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"Fantastico" was the affectionate nickname the Spanish soldiers gave him. 

With his pitching arm, he hurled hand grenades with deadliness.
Baseball-trained, raring to pitch and always in the front lines, he tossed the bombs being passed to him by the Spanish troops lined up behind him. His citation for bravery was hailed by his admirers particularly the young Spanish troops as their "Americano" hero.

His name: LUCHELL McDANIELS.
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He was a New York city commercial flyer but being Black he had two strikes against him immediately. The first to be fired and the last to be hired.

He knew the odds the hard way.

To him the last of capitalist exploitation has an inscribed meaning, inscribed on his mind, remembering the lash his father and grandfather kept talking to him about in the days of slavery, long, long ago but not too long to forget.

He began to hate the system and slowly began to make the connection.

One day while on the Home Relief Bureau line, he heard of a trip to Spain to take a lick at the "enemy." It was a different name but the same enemy.

'When and how quickly can I sign up, bud?' 'Come with me, was the smiling answer.

He went. He served well, with discipline and courage. Finally, in 1938 on August 23rd, the day before the British Battalion was to take over the cursed Hill 666 on the Sierra Cabals (the hills of widows, orphans, and dreaming sweethearts).

It was on this hill that Bianca (the best soldier of the outfit) had his head severed by a shell and the Community flyer, the Black Patrick Roosevelt lost his leg.

What a sad coincidence. On the following day, the entire XV Brigade was relieved by the Spanish 53rd Division!

His name: PATRICK ROOSEVELT.
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When reading the history books of the ALB on the battles in Spain, one cannot escape his name. 

No matter what the battle, where the place, what the name, one never misses his name among the wounded, the lost, the recipient of citation and exceptional acts of courage. He is there in print.

During the Ebro offensive this third company sergeant was wounded--a bullet punctured his chest during the attack on the hills outside of Villalba de los Arcos on the Candesa-- Villalba front of the Ebro offensive.

On August 6, 1938, after thirteen days of constant fighting the ALB moved from hills overlooking Gandesa city, leaving the city of Corbera.

The first phase of the Ebro offensive was over. Among the numerous heroic fighters proposed by the commanders for recipient for citations.

His name: SGT. THOMAS PAGE.
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Served with the Brigade Commissariat as topographer. 

After returning from Spain, he and Walter Garland jointly organized and led UNAVA--United Negro Allied Veterans of America. He is shown on the picture on the extreme left standing with members of the 15th Brigade Topographers Detachment.

Already in his days during his stay in Spain, he expressed talent as an artist. Upon his return to the United States, he attended artist's schools, became a very talented Black artist, working on some of the top Black journals and finally settled in the South.

His name: BERT JACKSON.

The Negro Soldier
1947
By Bert Jackson

To write of the Negro soldier in the American army is fairly simple for one has only to look at the records of the 92nd Division, the 93rd Division, the 332nd Fighter Group or any of the myriad service units to which Negroes are assigned. But to write of the Negroes in Spain presents a real problem for in Spain, as we all know, there were no Negro units.

Much ado was made over the American experiment that brought into being "mixed" divisions. But now that it is all over and the men are home, we find out that they weren't really mixed. The Negroes were just organized into an all colored 5th platoon under white officers and noncoms. And to add a further ironical note, when the war was over they broke up the successful experiment and sent the Negroes back to Jim Crow service units.

Therefore, it was only in Spain that the American Negro received anything like a fair treatment as a member of the Armed Forces. There a soldier was judged not by the shape of his nose, the slant of his eyes or the color of his skin but rather on his abilities. And so we found men like Paul Williams and James L. Peck flying bombers, Dr. Arnold
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