The Indianapolis News/1937/4 American Pilots Quit Spanish War as Loyalists Fail to Pay

4 American Pilots Quit Spanish War as Loyalists Fail to Pay. Paris; January 6, 1937 (Associated Press) Four disillusioned American aviators announced today they were through with Spain and, furthermore, they were through with civil wars. The quadrumvirate - Bert Acosta, Frederick Lord, Gordon Berry and Eddie Schneider — had led the Spanish Socialist government's "Yankee Squadron" on the Basque front in the far North. But, they said, they were not paid, and money was their only reason for joining up. The venture, said Schneider, "was purely business." They quit Spain after six weeks in the mountainous War zone of the age of the Basque Pyrenees and returned here proclaiming and intention to hurry back to America as fast as possible. Schneider told the European edition of the New York Herald Tribune "we quit because the Spanish government owes us $1,100." The flyers also protested they were given nothing except unarmed sports planes with which to fight, while Russian pilots were assigned "regular American army planes." The American war planes were said to be machines built in Russia through contracts giving the Soviet government permission to copy American models. The flyers said both the Socialists and Fascists air forces in Spain were staffed almost entirely by foreigners. The government, they added, seemed to be outnumbered in men and equipment everywhere, particularly in their sector. Acosta and Berry were to sail for New York where they left for the war November 11. Their companions made arrangements to follow shortly.