Andrés García La Calle
Spanish squadron leader (1909–1975)
Andrés García La Calle (February 4, 1909 – April 8, 1975) (sometimes Lacalle, but his real name was Andrés García Calle) was the squadron leader of the 1st Fighter Squadron of the Spanish Republic and later commander of all the fighter units of the Spanish Republican Air Force during the Spanish Civil War.
Biography
Born in Sestao (Biscay), in Spain, he started his career in 1929 as a non-commissioned officer after having got his license in a private aero club. He saw action immediately on the outbreak of the civil war, flying with only obsolete planes like the Nieuport Ni-52 Delage, the Hawker Fury, the Loire 46 and the Dewoitine 371 where, nevertheless, he scored his first three victories. He was soon promoted to lieutenant.
Near September 1936, upon the arrival of the more modern Soviet fighters Polikarpov I-15 (Chato) and Polikarpov I-16 (Mosca), he participated in the first squadrons organized by the Soviets, defending Madrid and contributing to the defence of the city despite the aerial bombing attacks against civilians by German and Italian units. In November, he took command as captain of the 1st Fighter Squadron, organized now under Spanish control. It became known as the 'Lacalle Squadron', composed of 25 planes, one for the leader and another six groups of four. One of these groups included only American pilots and was named the 'American Patrol'. The most prominent of these, Frank Glasgow Tinker, has left a detailed description on the character of Lacalle in his book Some Still Live. The other three were Albert Baumler, Harold Evans Dahl and Benjamin Leider, who was killed early in the squadron's career.
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This entry incorporates text from “Andrés García La Calle” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.