American volunteer pilot Ben Leider was a mercenary in name only during the Spanish Civil War.
Although the U.S. was nominally neutral in the Spanish Civil War—which pitted Spain’s Nationalists, aided by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, against the Republicans, whose principal ally was the Soviet Union—the struggle attracted more than 2,800 American mercenaries eager to fight fascism. The American volunteers, who served in medical, combat and transportation units, came to be known collectively as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
The first U.S. pilots to arrive in Spain, on September 24, 1936, included Eugene Finick, Joseph Rosmarin, Ed Lyons, Arthur Shapiro and Ben Leider. All five had been recruited by the Communist Party in New York City. The Spanish Republic required the volunteers to have 2,500 hours of flying experience, preferably in military aircraft. After testing, the five Americans were found unsuitable for combat and were assigned to flying transports. Had they qualified for fighter duty, they would have received $1,500 per month salary plus a $1,000 bounty on every enemy plane downed. Regardless, Leider believed so strongly in the cause that he turned down the offer of wages.
Benjamin David Leider was born on October 18, 1901, in Kishinev, Russia, where many of his relatives were killed in a 1903 massacre carried out by the tsarist regime. The Leiders immigrated to America two years later. Ben graduated from Brooklyn Commercial High School, and after two years at City College transferred to the University of Missouri’s journalism school. There he became an admirer of Socialist leader Eugene V. Debs.
Leider fell in love with flying, and borrowed money to purchase a Cessna. He earned his pilot’s license and went on to master aerial photography. In 1930 he got a job with the New York News Association. From 1932 to 1933 he worked on a Works Project Administration project. He joined the staff of the New York Evening Post in 1934, becoming a charter member of the New York Newspaper Guild, and also the first aerial picket in labor history. During the guild’s first strike he painted a “Join the Guild” sign on his airplane and flew over the publisher’s roof.
Newly arrived in Spain, Leider—who had been assigned the alias José Lando—transported officers and arms in a Lockheed Vega. He wrote his father,“I have more than enough of everything and I wouldn’t miss the show here for all the weeping of all the mothers in the world.”
His pleas for a more active role were rejected until 1937, when his commander finally relented and sent him to combat school. Leider began flying the Breguet 19 light bomber and reconnaissance plane. During his one week of training, however, his landings were often too slow, sometimes resulting in collapsed undercarriages.
Leider reported for duty at Alcala de Henares with the 1a Escuadrilla de Chatos, under the command of Captain Andrés Garcia LaCalle. The squadron was equipped with Russian-built Polikarpov I-15 biplanes, nicknamed Chatos, or “snub-nosed ones.” LaCalle objected to Leider’s flying combat, claiming he was overage and incompetent. But fellow pilots admired the American for refusing pay in order to fight the Fascists.
In February 1937, after he claimed a Heinkel He-51, Leider wrote his father: “Yesterday, the 13th was my lucky day! I had my first combat and downed my first Heinkel!…Now if anything happens to me I haven’t been a liability.” Some claimed the American never actually fired a shot—that the German took evasive action, clipped a tree and crashed.
On February 18, LaCalle’s Escadrilla, along with a Soviet I-15 and an I-16 squadron, formed a Lufbery circle above what the Republicans described as 85 He-51s (actually 25 Fiat C.R.32 fighters). When several Fiat pilots tried to lure stragglers away, Leider took the bait. Going after what looked like easy targets, he soon had three enemy fighters on his tail. According to fellow American pilot Frank Tinker, Leider’s Chato shuddered, then dived toward the ground and slammed into a hill. Three rounds had penetrated the cockpit, one passing through Leider’s leg.
LaCalle’s version of events was different. He claimed that as Leider dived away from the Lufbery circle, a“Heinkel”locked onto his tail. LaCalle came to Leider’s assistance, blasting his assailant from behind with machinegun fire. He then signaled the American to head for home. But halfway there, LaCalle realized Leider had disappeared. However it happened, Ben Leider was the first American airman killed in the Spanish Civil War.
Leider was initially buried in Spain. In July 1938, his family requested that his remains be returned home. On August 18, his casket was paraded through Times Square to a memorial service at Carnegie Hall, with an honor guard of Abraham Lincoln Brigade members. Rabbi Benjamin Plotkin commented that Leider had been “no mere adventurer, no conventional hero, but a soldier of a new time who, loving humanity and sensitive to its sufferings, was glad to sacrifice his life for a noble cause.” A children’s colony in eastern Spain, founded to house orphans from the conflict, was named in the fallen American airman’s honor: La Casa Ben Leider.
Originally published in the November 2013 issue of Aviation History. To subscribe, click here.
