Republican Invasion of Mallorca

August 16 - September 3, 1936

On 9th August a Republican expeditionary force of Catalan and Valencian troops, commanded by Air Force Captain Alberto Bayo and Guardia Civil Captain Manuel Uribarri, landed on Ibiza. With the help of local people the expeditionary force quickly overcame the Nationalist garrison, and the island returned to Republican control. Seven days later, at dawn on 16th August, the Catalan troops, led by Captain Bayo, landed on Majorca, and by the evening they had advanced eight miles inland from their landing place at Porto Cristo. The Nationalist garrison on Majorca was commanded by Colonel Garcia Ruiz and proved to be much stronger than that on Ibiza. With the help of Italian fighter aircraft and bombers the Nationalists were able to contain any further Republican advance, and on 3rd September they mounted a counter-attack on the Republican bridgehead. The Catalan troops rapidly withdrew to the beaches and re-embarked aboard the ships that had brought them whilst under cover of the guns of the battleship Jaime I.

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