Jim Jump writes…

International Brigade researchers are trying to unravel the mystery surrounding a British volunteer who is buried in the municipal cemetery of El Perelló in the Baix Ebre region of Catalonia. 

A memorial in the cemetery names him as James Scott, from Swansea. His remains lie alongside those of second Briton, who is identified as John Ferguson, from Glasgow. 

According to the town hall’s register of deaths, both died from injuries sustained in the Battle of the Ebro in the summer of 1938. 

John Ferguson’s fate and final resting place are confirmed by British Battalion records. Family members travelled from Scotland to Catalonia to attend the unveiling of the memorial to him in 2018.

But who is James Scott? ‘This is a tough one,’ admits IBMT Archivist Alan Lloyd, who looks after the database of volunteers on the Trust’s website: https://international-brigades.org.uk/uncategorized/the-volunteers/. There are three volunteers called James Scott on our register, but none of them appears to be buried in El Perelló.’

Another person who is trying to establish the identity of the James Scott in El Perelló is Ivan York, an American who lives in the town. 

He found the death certificates for John Ferguson and James Scott in the municipal archives in 2012, along with confirmation of their burial. This was after his interest had been roused after seeing a map produced by the Spanish ARMH Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory, which marked the El Perelló cemetery as a site of a mass grave.

The memorial in El Perelló's cemetery, which names James Scott and John Ferguson.

The three British volunteers named James Scott in the IBMT database are:

James Scott, a steel erector and merchant seaman, who gave an address in Swansea when he enlisted in the International Brigades. He jumped ship, the Greatend, in Valencia and joined the British Battalion on 13 November 1937. He died in Caspe on 17 March 1938, probably aged 30, when the British Battalion was ambushed by Italian troops during the retreat through Aragón. His body would almost certainly have been buried in a rough grave in an unknown location nearby.

James Scott, a merchant seaman from Liverpool, who returned home with the rest of the British Battalion in December 1938 and was killed in an accident in London docks in January 1961 at the age of 56.

Cyril James Scott, a clerk from London who was wounded on 30 July at Hill 481 during the Battle of the Ebro. He died, aged 26, on 2 August in the Train Hospital Number 12 in the town of Els Guiamets, in the Priorat region of Catalonia, where he is buried.

However, these details don’t all match those compiled by the Alvah Bessie Programme (ABP) – named after a well-known American volunteer – which is run by the Catalan government’s Memòria Democràtica agency. The Britons named in the ABP’s database of International Brigaders who died in Catalonia can be viewed here

The ABP lists the following:
James Scott. Male. Last unit of assignment: XV International Brigade, 57th British Battalion. Last known circumstances: He died on July 31, 1938, at the campaign hospital of the 11th Division, in the municipality of El Perelló. He was probably wounded between the 26th and the 31st around hill 481, east of Gandesa. Historical context: Battle of the Ebro. Buried at: El Perelló.
Cyril Scott. London, England, 1912. Male. Also, James. Last unit of assignment: XV International Brigade, 57th British Battalion. Last known circumstances: He was wounded on July 30, 1938, at the Battle of the Ebro. On that date, the British Battalion was around hill 481, east of Gandesa. He died on August 2 at the hospital train number 12, in the town of Els Guiamets. Historical context: Battle of the Ebro. Buried at: Els Guiamets.

Alan Lloyd notes that the ABP’s James Scott appears to refer to the steal erector and merchant seaman from Swansea. But he can find no trace of him in any documents following 17 March 1938, or in any records of the Battle of the Ebro.

‘Realistically this only leaves us with Cyril James Scott, but that means one of the Spanish cemetery records is wrong,’ he adds.

Cyril James Scott’s burial is inscribed in the municipal register of Els Guiamets – which is more than 25 miles north of El Perelló and on the other side of the River Ebo. His name also appears on a memorial in the cemetery.

Ivan York points to Cyril James Scott’s name on the memorial at Els Guiamets to Republican soldiers buried in the town’s cemetery.

Ivan York’s original research led to the unveiling of the memorial to the two Britons in El Perelló – but also unearthed the mystery about the true identity of the James Scott buried in El Perelló.

When he made his discoveries, York talked to older residents of the town who remembered the civil war. They identified an abandoned farmhouse on the outskirts of town that had housed the Republican army’s Hospital Clinic Number 3, where Ferguson and Scott would have been treated for their injuries.

El Perelló’s 1938 deaths registry included entries for John Ferguson, dated 26 July 1938, and James Scott – spelled ‘Escot’ – dated 31 July 1938. Both had died at hospital clinic.

York tells the IBMT: ‘I’ve been mildly concerned for some time that we have the wrong Scott in the mass grave in El Perelló.’ 

His doubts were rekindled following a visit earlier this year to El Guiamets with locally-based battlefield historian Alan Warren. ‘I found Cyril James Scott’s name on the memorial. Apparently he died on the Hospital Train Number 12, which obviously stopped at Els Guiamets to bury the dead.’

Among the locals York spoke to when he began his researching 14 years ago was Rosa Safont, then aged 96. She was one of the volunteer nurses who had worked at the hospital clinic in El Perelló. 

‘She could not recall any specific individuals, but did remember soldiers coming from the 11th (Lister) Division and some from the 15th International Brigade,’ says York. ‘She also described how the dead were wrapped in sheets and transported by truck to El Perelló for burial in the cemetery’s mass grave.’

Aiden and Ritchie Lawrie (from left) and mother Sharon Fleming, great niece of John Ferguson, unveil the plaque to Ferguson and ‘James Scott’.
Photo: Jordi Marsal