José María Bravo
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José María Bravo
José María Bravo Fernández-Hermosa (8 April 1917 – 26 December 2009) was a Spanish Republican fighter pilot and flying ace. During the Spanish Civil War, he fought for the Second Spanish Republic, Second Republic and later for the Soviet Union in the World War II, Second World War. Until his death in 2009, he was the highest-scoring Spanish fighter pilot still alive. Early life José María Bravo was born Madrid in 1917 and studied at the Institución Libre de Enseñanza, where he was considered a good student. His good grades won him a place at a study-abroad program in Germany. Spanish Civil War Upon the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936, Bravo volunteered to serve in the Spanish Republican Air Force. He had already flown gliders. Bravo was accepted and traveled to the Soviet Union as part of the first course of pilots. After six months of training in Ganja, Azerbaijan, Kirovabad, he returned to Spain in June 1937 as a non-commissioned fighter pilot and an ...
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Madrid
Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It is the Largest cities of the European Union by population within city limits, second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and its wikt:monocentric, monocentric Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area is the List of metropolitan areas in Europe by population, second-largest in the EU.United Nations Department of Economic and Social AffairWorld Urbanization Prospects (2007 revision), (United Nations, 2008), Table A.12. Data for 2007. The municipality covers geographical area. Madrid lies on the Manzanares (river), River Manzanares in the central part of the Iberian Peninsula at about above mean sea level. The capital city of both Spain and the surrounding Community of Madrid, autonomous community of Madrid (since 1983), it is also th ...
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Catalonia Offensive
The Catalonia Offensive (, ) was part of the Spanish Civil War. The Nationalist Army started the offensive on 23 December 1938 and rapidly conquered Republican-held Catalonia with Barcelona (the Republic's capital city from October 1937). Barcelona was captured on 26 January 1939. The Republican government headed for the French border. Thousands of people fleeing the Nationalists also crossed the frontier in the following month, to be placed in internment camps. Franco closed the border with France by 10 February 1939. Background After its defeat at the Battle of the Ebro the Republican Army was broken and would never recover. The Republicans had lost most of their armament and experienced units. Furthermore, in October 1938 the Republican government agreed to withdraw the volunteers of the International Brigades. On the other hand, the Nationalists received new supplies of ammunition, weapons and aircraft from Germany. Furthermore, after the Munich Agreement, the hope of a ...
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Kharkiv
Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city in Ukraine.Kharkiv "never had eastern-western conflicts"
, ''Euronews'' (23 October 2014)
Located in the northeast of the country, it is the largest city of the historic region of Sloboda Ukraine. Kharkiv is the administrative centre of Kharkiv Oblast and Kharkiv Raion. Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, it had an estimated population of 1,421,125. Founded in 1654 as a Cossacks, Cossack fortress, by late 19th century Kharkiv had developed within the Russian Empire as a major commercial and industrial centre. From December 1919 to January 1934, Kharkiv was the capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Rep ...
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Camp De Concentration D'Argelès-sur-Mer
The Argelers concentration camp was an internment camp established in early February 1939 on the territory of the French commune of Argelès-sur-Mer for Spanish Republican refugees. Called La Retirada (the withdrawal) many of the refugees were members of the Spanish Republican Army ''(Ejército Popular Republicano)'' in the Northeast of Spain in the last months of the Spanish Civil War. Description The camp was located near the Mediterranean coast at the foot of the northern side of the Albera Massif in Roussillon, 8 km north of the French-Spanish border. The camp at Argelers received more than 100,000 Spanish men and women, of both civilian and military backgrounds. The latter were the remainder of the Eastern Region Army Group ''(GERO)'' that crossed the border following the Fall of Barcelona and the ''Retirada'' – the desperate withdrawal of long civilian and military columns towards the French border at the end of the Francoist Catalonia Offensive. All refugee ...
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Gurs Internment Camp
Gurs internment camp (, ) was an internment camp and prisoner of war camp constructed in 1939 in Gurs, a site in southwestern France, not far from Pau. The camp was originally set up by the French government after the fall of Catalonia at the end of the Spanish Civil War to control those who fled Spain out of fear of retaliation from Francisco Franco's regime. At the start of World War II, the French government interned 4,000 German Jews as "enemy aliens", along with French socialist political leaders and those who opposed the war with Germany. After the Vichy government signed an armistice with the Nazis in 1940, it became an internment camp for mainly German Jews, as well as people considered dangerous by the government. After France's liberation, Gurs housed German prisoners of war and French collaborators. Before its final closure in 1946, the camp held former Spanish Republican fighters who participated in the Resistance against the German occupation, because thei ...
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Captain (armed Forces)
The army rank of captain (from the French ) is a commissioned officer rank historically corresponding to the command of a company of soldiers. The rank is also used by some air forces and marine forces, but usually refers to a more senior officer. History The term ultimately goes back to Late Latin meaning "head of omething; in Middle English adopted as in the 14th century, from Old French . The military rank of captain was in use from the 1560s, referring to an officer who commands a company. The naval sense, an officer who commands a man-of-war, is somewhat earlier, from the 1550s, later extended in meaning to "master or commander of any kind of vessel". A captain in the period prior to the professionalization of the armed services of European nations subsequent to the French Revolution, during the early modern period, was a nobleman who purchased the right to head a company from the previous holder of that right. He would in turn receive money from another nobleman t ...
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Lieutenant
A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a Junior officer, junior commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations, as well as fire services, emergency medical services, Security agency, security services and police forces. The rank in armies and air forces is often subdivided into subcategories of seniority. In Comparative navy officer ranks of Anglophone countries, English-speaking navies, lieutenants are often equivalent to the army rank of Captain (armed forces), captain; in other navies, the lieutenants are usually equal to their army counterparts. ''Lieutenant'' may also appear as part of a title used in various other organisations with a codified command structure. It often designates someone who is "second-in-command", and as such, may precede the name of the rank directly above it. For example, a "lieutenant master" is likely to be second-in-command to the "master" in an organisation using both ranks. Political uses include lieu ...
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Polikarpov I-16
The Polikarpov I-16 () is a Soviet single-engine single-seat fighter aircraft of revolutionary design; it is a low-wing cantilever monoplane fighter with retractable landing gear, and the first such aircraft to attain operational status. It "introduced a new vogue in fighter design".Green, William. "Polikarpov's Little Hawk". ''Flying Review'', November 1969. The I-16 was introduced in the mid-1930s and formed the backbone of the Soviet Air Force at the beginning of World War II. The diminutive fighter, nicknamed "''Ishak''" or "''Ishachok''" ("donkey" or "burro") by Soviet pilots, figured prominently in the Second Sino-Japanese War,Liss 1966, p. 10. the Battle of Khalkhin Gol, Winter War and the Spanish Civil War – where it was called the ("rat") by the Nationalists or (" fly") by the Republicans. The Finns called the aircraft "(flying squirrel)". Design and development While working on the Polikarpov I-15 biplane, Nikolai Nikolaevich Polikarpov began desig ...
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Ganja, Azerbaijan
Ganja (; ) is Azerbaijan's List of cities in Azerbaijan, third largest city, with a population of around 335,600.Azərbaycan Respublikası. — 2. Azərbaycan Respublikasının iqtisadi və inzibati rayonları. — 2.4. Azərbaycan Respublikasının iqtisadi və inzibati rayonlarının ərazisi, əhalisinin sayı və sıxlığı, səhifə 66. /Azərbaycanın əhalisi (statistik bülleten) Müəllifi: State Statistics Committee, Azərbaycan Respublikasının Dövlət Statistika Komitəsi. Buraxılışa məsul şəxs: Rza Allahverdiyev. Bakı — 2015, 134 səhifə. The city has been a historic and cultural center throughout most of its existence. It was the capital of the Ganja Khanate until 1804; after Qajar Iran ceded it to the Russian Empire following the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813, it became part of the administrative divisions of the Georgia Governorate, Georgia-Imeretia Governorate, Tiflis Governorate, and Elizavetpol Governorate. Following the dissolution of the Russian Emp ...
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Polikarpov I-16-Spain (clipped)
Polikarpov Design Bureau was a Soviet OKB (design bureau) for aircraft, led by Nikolai Nikolaevich Polikarpov. Dux Factory was acquired by the USSR and became part of Polikarpov. After the death of Polikarpov on 30 July 1944 at the age of 52, his OKB was absorbed into Lavochkin, but with some of its engineers going to Mikoyan-Gurevich and its production facilities going to Sukhoi. For a long time the Polikarpov OKB headquarters were located at Aircraft plant #1 (formerly Dux Factory) in Moscow, where its purpose-built building still stands. Designs Polikarpov designs: Bombers * TB-2 twin-engined biplane bomber prototype, 1930 * SPB (D) twin-engined dive bomber developed from the VIT-2, 1940 * NB (T) medium bomber prototype, 1944 Fighters * I-1 (IL-400) monoplane fighter prototype, 1923 * DI-1 (2I-N1) twin-seat biplane fighter prototype, 1926 * I-3 biplane fighter, 1928 * DI-2 two-seat biplane fighter developed from the I-3, 1929 * I-6 biplane fighter prototype, 1930 ...
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Institución Libre De Enseñanza
The Institución Libre de Enseñanza (ILE, English: ''Free Teaching Institution'') was a pedagogical experience developed in Spain for more than half a century (1876–1939). It was inspired by the Krausism, Krausist philosophy introduced at the Complutense University of Madrid, Central University of Madrid by Julián Sanz del Río, and had an important impact on Spanish intellectual life, as it carried out a fundamental work of renewal in Restoration (Spain), Restoration Spain. The Institución Libre de Enseñanza was founded in 1876 as a reaction to Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, Cánovas del Castillo's policy of restricting academic freedom. The group of professors who had been removed from the Central University (the University of Madrid) for defending academic freedom and refusing to conform their teachings to any official dogma in religious, political, or moral matters, came together to offer an educational alternative to the one imposed by the government. Among them were Augu ...
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Flying Ace
A flying ace, fighter ace or air ace is a military aviation, military aviator credited with shooting down a certain minimum number of enemy aircraft during aerial combat; the exact number of aerial victories required to officially qualify as an ace varies, but is usually considered to be five or more. The concept of the "Ace (military), ace" emerged in 1915 during World War I, at the same time as aerial dogfighting. It was a propaganda term intended to provide the home front with a cult of the hero in what was otherwise a Attrition warfare, war of attrition. The individual actions of aces were widely reported and the image was disseminated of the ace as a chivalrous knight reminiscent of a bygone era. For a brief early period when air-to-air combat was just being invented, the exceptionally skilled pilot could shape the battle in the skies. For most of the war, however, the image of the ace had little to do with the reality of air warfare, in which fighters fought in formation an ...
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