100px|right|thumb|Spanish Civil War Medal awarded to the International Brigades

The Yankee Squadron was a group of mercenary American military aviators who flew for the Spanish Republican Air Force during the Spanish Civil War.

History

In November 1936, representatives of the Second Spanish Republic (Spanish Republicans, or Loyalists) began a campaign to hire American pilots to fight in the Spanish Civil War. They used a New York lawyer to find American pilots. Time magazine reported on December 21, 1936, that six U.S. fliers were on the ocean liner SS Normandie, headed for Spain, to join their leader, Bert Acosta. They were to be paid $1,500 a month, plus $1,000 for each Aviación Nacional plane destroyed.

Time reported that the six men were: "[h]ilariously celebrating in the ship's bar of the Normandie with their first advance pay checks from Spain's Radical Government ... en route last week for Madrid to join Bert Acosta, pilot of Admiral Byrd's transatlantic flight, in doing battle against Generalissimo Francisco Franco's White planes."

British and French pilots were given two weeks of training, but the Americans were expected to fly as soon as they arrived.

Return to United States

Four of them resigned and returned to the United States in January. The Associated Press reported that "the flyers protested they were given nothing but unarmed sports planes with which to fight, while Russian pilots were assigned "regular American army planes." The flyers said both the socialist and fascist air forces in Spain were staffed almost entirely by foreigners.

The flyers claimed that they were not paid what was promised them by the Spanish government. Acosta and Berry started legal proceedings against the Spanish steamship Mar Cantabrico to try to collect the back pay that was due each of them. Their lawyer, Lewis Landes, claimed Acosta and Berry were still owed $1,500 and Schneider $1,200.

  • Frederic Ives Lord (1897–1967), a.k.a. Frank I. Frederick Lord
  • Eddie August Schneider (1911–1940)
  • Eddie Semons, sometimes listed as "Edwin Semons" or "Edwin L. Semons". He may have helped recruit other pilots.