At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, the city and province of Almer\u00eda were included in the so-called republican zone.<\/p>\n
On May 29, 1937, two Republican Tupolev SB bombers<\/strong>, a Soviet-made model and known in Spain as \"Katiuska\", attacked the German battleship \"Deutschland\" when it was anchored in Ibiza<\/strong>, 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<\/strong> among her crew.<\/p>\n In response to this Republican attack, German ships bombed the city of Almer\u00eda on the morning of May 31, 1937<\/strong>, 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 Sebasti\u00e1n. It was an event that could have caused the Second World War to start in Spain<\/strong> and two years before. Although the Republican coastal and anti-aircraft batteries of Almer\u00eda 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<\/strong>, equipped with large Vickers 381\/45 mm cannons with a 35 km range. In addition, anti-aircraft batteries<\/strong> were built to protect the shore batteries.<\/p>\n One of these anti-aircraft artillery batteries was built on the Barranco de Aguadulce<\/strong>, next to Roquetas de Mar, although it is often called the Ca\u00f1arete 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<\/strong>, since in its construction the Republican army used political prisoners and Italian prisoners of war. The excellent YouTube channel Aventuras Entresierras<\/a> (once again, I recommend you subscribe) last night he published a video showing this battery and taking a route through the Sierra de G\u00e1dor<\/strong> (the video is in Spanish, you can activate the automatic English subtitles in the bottom bar of the player):<\/p>\n
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