At the Stockton Arc recently I was honoured to be invited to the BBC’s recording of The Ballad of Johnny Longstaff  it was an emotional performance for many reasons, not least because, once again The Young’uns were performing it in Johnny’s and their home town.

I am impressed by the fact that there is always something new to take away from listening to the album or watching a performance, 17th March’s recording was no different.

In the track from the show Ay Carmela  Thomas Carter is referenced:

The first of us fell at Jarama
The earth was warm, our blood was warmer
Thomas Carter came a-stormin’
Ay Carmela! Ay Carmela!
Ne’er to see another morning
Ay Carmela! Ay Carmela!

This reminded me of one of my most recent finds, a letter published in the Daily Worker on 17th March 1937, I had uncovered it just two day earlier.

This short message tells us so much:  Thomas Joseph Carter, was know as Joe in Spain. he is explaining how his Company is occupying a high ridge, after fighting during the day they dig in at night, on the next day they are tricked by the Fascists, which is when Carter was wounded.The story suggests to me that Thomas Carter was a member of No.2 Company (Machine-Gun) in the British Battalion, he enlisted on 7th January 1937, number 73.

As Carter says he ‘occupied a high ridge’ we can discount the Conical Hill occupied by No.1 Company, but it is the description of the ‘trick’ which locates him in No.2 Company. According to the version that has become part of Jarama folklore, on 13th February some of the machine-gunners in Harry Fry’s No.2 Company were tricked into surrendering by fascist troops who advanced on their unprotected flank singing the Internationale and giving the anti-Fascist clenched fist salute. Some volunteers have repeated the story found in Frank Ryan’s Book of the XV Brigade, whilst many historians have subsequently dismissed it as myth, however the story was widespread at the time; it is repeated in a number of contemporary publications and is to this day recalled in most publications on the battle. This letter from Thomas Carter may be the first reference to the story, it is certainly one of the earliest contemporary descriptions.

Secondly we discover that Carter is wounded and in Hospital, I was unfamiliar with the name of the Hospital so I approached my friend and colleague Peter Verburgh, who is much more knowledgeable than I.

Trapaja is unknown to me – Castalan, however, looks as if it possibly is a garbled reference to Castellón de la Plana – it had two hospitals in 1937, one civilian, the other military, which both had International wounded/patients Peter Verburgh 21st March 2022

This is possibly the Benicàssim Hospital at Castellon de la Plana, which by coincidence is where John Unthank of Middlesbrough spent six weeks  before succumbing to the wounds he received at Jarama, he died on 2nd April 1937.

As Thomas Carter was listed on the database as killed in action on 27th February 1937 I had assumed previously that he was killed during the American assault of that day, in which Wilf Jobing was also killed, writing:

In an attempt to storm the Nationalist strongpoint at Pingarrón, the XV Brigade; which now included all 450 Americans of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion under Robert Merriman, led an attack on 27th February. Due to lack of coordination the XV Brigade advanced without artillery or air support; the predictable outcome was that the Brigade was cut to pieces. Poet Charles Donnelly, part of the Irish contingent who had joined the Lincolns was heard to remark, “even the olives are bleeding”, before losing his life. The British had been tasked with supporting the attack by the Lincolns. The result was that No.2 Company Commander Wilf Jobling, along with David Halloran, a Catholic CP member from South Bank in Middlesbrough, and Thomas Carter of West Hartlepool were killed on 27th February 1937 when the attack failed. I Sing of My Comrades (2022)

It now looks as though he was wounded on the 13th February,  he succumbs to his wounds and dies on the 27th February, which then means that the letter was published posthumously.

The date of his death is confirmed on the Jarama memorial, erected by members of the British Battalion in 1937.

The names of Carter T.J., Jobling W. and Halloran D. are all shown on photographs of the memorial, and all have the date 27-3-37 against their name. The memorial was destroyed on Franco’s orders in 1939. Carter, Halloran and Jobling are also listed on the Teesside International Brigades Memorial.

Thomas Carter and Wilf Jobling are also eulogised in Jack Lindsay’s  epic poem Requiem Mass for Englishmen Fallen in the International Brigade

This war has roots everywhere, in the soil of squalor.

He watched on the tarnished slates the glistening moon,

a milky drip of light mocking the mouth of hunger,

a promise of cleansing beauty, a pennon of freedom.

and midnight, yawning, creaked with the ghosts of old pain,

till resolution regathered like the moonlight

flowing in through the cast iron bars at the end of the bed.

Where is T. J. Carter of West Hartlepool

 

Where now is he, a voice among many voices,

who said: In poverty’s jail are bolted the guiltless,

the thieves lock up their victims.His voice protested.

Sentenced, he saw through a stone-wall the truth.

Clearer that wall of privation than any arguments.

He struck his hand on the stone and swore he would break it,

he took a rifle and broke through that wall in Spain.

Where is Wilf Jobling of Chopwell? 

Requiem Mass for Englishmen Fallen in the International Brigade  Jack Lindsay, 1938.

 

Every October we commemorate the Volunteers for Liberty who gave their lives for the Spanish Republic, the name of Thomas Joseph Carter is read out, along with the other seven Teesside men who fell (yes this year there will be seven more, not six, but that is a different and recently uncovered story). With the instillation of the new Stockton International Brigades Memorial giving us fresh impetus we will continue to commemorate the Volunteers who served in the International Brigade.