Julio Ruiz de Alda
Julio Ruiz de Alda Miqueleiz (Estella, October 7, 1897-Madrid, August 23, 1936) was a Spanish Falangist soldier and aviator, considered a pioneer of aviation, who achieved great popularity —together with Commander Ramón Franco— with the Plus Ultra flight in 1926. In the years of the Second Republic he was co-founder of the Spanish Falange and was assassinated by anarchists in the massacre at the Modelo Prison in Madrid, a month after the start of the Spanish Civil War.
Biography
Son of Silvio Ruiz de Alda and Francisca Miqueleiz. He was the eldest of his siblings and was born in the Navarre town of Estella on October 7, 1897, on the street that today bears his name, Julio Ruiz de Alda, number 12, in a house that, with its monumental staircase, its carved bars and the coat of arms on its façade, it still retains the character of the eighteenth-century palace that it had originally been. At the age of fifteen, he entered the Iriarte Military Preparatory Academy. After passing the entrance exam at the Segovia Artillery Academy, he entered on September 1, 1913, with the number 1 of his promotion.
Military career
He graduated from the Segovia Artillery Academy with the job of lieutenant. Initially he was assigned to the Mountain Regiment based in Vitoria and shortly after he will be assigned to the Mixed Regiment based in Tetuán, due to the war in Africa. Destined for Ceuta, he was called to Cuatro Vientos in March 1922 to follow the aerial observer course. From that moment he would join the nascent Spanish Military Aviation.In September, promoted to captain, he moved to Morocco as a trainee observer, ending the year at the Mar Chica base. On January 27, 1923, he obtained the title of airplane observer and went to the Tetuán aerodrome, whose workshops he took charge of in June. He had an outstanding performance during the Moroccan military campaigns.
In 1925 he was the first observer to offer himself to Ramón Franco to accompany him on his flight to Argentina, after Captain Mariano Barberán was discharged from Aviation. A short time later he managed to cross the South Atlantic Ocean in the Plus Ultra seaplane, with Ramón Franco, Juan Manuel Durán González and the mechanic Pablo Rada, on a journey of more than 10,000 kilometers between Palos de la Frontera (Huelva) and Buenos Aires. For carrying out this journey, he received the Air Merit Medal and was named gentleman of the chamber with the exercise of King Alfonso XIII and member of the Higher Aviation Council. The Plus Ultra trip gave Ruiz de Alda great fame among the population.
It is believed that he obtained his pilot's degree from the Getafe Air School. It is at this moment that he creates the Spanish Company of Aerial Photogrammetric Works (CETFA), but this project is interrupted by the new conflict in the Protectorate of Morocco.
He was promoted to group leader and appointed president of the Spanish section of the International Aeronautical Federation. He attended as speaker and vice-president the international congress of transatlantic aviators, held in Rome, where he received from Benito Mussolini the commendation of Saint Gregory the Great. He tried a new feat, when he began to prepare to go around the world, again with Ramón Franco, aboard a Dornier 16, but failed in June 1928.
Political activity
After the proclamation of the Second Republic, he found himself increasingly drawn to far-right movements and fascist ideology. Along with José Antonio Primo de Rivera and Rafael Sánchez Mazas, he founded the small Spanish Trade Union Movement (MES), of little entity. Later, in 1933, Ruiz de Alda was one of the founders of the Falange Española (FE) together with Primo de Rivera, Sánchez Mazas and Alfonso García Valdecasas. In fact, he was one of the three speakers —together with Primo de Rivera and Valdecasas— at the founding meeting of the Falange on October 29, 1933 at the Teatro de la Comedia in Madrid.
He maintained a firm friendship with Dr. Juan Negrín through his wife Amelia, a disciple and admirer of the scientist and then Canarian socialist deputy. José Antonio Primo de Rivera tried to attract Negrín politically through Ruiz de Alda, but his requests were always rejected.
He was also closely related to the fascist theorist Ramiro Ledesma, which would lead to the union between the Falange and the Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (JONS). After this union, Ruiz de Alda formed part of the triumvirate that initially led the party.In the 1936 elections, he was a candidate for the Republican Cortes for the Santander constituency, although he did not obtain a deputy certificate. In fact, Ruiz de Alda obtained purely symbolic electoral results in the Santander province that did not reach 4,000 votes.
Ruiz de Alda was arrested in his office on March 14, 1936 —as part of the police operation that dismantled the leadership of the Falange— and was subsequently held in the Modelo Prison in Madrid.
Murder
On August 22, 1936, the prison was invaded by anarchist militiamen, who took control of it and decided to execute several important prisoners. Ruiz de Alda was part of the group of 28-30 people who were selected by the militiamen and shot in the prison courtyards, during what is known as the Modelo Prison massacre. Days before being assassinated, Ruiz de Alda had rejected an offer to work for the Republic that his wife, Amelia Azarola, niece of Admiral Antonio Azarola, who a few days before had been shot by the rebels in Ferrol, had sent him..
Honors
During the Franco regime, the Escuela Superior de Educación Física Femenina, which operated between 1956 and 1977, received her honorary name. Likewise, during the Franco period, numerous streets and squares in various Spanish cities were renamed in her honor.
In San Javier (Murcia) there is a secondary education institute called IES Ruiz de Alda in honor of this aviation pilot. In addition, in the same area, there is an old military colony belonging to Santiago de la Ribera called Colonia Julio Ruiz de Alda, better known as Ciudad del Aire.
In Santander there is a street with his name in the Castilla-Hermida neighborhood, where the Central Library of Cantabria is located (Calle Ruiz de Alda, 19).
In Valdemoro (Madrid), a town in the south of Madrid, there is a street with his name in front of the Health Center.
In Seville there is a square located behind the Plaza de España that bears the name of «Aviador Ruiz de Alda».
In Granada, in Andalusia (Spain), there was a hospital with his name, Hospital Ruiz de Alda, built in 1953. By Agreement of the Andalusian Government dated October 3, 1995, publicized on May 25, 1999, he passed renamed Virgen de las Nieves University Hospital.
Works
- FrancoRamon; Ruiz de AldaJuly (1926). From Palos al Plata. Spass-Calpe.
Contenido relacionado
118
85
58