Ramón Franco
Ramón Franco y Bahamonde (born February 2, 1896 in Ferrol , A Coruña province , † October 1938 in the Mediterranean) was a Spanish politician, officer and aviation pioneer. His brothers were Nicolás and the general and dictator Francisco Franco .
Life
Franco was born the son of the naval officer Nicolás Franco Salgado-Araujo and his wife María del Pilar Bahamonde y Pardo de Andrade. In 1914, Ramón Franco was employed as an officer in the Spanish Army ( Ejército de Tierra ) in the Protectorate of Spanish Morocco . In 1920 he switched to military aviation ( Ejército del Aire ) as a pilot's student at the Base de Hidroaviones del Atalayón on the Mar Chica and received the title of airplane pilot. In this role he soon made a name for himself and was awarded the military medal in 1924 for his work in the war against the Rifkabylenes .
On January 22, 1926, he took part in the flight from Palos de la Frontera in Spain to Buenos Aires as commander on board the Plus Ultra amphibious aircraft . This flight is considered the most important pioneering achievement in Spanish aviation. It took place a year before the American Charles Lindbergh carried out his transatlantic single flight in the opposite direction, but four years after the first flight across the South Atlantic from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro , which was carried out in 1922 by the Portuguese Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral . In 1929 he crashed into the sea on another transatlantic flight and was rescued days after the crash together with the rest of the crew by a British aircraft carrier.
In 1930 he rebelled against the Spanish Bourbon monarchy at the Madrid-Cuatro Vientos military airfield . He took off in a plane loaded with bombs to drop them over the Palacio Real in Madrid , but returned unsuccessful because he feared civilian casualties would be met. He then went into exile in Lisbon by plane .
After the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic , he was not only rehabilitated and reinstated in his position, but from then on held a high post in the management of Spanish military aviation. However, he was later deposed for his involvement in an anarchist revolt in Andalusia , and after applying for his retirement from military service, he switched to politics and was elected to the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya by 91,731 votes in the June 28, 1931 elections ( "Left Catalan Republican Party") elected to the Cortes Generales , the Spanish parliament.
When the military coup took place on July 17 and 18, 1936, in which his brother Francisco Franco played an essential role, he was an attaché at the Spanish Embassy in Washington, DC. After some hesitation, he joined the one occupied by the insurgent military Zone and put his family loyalty above his political ideas. According to another theory, he joined the insurgents after the violent death of his friend Julio Ruiz de Alda in the model prison in Madrid.
Ramón Franco was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel (Teniente Coronel) and appointed Chief of the Barcelona Air Force Base . After his transfer to the Balearic Islands , he was appointed Chief of Military Aviation there, which sparked a protest from the Supreme Chief of the Spanish National Military Aviation, Alfredo Kindelán , who disapproved of the appointment.
In 1938 he was killed with his three-engine Italian float machine of the type CRDA Cant Z.506 over the Mediterranean with the entire crew. Ramón flew at the 73rd Grupo, Agrupation Espanola. He had started a mission from Mallorca from the Port de Pollença air base , which was also the base of the German Condor Legion , presumably to bomb Barcelona .
His death gave rise to rumors that he was the victim of an act of sabotage carried out by both apostate supporters of the republic and circles close to the insurgents. The latter would have seen in him because of his eventful biography, because of his prestige as an aviation pioneer and because of his relationship to the leader of the rebels.
Web links
- Newspaper article about Ramón Franco in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Franco, Ramón |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Franco Bahamonde, Ramón |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Spanish politician, officer and aviation pioneer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 2, 1896 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Ferrol |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 1938 |