MERRIMAN ROBERT HALE (b.?, 1908 - m. Corbera, 1938)
son of a woodcutter, Robert Merriman had to do all sorts of jobs, from cowboy to bricklayer, to get a degree in economics from University of Nevada. In 1933 he moved to Berkeley to study a postgraduate at the University of California with his wife Marion, with whom he had married the same day of his graduation. Berkeley Merriman marriage belonged to several American leftist movements.
In 1935 he left his job as a teacher in California for travel in Europe first and eventually the Soviet Union, which wanted to study the new economic system that had emerged from the revolution. In the USSR, learned Russian while his wife worked as a journalist. In 1936, during a vacation in Vienna, had the opportunity to know the Nazis, it seems that influenced him at the time of joining the International Brigades
the outbreak of the English civil war, like many other intellectuals from around the world.
In early 1937, while his wife remained in the USSR, Merriman arrived in Spain to be an instructor at the base that were international in Albacete, because it had military experience have belonged to Training Corps Reserve Officers (
ROTC) during their studies, mostly because they paid a salary.
In February 1937 served as commander of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion
, made by Americans, the XV International Brigade in the Battle of Jarama
. The XV Brigade was formed almost entirely from international Anglo-Saxon countries. The Jarama was about to be shot by their commanders by refusing twice to try to take Pingarrón hill, later called the suicide. Finally, in two separate attacks, the Lincoln Battalion lost about 340 of its 400 men, and the same Merriman was wounded in the shoulder. Keep in mind that the Jarama was one of the bloodiest battles of the war. Nevertheless, some of Rapporteurship men after the disaster was due more to incompetence and other officers than anything else, getting the nickname "Murderman."
Knowing that her husband had been wounded, Marion Merriman also traveled to Spain where he would become a member of the XV International Brigade, where he held the most diverse roles, from nurse to Secretary of Staff, and where he to obtain after graduation.
In July 1937, after spending his convalescence doing office work for the Brigade, Merriman was again in command of Lincoln, who had to be supplemented by items from other battalions for its high casualties in the battle of Brunete
. Keep in mind that the International Brigades were shock units
Popular Army of the Republic . In Brunete only survived about 1000 men of 2500 that formed the XV Brigade at the beginning of the battle.
In August 1937 participated in the battle of Belchite
as Chief of Staff of the XV Brigade. In October, Marion traveled to the U.S., which participate in multiple events to raise funds for the Republic.
Finally, in 1938 Robert Merriman was as commander of the XV Brigade when he disappeared in the disastrous retreat of Aragon. It is believed to have died along with some of his men in an ambush somewhere near Corbera, although his death was never confirmed, and his wife spent many years pulling the strings of international diplomacy in the belief that he was still alive and a prisoner of the Franco regime. Upon the death of dictator Marion traveled to Spain last but could not find any proof of the death of her husband.
Therefore, Merriman has gone down in history as one of the intellectuals who came to our country in the name of freedom and against fascism. An example of selflessness and romanticism that few in the country compared with the very
Lord Byron, during his lifetime and that caused the admiration of other scholars as the same
Hemingway who, apparently, used the figure as a prototype for Merriman Robert Jordan, star of
"For Whom the Bell Tolls."
