Lorenzo Brieba II was a Basque awarded the Iron Cross First Class, Iron Cross Second Class, War Merit Cross with Swords in abstensia as a pilot for Francisco Franco and a soldier of the Blue Legion.
During the 1950s & 60s, he encountered other basques opponents such as Ernesto "Che" Guevara in the Congo and Salvador Allende in Chile when the United States put forward a variety of programs and strategies aimed at impeding the aspirations of leftist forces from gaining power. He joined "The Devil's Brigade" reactivated in Fort Bragg on 10 NOV 1953 as the 77th Special Forces Group.
His role in history has gone nearly unrecorded, yet, his incredible capacity to endure hardship and solitude based on the Basque system, placed him as one of the great many enterprising personalities of Basque origin sent out into the world.
His ancestors fended off the Iberian Visigoth kingdom, Muslim rule south of Jerez De La Frontera, and the Frankish push on the north.
His notoriety inspired Robert Laxalt's National Geographic magazine Issue June 1966 'Articles on Basques' describing Basques as: Descendants of an ancient race whose origins and language still remain a mystery, the Basque urged here by the same restless spirit that lured their forebears around the world as sailors with Magellan and to South America as soldiers with the conquistadors.
Another National Geographic Article by Robert Laxalt appeared in the August 1969 titled "Land of the Ancient Basques" confirmed 'Isolation-Key to Basque Identity': In the baffling search for the origins of the Basques, theories range from the fantastic - that Basque are the survivors of Atlantis; and possible-that they are the only vestige left of Cro-Magnum man; to the probable-that they are are descended from the mysterious Iberians who once peopled Spain.
Prior to the Spanish Civil War, Brieba arrived in the Canary Islands where he first met Francisco Franco and was trained by two British MI6 agents, Cecil Bebb and Hugh Pollard to become the pilot of a privately owned DH 89 De Havilland Dragon Rapide, which was chartered in England 11 July to take Franco to Africa.
Though not a member of the Falange (the Spanish Fascist party), he met members of the Condor Legion which consisted of German field marshal Hugo Sperrle, first commander of the Condor Legion, Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen chief of staff, Wilhelm Josef Ritter von Thoma, and Eoin O'Duffy of the Irish Brigade (Blueshirts).
Brieba flew planes with the Nationalist Spanish insignia painted on them consisting of the Italian SM.79, SM.81 bombers, and the biplane Fiat CR.32 fighter and the German Junkers Ju 52 cargo-bomber and the Heinkel He 51 biplane fighter.
Under the regime of Francisco Franco, the Spanish government reversed the advances of Basque nationalism, as it had fought in the opposite side of the Spanish Civil War.
Feeling pressure to join because of past ties with the Republic and to help Basques in Franco's prison, Brieba joined la División Española de Voluntarios (Blue Division) of the Spanish Army, a unit of Spanish volunteers that served in the German Army known as Infanterie-Division on the Eastern Front of World War II. .
On July 13, 1941, Brieba took the first train leaving Madrid for Grafenwöhr, Bavaria to create an assault battalion, mainly sub-machine gun armed, however, due to later casualties, this was disbanded. As an aviator he volunteered to form a Blue Squadron (Escuadrillas Azules) which used Bf 109s and FW 190s and his unit was credited with 156 Soviet aircraft kills.
It was suggested for him to kill Stalin by a lone bombing raid on the Anfa Hotel in Casablanca, Morocco during The Casablanca Conference, sometime between January 14 to 24, 1943, where Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and French representatives were to meet to plan the European strategy of the Allies, however, the mission was canceled when Soviet leader Joseph Stalin declined to attend.
Brieba had similar proposals like downing General Mark Clark's plane during a secret flight to Gibraltar pending "Operation Torch" and shooting General Eisenhower's aircraft while on his North Africa inspection tour in retaliation for the assassination mission which intercepted the aircraft carrying Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in April 1943 who had led the attack on Pearl Harbor.
It is to be noted that Clark and Eisenhower flights were flown by Paul Tibbets of the B-29 'Enola Gay' fame, which dropped the world's first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
Brieba believed that the blame to carry out such daring missions laid with Franco whom he believed held back to avoid dragging Spain into World War II's western front. Eitherway some 3,000 Spanish soldiers refused to return to Spain from Germany.
Brieba stayed behind along with other Spaniards of basque decent joining other German units instead, mainly the Waffen-SS. The new pro-German units were collectively called the Blue Legion (Legión Azul) which were absorbed into German units.
On 31 July, the 250th Division, the Blue Division, was formally incorporated into the Wehrmacht. It was initially assigned to Army Group Center, the force advancing towards Moscow.
While marching towards the Smolensk front on September 26, the Spanish volunteers were rerouted from Vitebsk and reassigned to Army Group North, the force closing on Leningrad, and became part of the German 16th Army.
In August, 1942 Brieba was transferred North to the Southeastern flank of the Leningrad siege, just South of the Neva near Pushkin, Kolpino and Krasny Bor in the Izhora River area.
The Blue Division remained on the Leningrad front where they suffered heavy casualties both due to cold and enemy action at Myasnoi Bor following an encounter with the Soviet 305th Rifle Division during early February. They were awarded both Spanish and German military awards and were the only division to be awarded a medal of their own, commissioned by Hitler.
Brieba joined the 101st company Spanische-Freiwilligen Kompanie der SS 101, made up of 140 men in four rifle platoons and one staff platoon, attached to 28th SS Volunteer Grenadier Division Wallonien and fought in Pomerania and Brandenburg province. Later, as part of 11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nordland and under command of Hauptsturmführer der SS Miguel Ezquerra, it fought the last days of the war against Soviet troops in Berlin defending the Furherbunker with Joachim Ziegler who had been awarded the Spanish Cross for participation in the Spanish Civil War, fighting in the Condor Legion.
After Hitler's death Brieba assembled most of his escort made up of French SS for the breakout to avoid capture by russian communist forces. They joined up with Ziegler and a larger group of Nordland troops. They crossed the Spree just before dawn, near the Gesundbrunnen U-Bahn station they came under heavy fire. Brigadeführer Joachim Ziegler was gravely wounded and died on 2 May. Brieba made it to Dahlem where he hid out in an apartment for a week slipping across the Spanish border near Lourdes, in occupied France thus avoiding capture by "The Devil's Brigade".
With the end of World War II, Spain suffered from the economic consequences of it's isolation from the international community. Franco used language politics in an attempt to establish national homogeneity suppressing the language of the Basque. During his rule Basque separatists, were either suppressed or tightly controlled by all means, up to and including violent police repression. The Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) would go into exile, and in 1959, the ETA armed group was created to wage a low-intensity war against Franco.
Franco who had been initially disliked by Cuban Fulgencio Batista, who, during World War II, had suggested a joint U.S.-Latin American assault on Spain in order to overthrow Franco's regime. It was here that Brieba made it to Cuba when Otto Skorzeny retreated to Madrid setting up the Paladin Group specialized in arming and training guerrillas to wage a clandestine war against Basque separatists.
The Soviet news agency TASS alleged that Paladin was involved in training US Green Berets for Vietnam missions during the 1960's which wasn't true since Skorzeny resented the USA for its role in destroying Nazi Germany.. it was Brieba after the attacks on the Basques, who had joined the previous unit nicknamed "The Devil's Brigade" which reactivated in Fort Bragg on 10 November 1953 as the 77th Special Forces Group and was reorganized and activated on 20 May 1960 as the 7th Special Forces Group conducting guerrilla operations and training friendly government armed forces in Central and South America.
Brieba met Everette Howard Hunt Jr station chief in Mexico City in 1950 who called Brieba "The Endangered Cuban Crocodile". Brieba and Hunt did not remain friends calling Hunt an amateur.
As early as 1951, Brieba supplied anti-Árbenz forces with weapons, supplies, and funding known as Operation PBFORTUNE, however to overthrow the democratically-elected President of Guatemala, Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, deemed communist in nature, the United States Central Intelligence Agency organized a covert operation known as the Guatemalan coup d'état code name Operation PBSUCCESS (1953 to 1954).
In July the CIA secured arms, transport, $225,000, and furnished a few World War II-era airplanes. Upon establishing operation headquarters in Florida in December 1953, the Agency started recruiting pilots. On 11 December 1959, following the Cuban Revolution of January 1959 CIA director Allen W. Dulles acknowledged that a "far-left dictatorship", existed in Cuba, so in the early 1960s, Operation 40, a Central Intelligence Agency-sponsored undercover operation active in the United States, Cuba, Central America, and Mexico was created by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in March 1960. Dulles established the ZR/RIFLE unit named Operation 40, from the "Group of 40" of the National Security Council group that followed Cuba. This group was presided over by Vice President Richard M. Nixon. Members took part in the April 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion directed against the government of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Over the next few years Operation 40 worked closely with several anti-Castro Cuban organizations including Alpha 66, a US-supported Cuban paramilitary group training in the Everglades whom he wasn't impressed with sensing they were a left wing terrorist organization working with Castro's government.
Brieba's operations include:
SEP 28, 1960: The CIA attempts its first drop of weapons and supplies to the Cuban resistance. The aircrew tries to drop an arms pack for a hundred men to an agent waiting on the ground. They miss the drop zone by seven miles and land the weapons on top of a dam where they are picked up by Castro's forces. The agent is caught and shot. The plane gets lost on the way to Guatemala and lands in Mexico.
SEP 29, 1960: A plane coming from the U.S. drops a heavy load of arms by parachute in Escambray.
FEB 16-17, 1961: At 12.30 a.m. planes enter Cuban airspace flying at 300-500 feet over the village of Tortuguilla. At 8.35 a.m. two planes fly east to west at 500 feet over national territory. Between 7.45 a.m. and 9.50 a.m. planes enter Cuban airspace four times and at 2.00 p.m. planes again fly over the island.
FEB 19, 1961: A plane flies over Cuban airspace and drops anti-Castro propaganda in Marianao, Regla and other districts of Havana. The pamphlets call for violence to overthrow the Cuban government.
To further focus police and intel organizations against communist apparatus Eisenhower established a public safety program whose goal was to train foreign police units in counterinsurgency. In 1962 the program becomes Office of Public Safety.
Green Berets were most common recruits for Phoenix Program. Green Beret detachment B-57 provided administration cover for other intel units.
Counter-Spy magazine described Phoenix Program as "the most indiscriminate and massive program of political murder since the nazi death camps of world war two."
By April 1965 Brieba was in Tanzania with a handful of Cuban Bay of Pigs veterans sent by the CIA to aid the western-backed Moise Tshombe who's forces consisted of Belgian foreign legionnaires, mercenaries under the famous "Mad" Mike Hoare, The Cubans were mostly pilots who provided close-in air support for "Mad" Mike. After watching them in battle Mike Hoare said of his CIA allies: "These Cuban CIA men were as tough, dedicated, and impetuous a group of soldiers as I've ever had the honor of commanding. Their leader [Rip Robertson] was the most extraordinary and dedicated soldier I've ever met."
Che Guevara Codenamed "Tatu," and his force entered the eastern Congo to help the alternately Soviet and Chinese backed "Simbas" of the Congolese red leader, Laurent Kabila. Together Mad Mike, Rip, and the Cubans made short work of Kabila's "Simbas," who were murdering, raping, and eating (cannibals) their way through many of the defenseless Europeans still left in the recently abandoned Belgian colony. Che and the Castro Cuban's Congo mission barely escaped Africa alive. Che then set his sights on Bolivia where he was captured and sent to his death by another Cuban CIA Basque named Felix Hernandez.
During the Cold War, the United States had established a diplomatic and trade alliance with Spain, due to Franco's strong anti-Communist policy. American President Richard Nixon toasted Franco, and, after Franco's death, stated: "General Franco was a loyal friend and ally of the United States."
Brieba retired from government service and was employed as an usher part-time at a spanish movie theater in Corona Queens NY called The Plaza, eventually dying from heart failure during heart surgery at St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan NY. There was no military honor guard at his funeral. St. Vincent's Hospital was closed under suspicious conditions in 2010 and demolished in 2012.
During the 1950s & 60s, he encountered other basques opponents such as Ernesto "Che" Guevara in the Congo and Salvador Allende in Chile when the United States put forward a variety of programs and strategies aimed at impeding the aspirations of leftist forces from gaining power. He joined "The Devil's Brigade" reactivated in Fort Bragg on 10 NOV 1953 as the 77th Special Forces Group.
His role in history has gone nearly unrecorded, yet, his incredible capacity to endure hardship and solitude based on the Basque system, placed him as one of the great many enterprising personalities of Basque origin sent out into the world.
His ancestors fended off the Iberian Visigoth kingdom, Muslim rule south of Jerez De La Frontera, and the Frankish push on the north.
His notoriety inspired Robert Laxalt's National Geographic magazine Issue June 1966 'Articles on Basques' describing Basques as: Descendants of an ancient race whose origins and language still remain a mystery, the Basque urged here by the same restless spirit that lured their forebears around the world as sailors with Magellan and to South America as soldiers with the conquistadors.
Another National Geographic Article by Robert Laxalt appeared in the August 1969 titled "Land of the Ancient Basques" confirmed 'Isolation-Key to Basque Identity': In the baffling search for the origins of the Basques, theories range from the fantastic - that Basque are the survivors of Atlantis; and possible-that they are the only vestige left of Cro-Magnum man; to the probable-that they are are descended from the mysterious Iberians who once peopled Spain.
Prior to the Spanish Civil War, Brieba arrived in the Canary Islands where he first met Francisco Franco and was trained by two British MI6 agents, Cecil Bebb and Hugh Pollard to become the pilot of a privately owned DH 89 De Havilland Dragon Rapide, which was chartered in England 11 July to take Franco to Africa.
Though not a member of the Falange (the Spanish Fascist party), he met members of the Condor Legion which consisted of German field marshal Hugo Sperrle, first commander of the Condor Legion, Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen chief of staff, Wilhelm Josef Ritter von Thoma, and Eoin O'Duffy of the Irish Brigade (Blueshirts).
Brieba flew planes with the Nationalist Spanish insignia painted on them consisting of the Italian SM.79, SM.81 bombers, and the biplane Fiat CR.32 fighter and the German Junkers Ju 52 cargo-bomber and the Heinkel He 51 biplane fighter.
Under the regime of Francisco Franco, the Spanish government reversed the advances of Basque nationalism, as it had fought in the opposite side of the Spanish Civil War.
Feeling pressure to join because of past ties with the Republic and to help Basques in Franco's prison, Brieba joined la División Española de Voluntarios (Blue Division) of the Spanish Army, a unit of Spanish volunteers that served in the German Army known as Infanterie-Division on the Eastern Front of World War II. .
On July 13, 1941, Brieba took the first train leaving Madrid for Grafenwöhr, Bavaria to create an assault battalion, mainly sub-machine gun armed, however, due to later casualties, this was disbanded. As an aviator he volunteered to form a Blue Squadron (Escuadrillas Azules) which used Bf 109s and FW 190s and his unit was credited with 156 Soviet aircraft kills.
It was suggested for him to kill Stalin by a lone bombing raid on the Anfa Hotel in Casablanca, Morocco during The Casablanca Conference, sometime between January 14 to 24, 1943, where Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and French representatives were to meet to plan the European strategy of the Allies, however, the mission was canceled when Soviet leader Joseph Stalin declined to attend.
Brieba had similar proposals like downing General Mark Clark's plane during a secret flight to Gibraltar pending "Operation Torch" and shooting General Eisenhower's aircraft while on his North Africa inspection tour in retaliation for the assassination mission which intercepted the aircraft carrying Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in April 1943 who had led the attack on Pearl Harbor.
It is to be noted that Clark and Eisenhower flights were flown by Paul Tibbets of the B-29 'Enola Gay' fame, which dropped the world's first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
Brieba believed that the blame to carry out such daring missions laid with Franco whom he believed held back to avoid dragging Spain into World War II's western front. Eitherway some 3,000 Spanish soldiers refused to return to Spain from Germany.
Brieba stayed behind along with other Spaniards of basque decent joining other German units instead, mainly the Waffen-SS. The new pro-German units were collectively called the Blue Legion (Legión Azul) which were absorbed into German units.
On 31 July, the 250th Division, the Blue Division, was formally incorporated into the Wehrmacht. It was initially assigned to Army Group Center, the force advancing towards Moscow.
While marching towards the Smolensk front on September 26, the Spanish volunteers were rerouted from Vitebsk and reassigned to Army Group North, the force closing on Leningrad, and became part of the German 16th Army.
In August, 1942 Brieba was transferred North to the Southeastern flank of the Leningrad siege, just South of the Neva near Pushkin, Kolpino and Krasny Bor in the Izhora River area.
The Blue Division remained on the Leningrad front where they suffered heavy casualties both due to cold and enemy action at Myasnoi Bor following an encounter with the Soviet 305th Rifle Division during early February. They were awarded both Spanish and German military awards and were the only division to be awarded a medal of their own, commissioned by Hitler.
Brieba joined the 101st company Spanische-Freiwilligen Kompanie der SS 101, made up of 140 men in four rifle platoons and one staff platoon, attached to 28th SS Volunteer Grenadier Division Wallonien and fought in Pomerania and Brandenburg province. Later, as part of 11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nordland and under command of Hauptsturmführer der SS Miguel Ezquerra, it fought the last days of the war against Soviet troops in Berlin defending the Furherbunker with Joachim Ziegler who had been awarded the Spanish Cross for participation in the Spanish Civil War, fighting in the Condor Legion.
After Hitler's death Brieba assembled most of his escort made up of French SS for the breakout to avoid capture by russian communist forces. They joined up with Ziegler and a larger group of Nordland troops. They crossed the Spree just before dawn, near the Gesundbrunnen U-Bahn station they came under heavy fire. Brigadeführer Joachim Ziegler was gravely wounded and died on 2 May. Brieba made it to Dahlem where he hid out in an apartment for a week slipping across the Spanish border near Lourdes, in occupied France thus avoiding capture by "The Devil's Brigade".
With the end of World War II, Spain suffered from the economic consequences of it's isolation from the international community. Franco used language politics in an attempt to establish national homogeneity suppressing the language of the Basque. During his rule Basque separatists, were either suppressed or tightly controlled by all means, up to and including violent police repression. The Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) would go into exile, and in 1959, the ETA armed group was created to wage a low-intensity war against Franco.
Franco who had been initially disliked by Cuban Fulgencio Batista, who, during World War II, had suggested a joint U.S.-Latin American assault on Spain in order to overthrow Franco's regime. It was here that Brieba made it to Cuba when Otto Skorzeny retreated to Madrid setting up the Paladin Group specialized in arming and training guerrillas to wage a clandestine war against Basque separatists.
The Soviet news agency TASS alleged that Paladin was involved in training US Green Berets for Vietnam missions during the 1960's which wasn't true since Skorzeny resented the USA for its role in destroying Nazi Germany.. it was Brieba after the attacks on the Basques, who had joined the previous unit nicknamed "The Devil's Brigade" which reactivated in Fort Bragg on 10 November 1953 as the 77th Special Forces Group and was reorganized and activated on 20 May 1960 as the 7th Special Forces Group conducting guerrilla operations and training friendly government armed forces in Central and South America.
Brieba met Everette Howard Hunt Jr station chief in Mexico City in 1950 who called Brieba "The Endangered Cuban Crocodile". Brieba and Hunt did not remain friends calling Hunt an amateur.
As early as 1951, Brieba supplied anti-Árbenz forces with weapons, supplies, and funding known as Operation PBFORTUNE, however to overthrow the democratically-elected President of Guatemala, Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, deemed communist in nature, the United States Central Intelligence Agency organized a covert operation known as the Guatemalan coup d'état code name Operation PBSUCCESS (1953 to 1954).
In July the CIA secured arms, transport, $225,000, and furnished a few World War II-era airplanes. Upon establishing operation headquarters in Florida in December 1953, the Agency started recruiting pilots. On 11 December 1959, following the Cuban Revolution of January 1959 CIA director Allen W. Dulles acknowledged that a "far-left dictatorship", existed in Cuba, so in the early 1960s, Operation 40, a Central Intelligence Agency-sponsored undercover operation active in the United States, Cuba, Central America, and Mexico was created by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in March 1960. Dulles established the ZR/RIFLE unit named Operation 40, from the "Group of 40" of the National Security Council group that followed Cuba. This group was presided over by Vice President Richard M. Nixon. Members took part in the April 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion directed against the government of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Over the next few years Operation 40 worked closely with several anti-Castro Cuban organizations including Alpha 66, a US-supported Cuban paramilitary group training in the Everglades whom he wasn't impressed with sensing they were a left wing terrorist organization working with Castro's government.
Brieba's operations include:
SEP 28, 1960: The CIA attempts its first drop of weapons and supplies to the Cuban resistance. The aircrew tries to drop an arms pack for a hundred men to an agent waiting on the ground. They miss the drop zone by seven miles and land the weapons on top of a dam where they are picked up by Castro's forces. The agent is caught and shot. The plane gets lost on the way to Guatemala and lands in Mexico.
SEP 29, 1960: A plane coming from the U.S. drops a heavy load of arms by parachute in Escambray.
FEB 16-17, 1961: At 12.30 a.m. planes enter Cuban airspace flying at 300-500 feet over the village of Tortuguilla. At 8.35 a.m. two planes fly east to west at 500 feet over national territory. Between 7.45 a.m. and 9.50 a.m. planes enter Cuban airspace four times and at 2.00 p.m. planes again fly over the island.
FEB 19, 1961: A plane flies over Cuban airspace and drops anti-Castro propaganda in Marianao, Regla and other districts of Havana. The pamphlets call for violence to overthrow the Cuban government.
To further focus police and intel organizations against communist apparatus Eisenhower established a public safety program whose goal was to train foreign police units in counterinsurgency. In 1962 the program becomes Office of Public Safety.
Green Berets were most common recruits for Phoenix Program. Green Beret detachment B-57 provided administration cover for other intel units.
Counter-Spy magazine described Phoenix Program as "the most indiscriminate and massive program of political murder since the nazi death camps of world war two."
By April 1965 Brieba was in Tanzania with a handful of Cuban Bay of Pigs veterans sent by the CIA to aid the western-backed Moise Tshombe who's forces consisted of Belgian foreign legionnaires, mercenaries under the famous "Mad" Mike Hoare, The Cubans were mostly pilots who provided close-in air support for "Mad" Mike. After watching them in battle Mike Hoare said of his CIA allies: "These Cuban CIA men were as tough, dedicated, and impetuous a group of soldiers as I've ever had the honor of commanding. Their leader [Rip Robertson] was the most extraordinary and dedicated soldier I've ever met."
Che Guevara Codenamed "Tatu," and his force entered the eastern Congo to help the alternately Soviet and Chinese backed "Simbas" of the Congolese red leader, Laurent Kabila. Together Mad Mike, Rip, and the Cubans made short work of Kabila's "Simbas," who were murdering, raping, and eating (cannibals) their way through many of the defenseless Europeans still left in the recently abandoned Belgian colony. Che and the Castro Cuban's Congo mission barely escaped Africa alive. Che then set his sights on Bolivia where he was captured and sent to his death by another Cuban CIA Basque named Felix Hernandez.
During the Cold War, the United States had established a diplomatic and trade alliance with Spain, due to Franco's strong anti-Communist policy. American President Richard Nixon toasted Franco, and, after Franco's death, stated: "General Franco was a loyal friend and ally of the United States."
Brieba retired from government service and was employed as an usher part-time at a spanish movie theater in Corona Queens NY called The Plaza, eventually dying from heart failure during heart surgery at St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan NY. There was no military honor guard at his funeral. St. Vincent's Hospital was closed under suspicious conditions in 2010 and demolished in 2012.
Lorenzo Brieba II was a Basque awarded the Iron Cross First Class, Iron Cross Second Class, War Merit Cross with Swords in abstensia as a pilot for Francisco Franco and a soldier of the Blue Legion.
During the 1950s & 60s, he encountered other basques opponents such as Ernesto "Che" Guevara in the Congo and Salvador Allende in Chile when the United States put forward a variety of programs and strategies aimed at impeding the aspirations of leftist forces from gaining power. He joined "The Devil's Brigade" reactivated in Fort Bragg on 10 NOV 1953 as the 77th Special Forces Group.
His role in history has gone nearly unrecorded, yet, his incredible capacity to endure hardship and solitude based on the Basque system, placed him as one of the great many enterprising personalities of Basque origin sent out into the world.
His ancestors fended off the Iberian Visigoth kingdom, Muslim rule south of Jerez De La Frontera, and the Frankish push on the north.
His notoriety inspired Robert Laxalt's National Geographic magazine Issue June 1966 'Articles on Basques' describing Basques as: Descendants of an ancient race whose origins and language still remain a mystery, the Basque urged here by the same restless spirit that lured their forebears around the world as sailors with Magellan and to South America as soldiers with the conquistadors.
Another National Geographic Article by Robert Laxalt appeared in the August 1969 titled "Land of the Ancient Basques" confirmed 'Isolation-Key to Basque Identity': In the baffling search for the origins of the Basques, theories range from the fantastic - that Basque are the survivors of Atlantis; and possible-that they are the only vestige left of Cro-Magnum man; to the probable-that they are are descended from the mysterious Iberians who once peopled Spain.
Prior to the Spanish Civil War, Brieba arrived in the Canary Islands where he first met Francisco Franco and was trained by two British MI6 agents, Cecil Bebb and Hugh Pollard to become the pilot of a privately owned DH 89 De Havilland Dragon Rapide, which was chartered in England 11 July to take Franco to Africa.
Though not a member of the Falange (the Spanish Fascist party), he met members of the Condor Legion which consisted of German field marshal Hugo Sperrle, first commander of the Condor Legion, Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen chief of staff, Wilhelm Josef Ritter von Thoma, and Eoin O'Duffy of the Irish Brigade (Blueshirts).
Brieba flew planes with the Nationalist Spanish insignia painted on them consisting of the Italian SM.79, SM.81 bombers, and the biplane Fiat CR.32 fighter and the German Junkers Ju 52 cargo-bomber and the Heinkel He 51 biplane fighter.
Under the regime of Francisco Franco, the Spanish government reversed the advances of Basque nationalism, as it had fought in the opposite side of the Spanish Civil War.
Feeling pressure to join because of past ties with the Republic and to help Basques in Franco's prison, Brieba joined la División Española de Voluntarios (Blue Division) of the Spanish Army, a unit of Spanish volunteers that served in the German Army known as Infanterie-Division on the Eastern Front of World War II. .
On July 13, 1941, Brieba took the first train leaving Madrid for Grafenwöhr, Bavaria to create an assault battalion, mainly sub-machine gun armed, however, due to later casualties, this was disbanded. As an aviator he volunteered to form a Blue Squadron (Escuadrillas Azules) which used Bf 109s and FW 190s and his unit was credited with 156 Soviet aircraft kills.
It was suggested for him to kill Stalin by a lone bombing raid on the Anfa Hotel in Casablanca, Morocco during The Casablanca Conference, sometime between January 14 to 24, 1943, where Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and French representatives were to meet to plan the European strategy of the Allies, however, the mission was canceled when Soviet leader Joseph Stalin declined to attend.
Brieba had similar proposals like downing General Mark Clark's plane during a secret flight to Gibraltar pending "Operation Torch" and shooting General Eisenhower's aircraft while on his North Africa inspection tour in retaliation for the assassination mission which intercepted the aircraft carrying Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in April 1943 who had led the attack on Pearl Harbor.
It is to be noted that Clark and Eisenhower flights were flown by Paul Tibbets of the B-29 'Enola Gay' fame, which dropped the world's first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
Brieba believed that the blame to carry out such daring missions laid with Franco whom he believed held back to avoid dragging Spain into World War II's western front. Eitherway some 3,000 Spanish soldiers refused to return to Spain from Germany.
Brieba stayed behind along with other Spaniards of basque decent joining other German units instead, mainly the Waffen-SS. The new pro-German units were collectively called the Blue Legion (Legión Azul) which were absorbed into German units.
On 31 July, the 250th Division, the Blue Division, was formally incorporated into the Wehrmacht. It was initially assigned to Army Group Center, the force advancing towards Moscow.
While marching towards the Smolensk front on September 26, the Spanish volunteers were rerouted from Vitebsk and reassigned to Army Group North, the force closing on Leningrad, and became part of the German 16th Army.
In August, 1942 Brieba was transferred North to the Southeastern flank of the Leningrad siege, just South of the Neva near Pushkin, Kolpino and Krasny Bor in the Izhora River area.
The Blue Division remained on the Leningrad front where they suffered heavy casualties both due to cold and enemy action at Myasnoi Bor following an encounter with the Soviet 305th Rifle Division during early February. They were awarded both Spanish and German military awards and were the only division to be awarded a medal of their own, commissioned by Hitler.
Brieba joined the 101st company Spanische-Freiwilligen Kompanie der SS 101, made up of 140 men in four rifle platoons and one staff platoon, attached to 28th SS Volunteer Grenadier Division Wallonien and fought in Pomerania and Brandenburg province. Later, as part of 11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nordland and under command of Hauptsturmführer der SS Miguel Ezquerra, it fought the last days of the war against Soviet troops in Berlin defending the Furherbunker with Joachim Ziegler who had been awarded the Spanish Cross for participation in the Spanish Civil War, fighting in the Condor Legion.
After Hitler's death Brieba assembled most of his escort made up of French SS for the breakout to avoid capture by russian communist forces. They joined up with Ziegler and a larger group of Nordland troops. They crossed the Spree just before dawn, near the Gesundbrunnen U-Bahn station they came under heavy fire. Brigadeführer Joachim Ziegler was gravely wounded and died on 2 May. Brieba made it to Dahlem where he hid out in an apartment for a week slipping across the Spanish border near Lourdes, in occupied France thus avoiding capture by "The Devil's Brigade".
With the end of World War II, Spain suffered from the economic consequences of it's isolation from the international community. Franco used language politics in an attempt to establish national homogeneity suppressing the language of the Basque. During his rule Basque separatists, were either suppressed or tightly controlled by all means, up to and including violent police repression. The Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) would go into exile, and in 1959, the ETA armed group was created to wage a low-intensity war against Franco.
Franco who had been initially disliked by Cuban Fulgencio Batista, who, during World War II, had suggested a joint U.S.-Latin American assault on Spain in order to overthrow Franco's regime. It was here that Brieba made it to Cuba when Otto Skorzeny retreated to Madrid setting up the Paladin Group specialized in arming and training guerrillas to wage a clandestine war against Basque separatists.
The Soviet news agency TASS alleged that Paladin was involved in training US Green Berets for Vietnam missions during the 1960's which wasn't true since Skorzeny resented the USA for its role in destroying Nazi Germany.. it was Brieba after the attacks on the Basques, who had joined the previous unit nicknamed "The Devil's Brigade" which reactivated in Fort Bragg on 10 November 1953 as the 77th Special Forces Group and was reorganized and activated on 20 May 1960 as the 7th Special Forces Group conducting guerrilla operations and training friendly government armed forces in Central and South America.
Brieba met Everette Howard Hunt Jr station chief in Mexico City in 1950 who called Brieba "The Endangered Cuban Crocodile". Brieba and Hunt did not remain friends calling Hunt an amateur.
As early as 1951, Brieba supplied anti-Árbenz forces with weapons, supplies, and funding known as Operation PBFORTUNE, however to overthrow the democratically-elected President of Guatemala, Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, deemed communist in nature, the United States Central Intelligence Agency organized a covert operation known as the Guatemalan coup d'état code name Operation PBSUCCESS (1953 to 1954).
In July the CIA secured arms, transport, $225,000, and furnished a few World War II-era airplanes. Upon establishing operation headquarters in Florida in December 1953, the Agency started recruiting pilots. On 11 December 1959, following the Cuban Revolution of January 1959 CIA director Allen W. Dulles acknowledged that a "far-left dictatorship", existed in Cuba, so in the early 1960s, Operation 40, a Central Intelligence Agency-sponsored undercover operation active in the United States, Cuba, Central America, and Mexico was created by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in March 1960. Dulles established the ZR/RIFLE unit named Operation 40, from the "Group of 40" of the National Security Council group that followed Cuba. This group was presided over by Vice President Richard M. Nixon. Members took part in the April 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion directed against the government of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Over the next few years Operation 40 worked closely with several anti-Castro Cuban organizations including Alpha 66, a US-supported Cuban paramilitary group training in the Everglades whom he wasn't impressed with sensing they were a left wing terrorist organization working with Castro's government.
Brieba's operations include:
SEP 28, 1960: The CIA attempts its first drop of weapons and supplies to the Cuban resistance. The aircrew tries to drop an arms pack for a hundred men to an agent waiting on the ground. They miss the drop zone by seven miles and land the weapons on top of a dam where they are picked up by Castro's forces. The agent is caught and shot. The plane gets lost on the way to Guatemala and lands in Mexico.
SEP 29, 1960: A plane coming from the U.S. drops a heavy load of arms by parachute in Escambray.
FEB 16-17, 1961: At 12.30 a.m. planes enter Cuban airspace flying at 300-500 feet over the village of Tortuguilla. At 8.35 a.m. two planes fly east to west at 500 feet over national territory. Between 7.45 a.m. and 9.50 a.m. planes enter Cuban airspace four times and at 2.00 p.m. planes again fly over the island.
FEB 19, 1961: A plane flies over Cuban airspace and drops anti-Castro propaganda in Marianao, Regla and other districts of Havana. The pamphlets call for violence to overthrow the Cuban government.
To further focus police and intel organizations against communist apparatus Eisenhower established a public safety program whose goal was to train foreign police units in counterinsurgency. In 1962 the program becomes Office of Public Safety.
Green Berets were most common recruits for Phoenix Program. Green Beret detachment B-57 provided administration cover for other intel units.
Counter-Spy magazine described Phoenix Program as "the most indiscriminate and massive program of political murder since the nazi death camps of world war two."
By April 1965 Brieba was in Tanzania with a handful of Cuban Bay of Pigs veterans sent by the CIA to aid the western-backed Moise Tshombe who's forces consisted of Belgian foreign legionnaires, mercenaries under the famous "Mad" Mike Hoare, The Cubans were mostly pilots who provided close-in air support for "Mad" Mike. After watching them in battle Mike Hoare said of his CIA allies: "These Cuban CIA men were as tough, dedicated, and impetuous a group of soldiers as I've ever had the honor of commanding. Their leader [Rip Robertson] was the most extraordinary and dedicated soldier I've ever met."
Che Guevara Codenamed "Tatu," and his force entered the eastern Congo to help the alternately Soviet and Chinese backed "Simbas" of the Congolese red leader, Laurent Kabila. Together Mad Mike, Rip, and the Cubans made short work of Kabila's "Simbas," who were murdering, raping, and eating (cannibals) their way through many of the defenseless Europeans still left in the recently abandoned Belgian colony. Che and the Castro Cuban's Congo mission barely escaped Africa alive. Che then set his sights on Bolivia where he was captured and sent to his death by another Cuban CIA Basque named Felix Hernandez.
During the Cold War, the United States had established a diplomatic and trade alliance with Spain, due to Franco's strong anti-Communist policy. American President Richard Nixon toasted Franco, and, after Franco's death, stated: "General Franco was a loyal friend and ally of the United States."
Brieba retired from government service and was employed as an usher part-time at a spanish movie theater in Corona Queens NY called The Plaza, eventually dying from heart failure during heart surgery at St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan NY. There was no military honor guard at his funeral. St. Vincent's Hospital was closed under suspicious conditions in 2010 and demolished in 2012.
During the 1950s & 60s, he encountered other basques opponents such as Ernesto "Che" Guevara in the Congo and Salvador Allende in Chile when the United States put forward a variety of programs and strategies aimed at impeding the aspirations of leftist forces from gaining power. He joined "The Devil's Brigade" reactivated in Fort Bragg on 10 NOV 1953 as the 77th Special Forces Group.
His role in history has gone nearly unrecorded, yet, his incredible capacity to endure hardship and solitude based on the Basque system, placed him as one of the great many enterprising personalities of Basque origin sent out into the world.
His ancestors fended off the Iberian Visigoth kingdom, Muslim rule south of Jerez De La Frontera, and the Frankish push on the north.
His notoriety inspired Robert Laxalt's National Geographic magazine Issue June 1966 'Articles on Basques' describing Basques as: Descendants of an ancient race whose origins and language still remain a mystery, the Basque urged here by the same restless spirit that lured their forebears around the world as sailors with Magellan and to South America as soldiers with the conquistadors.
Another National Geographic Article by Robert Laxalt appeared in the August 1969 titled "Land of the Ancient Basques" confirmed 'Isolation-Key to Basque Identity': In the baffling search for the origins of the Basques, theories range from the fantastic - that Basque are the survivors of Atlantis; and possible-that they are the only vestige left of Cro-Magnum man; to the probable-that they are are descended from the mysterious Iberians who once peopled Spain.
Prior to the Spanish Civil War, Brieba arrived in the Canary Islands where he first met Francisco Franco and was trained by two British MI6 agents, Cecil Bebb and Hugh Pollard to become the pilot of a privately owned DH 89 De Havilland Dragon Rapide, which was chartered in England 11 July to take Franco to Africa.
Though not a member of the Falange (the Spanish Fascist party), he met members of the Condor Legion which consisted of German field marshal Hugo Sperrle, first commander of the Condor Legion, Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen chief of staff, Wilhelm Josef Ritter von Thoma, and Eoin O'Duffy of the Irish Brigade (Blueshirts).
Brieba flew planes with the Nationalist Spanish insignia painted on them consisting of the Italian SM.79, SM.81 bombers, and the biplane Fiat CR.32 fighter and the German Junkers Ju 52 cargo-bomber and the Heinkel He 51 biplane fighter.
Under the regime of Francisco Franco, the Spanish government reversed the advances of Basque nationalism, as it had fought in the opposite side of the Spanish Civil War.
Feeling pressure to join because of past ties with the Republic and to help Basques in Franco's prison, Brieba joined la División Española de Voluntarios (Blue Division) of the Spanish Army, a unit of Spanish volunteers that served in the German Army known as Infanterie-Division on the Eastern Front of World War II. .
On July 13, 1941, Brieba took the first train leaving Madrid for Grafenwöhr, Bavaria to create an assault battalion, mainly sub-machine gun armed, however, due to later casualties, this was disbanded. As an aviator he volunteered to form a Blue Squadron (Escuadrillas Azules) which used Bf 109s and FW 190s and his unit was credited with 156 Soviet aircraft kills.
It was suggested for him to kill Stalin by a lone bombing raid on the Anfa Hotel in Casablanca, Morocco during The Casablanca Conference, sometime between January 14 to 24, 1943, where Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and French representatives were to meet to plan the European strategy of the Allies, however, the mission was canceled when Soviet leader Joseph Stalin declined to attend.
Brieba had similar proposals like downing General Mark Clark's plane during a secret flight to Gibraltar pending "Operation Torch" and shooting General Eisenhower's aircraft while on his North Africa inspection tour in retaliation for the assassination mission which intercepted the aircraft carrying Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in April 1943 who had led the attack on Pearl Harbor.
It is to be noted that Clark and Eisenhower flights were flown by Paul Tibbets of the B-29 'Enola Gay' fame, which dropped the world's first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
Brieba believed that the blame to carry out such daring missions laid with Franco whom he believed held back to avoid dragging Spain into World War II's western front. Eitherway some 3,000 Spanish soldiers refused to return to Spain from Germany.
Brieba stayed behind along with other Spaniards of basque decent joining other German units instead, mainly the Waffen-SS. The new pro-German units were collectively called the Blue Legion (Legión Azul) which were absorbed into German units.
On 31 July, the 250th Division, the Blue Division, was formally incorporated into the Wehrmacht. It was initially assigned to Army Group Center, the force advancing towards Moscow.
While marching towards the Smolensk front on September 26, the Spanish volunteers were rerouted from Vitebsk and reassigned to Army Group North, the force closing on Leningrad, and became part of the German 16th Army.
In August, 1942 Brieba was transferred North to the Southeastern flank of the Leningrad siege, just South of the Neva near Pushkin, Kolpino and Krasny Bor in the Izhora River area.
The Blue Division remained on the Leningrad front where they suffered heavy casualties both due to cold and enemy action at Myasnoi Bor following an encounter with the Soviet 305th Rifle Division during early February. They were awarded both Spanish and German military awards and were the only division to be awarded a medal of their own, commissioned by Hitler.
Brieba joined the 101st company Spanische-Freiwilligen Kompanie der SS 101, made up of 140 men in four rifle platoons and one staff platoon, attached to 28th SS Volunteer Grenadier Division Wallonien and fought in Pomerania and Brandenburg province. Later, as part of 11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nordland and under command of Hauptsturmführer der SS Miguel Ezquerra, it fought the last days of the war against Soviet troops in Berlin defending the Furherbunker with Joachim Ziegler who had been awarded the Spanish Cross for participation in the Spanish Civil War, fighting in the Condor Legion.
After Hitler's death Brieba assembled most of his escort made up of French SS for the breakout to avoid capture by russian communist forces. They joined up with Ziegler and a larger group of Nordland troops. They crossed the Spree just before dawn, near the Gesundbrunnen U-Bahn station they came under heavy fire. Brigadeführer Joachim Ziegler was gravely wounded and died on 2 May. Brieba made it to Dahlem where he hid out in an apartment for a week slipping across the Spanish border near Lourdes, in occupied France thus avoiding capture by "The Devil's Brigade".
With the end of World War II, Spain suffered from the economic consequences of it's isolation from the international community. Franco used language politics in an attempt to establish national homogeneity suppressing the language of the Basque. During his rule Basque separatists, were either suppressed or tightly controlled by all means, up to and including violent police repression. The Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) would go into exile, and in 1959, the ETA armed group was created to wage a low-intensity war against Franco.
Franco who had been initially disliked by Cuban Fulgencio Batista, who, during World War II, had suggested a joint U.S.-Latin American assault on Spain in order to overthrow Franco's regime. It was here that Brieba made it to Cuba when Otto Skorzeny retreated to Madrid setting up the Paladin Group specialized in arming and training guerrillas to wage a clandestine war against Basque separatists.
The Soviet news agency TASS alleged that Paladin was involved in training US Green Berets for Vietnam missions during the 1960's which wasn't true since Skorzeny resented the USA for its role in destroying Nazi Germany.. it was Brieba after the attacks on the Basques, who had joined the previous unit nicknamed "The Devil's Brigade" which reactivated in Fort Bragg on 10 November 1953 as the 77th Special Forces Group and was reorganized and activated on 20 May 1960 as the 7th Special Forces Group conducting guerrilla operations and training friendly government armed forces in Central and South America.
Brieba met Everette Howard Hunt Jr station chief in Mexico City in 1950 who called Brieba "The Endangered Cuban Crocodile". Brieba and Hunt did not remain friends calling Hunt an amateur.
As early as 1951, Brieba supplied anti-Árbenz forces with weapons, supplies, and funding known as Operation PBFORTUNE, however to overthrow the democratically-elected President of Guatemala, Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, deemed communist in nature, the United States Central Intelligence Agency organized a covert operation known as the Guatemalan coup d'état code name Operation PBSUCCESS (1953 to 1954).
In July the CIA secured arms, transport, $225,000, and furnished a few World War II-era airplanes. Upon establishing operation headquarters in Florida in December 1953, the Agency started recruiting pilots. On 11 December 1959, following the Cuban Revolution of January 1959 CIA director Allen W. Dulles acknowledged that a "far-left dictatorship", existed in Cuba, so in the early 1960s, Operation 40, a Central Intelligence Agency-sponsored undercover operation active in the United States, Cuba, Central America, and Mexico was created by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in March 1960. Dulles established the ZR/RIFLE unit named Operation 40, from the "Group of 40" of the National Security Council group that followed Cuba. This group was presided over by Vice President Richard M. Nixon. Members took part in the April 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion directed against the government of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Over the next few years Operation 40 worked closely with several anti-Castro Cuban organizations including Alpha 66, a US-supported Cuban paramilitary group training in the Everglades whom he wasn't impressed with sensing they were a left wing terrorist organization working with Castro's government.
Brieba's operations include:
SEP 28, 1960: The CIA attempts its first drop of weapons and supplies to the Cuban resistance. The aircrew tries to drop an arms pack for a hundred men to an agent waiting on the ground. They miss the drop zone by seven miles and land the weapons on top of a dam where they are picked up by Castro's forces. The agent is caught and shot. The plane gets lost on the way to Guatemala and lands in Mexico.
SEP 29, 1960: A plane coming from the U.S. drops a heavy load of arms by parachute in Escambray.
FEB 16-17, 1961: At 12.30 a.m. planes enter Cuban airspace flying at 300-500 feet over the village of Tortuguilla. At 8.35 a.m. two planes fly east to west at 500 feet over national territory. Between 7.45 a.m. and 9.50 a.m. planes enter Cuban airspace four times and at 2.00 p.m. planes again fly over the island.
FEB 19, 1961: A plane flies over Cuban airspace and drops anti-Castro propaganda in Marianao, Regla and other districts of Havana. The pamphlets call for violence to overthrow the Cuban government.
To further focus police and intel organizations against communist apparatus Eisenhower established a public safety program whose goal was to train foreign police units in counterinsurgency. In 1962 the program becomes Office of Public Safety.
Green Berets were most common recruits for Phoenix Program. Green Beret detachment B-57 provided administration cover for other intel units.
Counter-Spy magazine described Phoenix Program as "the most indiscriminate and massive program of political murder since the nazi death camps of world war two."
By April 1965 Brieba was in Tanzania with a handful of Cuban Bay of Pigs veterans sent by the CIA to aid the western-backed Moise Tshombe who's forces consisted of Belgian foreign legionnaires, mercenaries under the famous "Mad" Mike Hoare, The Cubans were mostly pilots who provided close-in air support for "Mad" Mike. After watching them in battle Mike Hoare said of his CIA allies: "These Cuban CIA men were as tough, dedicated, and impetuous a group of soldiers as I've ever had the honor of commanding. Their leader [Rip Robertson] was the most extraordinary and dedicated soldier I've ever met."
Che Guevara Codenamed "Tatu," and his force entered the eastern Congo to help the alternately Soviet and Chinese backed "Simbas" of the Congolese red leader, Laurent Kabila. Together Mad Mike, Rip, and the Cubans made short work of Kabila's "Simbas," who were murdering, raping, and eating (cannibals) their way through many of the defenseless Europeans still left in the recently abandoned Belgian colony. Che and the Castro Cuban's Congo mission barely escaped Africa alive. Che then set his sights on Bolivia where he was captured and sent to his death by another Cuban CIA Basque named Felix Hernandez.
During the Cold War, the United States had established a diplomatic and trade alliance with Spain, due to Franco's strong anti-Communist policy. American President Richard Nixon toasted Franco, and, after Franco's death, stated: "General Franco was a loyal friend and ally of the United States."
Brieba retired from government service and was employed as an usher part-time at a spanish movie theater in Corona Queens NY called The Plaza, eventually dying from heart failure during heart surgery at St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan NY. There was no military honor guard at his funeral. St. Vincent's Hospital was closed under suspicious conditions in 2010 and demolished in 2012.
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