The old anti-aircraft artillery battery of Cuesta de los Presos, in Almería

@ElentirENG ES 2·07·2024 · 23:19 0

At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, the city and province of Almería were included in the so-called republican zone.

The shelter and bunkers of the Spanish Civil War in Calella de Palafrugell, Gerona
The two Munáiz-Argüelles cannons of the Battery J-3 of Monteferro, in the Vigo Estuary

On May 29, 1937, two Republican Tupolev SB bombers, a Soviet-made model and known in Spain as "Katiuska", attacked the German battleship "Deutschland" when it was anchored in Ibiza, confusing it with the cruiser "Canarias", a warship of the national side, according to the official version. As a result of the attack, the German battleship was heavily damaged, in addition to suffering 31 deaths and 74 wounded among her crew.

In response to this Republican attack, German ships bombed the city of Almería on the morning of May 31, 1937, launching a total of 275 shots, causing 31 deaths and 55 injuries and leaving a total of 35 buildings, including the Cathedral and the Church of San Sebastián. It was an event that could have caused the Second World War to start in Spain and two years before. Although the Republican coastal and anti-aircraft batteries of Almería tried to respond to the German shots, their range was insufficient. For this reason, the republican government decided to build three coastal batteries in the area, equipped with large Vickers 381/45 mm cannons with a 35 km range. In addition, anti-aircraft batteries were built to protect the shore batteries.

One of these anti-aircraft artillery batteries was built on the Barranco de Aguadulce, next to Roquetas de Mar, although it is often called the Cañarete battery, after the name of the ravine located a little further to the this. Today the most common name is the Cuesta de los Presos battery, since in its construction the Republican army used political prisoners and Italian prisoners of war. The excellent YouTube channel Aventuras Entresierras (once again, I recommend you subscribe) last night he published a video showing this battery and taking a route through the Sierra de Gádor (the video is in Spanish, you can activate the automatic English subtitles in the bottom bar of the player):

You can see some screenshots of this interesting video here. At the beginning we see the old battery, which was equipped with two cannons: one 47 mm and another 76.2 mm, already removed from this battery during the Civil War. Below these lines we can see the battery life area, built by the prisoners brought here so that the artillerymen who served in this position could stay there.

We see here the 47 mm Vickers cannon shell, probably a Vickers QF. In the video you can see it inside.

These are the ruins of the second fort, in which the 76.2 mm gun was located.

The video continues along a spectacular route through the Sierra de Gádor, with a bivouac in the mountain refuge of Sabinar.