony, we follow that the Junker Ju52s bombed Gernika in close formation, clustered in groups of three aircraft each, so it is logical to assume that the total number of Ju52 bombers was a multiple of three. Since General Pinna mentions in his report that there were twenty-three Junker Ju52s at the air base in Burgos, and Maier mentions twenty-six Junker Ju52s in Burgos after April 17, we conclude that between April 17 and 21, three Ju52s were sent to Burgos to participate in the attack. Like Knauer, Richthofen also mentions that he sent the K/88 bomber unit in Burgos to Gernika and never indicates that only some of the Ju52s took part in the attack. We do not have any information available showing that the K/88 bomber squads did not participate in the attack with all their units available, so there is no reason to suppose that the twenty-six Junker Ju52s in the K/88 unit were not sent to bomb the target. Moreover, we know that between April 17 and 25, at least two Heinkel He111 bombers and a Dornier Do17 were sent to Burgos from Seville, thereby increasing the number of bombers that would take part in the attack on Gernika. It would not make any sense to send extra bombers from Seville to Burgos to bomb Gernika and then leave at the air base some of the bombers that were already there.

Finally, Jess Salas stated that, between March 31 and June 14, 1937, Richthofen sent between nineteen and twenty-one Junker Ju52s to bomb Basque positions at least thirteen times, and on eight occasions he sent twenty-one Ju52s (61.5 percent), on three occasions twenty Ju52s (23 percent), and twice nineteen Ju52s (15.3 percent).

With the information that we have, and lacking the flight diaries of the K/88 bomber squads, I conclude that one Dornier Do17, two Heinkel He111s, and at least twenty-one (and a maximum of twenty-four) Junker Ju52s participated in the bombing of Gernika, grouped into three squads and distributed into seven waves of three aircraft each, flying in close formation. All this gives us a minimum number of twenty-four German bombers overGernika on April 26: twenty-one Junker Ju52s, two He111s, and one Dornier Do17.

With respect to the German pursuit planes, there were three J/88 squadrons at the airfield of Gasteiz: the first squad of twelve Heinkel He51s led by Harro Harder, the second squad of seven Messerschmitt Bf.109s led by Gnther Ltzow, and the third squad of twelve Heinkel He51s led by Douglas Pitcairn. We know the number of planes in Gasteiz from General Pinnas report of April 17, 1937, and the rest of the reports mentioned elsewhere in this book. These data match the eyewitnesses reports that we have. According to information provided by George Steer in an article reprinted by the New York Times on May 22, Captain Walter Kinzle said that when he reached the airfield in Gasteiz on the last day of March, he was appointed leader of one of the Heinkel He51 squads composed of nine planes. Why would Richthofen employ Italian fighters and leave his own units on the ground?

It is likely that the third Heinkel He51 squadron led by Pitcairn and stationed in Gasteiz also participated in the bombing of Gernika. This unit, composed on April 26 of twelve planes, according to Wandels testimony, participated at noon on April 26 in the machine-gun attacks that took place in the area. Reporters Steer, Corman, and Monks were eyewitnesses and victims of these attacks.

With respect to the Heinkel He51 fighter squad stationed at the airfield in Burgos, if we conclude that they did not participate in the attack, it is extremely difficult to explain why Italian fighters from Gasteiz should escort the German Junker Ju52 bombers departing from Burgos, instead of the Heinkels, because this kind of action was precisely their mission. On the other hand, if we conclude that one of the two squadrons of Heinkel He51s in Gasteiz was not involved in the attack, it would also be difficult to explain why a Heinkel He51 fighter squad stationed in Burgos would take part in the bombing while the Heinkel He51 fighter squad remained motionless at the air base in Gasteiz, which is only fifteen to twenty minutes from Gernika, much closer than Burgos.