Yankee Squadron

Yankee Squadron
The No. 56 Chato flown by F.G. Tinker
Active	1936–1937
Country	United States
Allegiance	Spain
Branch	Spanish Republican Air Force
Type	Air Force Squadron
Size	6

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

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. Another American flyer, Hilaire du Berrier, was already in Spain by time they arrived. Frederic Ives Lord became their squadron commander, and he tried to convince the Loyalist authorities that the planes they were given were too dilapidated to fly. When the commandant insisted that the planes were safe, Lord took him up for a test flight, and at two thousand feet up one of the four wings broke off. The commandant motioned Lord to climb higher so they could escape by using their parachutes. Lord wanted to try to land with the remaining lower wings intact. He landed the plane safely but was arrested at the airfield. An airplane mechanic intervened and explained that his loss of the wing was accidental, and was not intentional. The pilots went to Valencia, Spain to complain to the Second Spanish Republic air ministry, but nothing changed. Acosta, Schneider and Lord planned to escape from Bilbao to Biarritz, France by motorboat after they had been refused a promised Christmas leave. Their plan was discovered and the pilot of their boat was arrested and executed. The pilots were then jailed for 18 hours. They then returned to the United States.