{"id":9325,"date":"2016-07-19T11:38:08","date_gmt":"2016-07-19T10:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=9325"},"modified":"2016-07-19T11:38:08","modified_gmt":"2016-07-19T10:38:08","slug":"fighting-for-good-of-humanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=9325","title":{"rendered":"Fighting for good of humanity"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Growing up James Bentley never really heard much about his great-grandfather, Jim Bentley. Neither did anyone else in the Bentley family. That won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be the case for future generations, says James, they will learn all about the hero in their history.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jim was one of more than 2300 British volunteers<\/a> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c eight of them from Jim\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s home city of Hull \u00e2\u20ac\u201c who went to fight in the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939, after the fascist General Franco launched a coup against the elected socialist government. Tragically Jim was killed on the battlefield by a tank supplied by the Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini. Three of Jim\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Hull comrades were buried in Spain, along with 500 other Britons.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yet in Hull, as in many other places around the UK, there is no public memorial to the soldiers of the International Brigade \u00e2\u20ac\u201c many of them trade unionists \u00e2\u20ac\u201c who were the first to see the danger and fight against Europe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s far-right forces. The Bentley\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, along with the families of the other Hull volunteers and local campaign groups, are about to change all that and have been granted permission to erect a memorial in the city centre.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The sacrifices of Britain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s International Brigade volunteers were neglected for many years because their actions were technically illegal. The British government, which remained neutral during Spain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s civil war, did not erect memorials to the volunteers; even as they built cenotaphs for those who died fighting the same evil during the Second World War.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is for that reason that the volunteers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 actions are not more prominent in the public consciousness. For the Bentley\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, however, there was another reason as to why Jim\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s history remained buried for so long.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t for many years that our family found out more about him. He left a wife and a three-year-old son and the people who knew him were very bitter about the whole thing. They never shared it with anybody. We kind of knew about him, but nobody asked any questions or pushed it any further. Sensitive is exactly the right word,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 James explained.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t until 2005 that the Bentley\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s began to learn about Jim\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s past. An academic from the University of Hull, who was writing about the city\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s International Brigade volunteers, contacted the family and asked them if they had any information.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

James said: \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe said \u00e2\u20ac\u015bwe don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really have anything except a postcard Jim sent from Paris before he deployed. But we went to (the academic\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s) lecture and ended up learning a lot more.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jim Bentley was 24 when he went to fight Franco, and the combined fascist forces of Germany and Italy, in Spain. The leather worker, who was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, joined up with his friend Robert Wardle, a dock worker, in 1938.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The pair had been in Spain for six weeks when they were ambushed and killed, along with 100 others, by Italian tanks at Calaceite village, near Barcelona. Both left behind young families.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard to imagine people of his age doing that sort of thing now,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said James. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bHe fought for what he believed in and paid the ultimate price for it. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the hero of the family and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re proud to have his name.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not just the Bentley\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s who have begun to celebrate their history. In the last few weeks Hull City Council have agreed planning permission for a memorial to be built to the city\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Spanish Civil War volunteers. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about time too, says James.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bAlthough at the time what happened in Spain wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to affect Britain directly, the volunteers foresaw what was coming and were being proactive rather than reactive. They should be held in high-regard. They weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t necessarily fighting for their country at the time, but, in the end, they were really the first wave of soldiers to die in the Second World War fighting against fascism. They were fighting for the good of humanity and its right they should be recognised,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said James.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unite North East, Yorkshire and Humberside regional secretary Karen Reay welcomed Hull City Council\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision to allow the memorial to be built and pointed out that the volunteer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s proud history is also part of the history of Britain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trade union movement.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bJack Jones<\/a>, the general secretary of Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s parent union the Transport and General Workers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Union, also volunteered during the Spanish Civil War and was seriously wounded in battle. In fact many of the volunteers had strong links to trade unions,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Reay said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bUnite honours and remembers their sacrifices today by continuing to stand against the far right. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m pleased that finally, after all these years, the eight brave volunteers from Hull, four of whom never came back, are finally being given a proper memorial so that people can remember that they fought for our freedom. I hope there will be more memorials to come in other towns and cities.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The final design for the memorial will be decided later this month, with the estimated cost between \u00c2\u01418,000 and \u00c2\u014120,000.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

James and his dad, also called James, are fundraising for the memorial by undertaking a 44 mile sponsored walked.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To donate visit www.crowdfunding.justgiving.com\/8menfromhull<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Growing up James Bentley never really heard much about his great-grandfather, Jim Bentley. Neither did anyone else in the Bentley family. That won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be the case for future generations, says James, they will learn all about the hero in their history.   Jim was one of more than 2300 British volunteers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c eight of them […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9327,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[555,517],"wps_subtitle":"Memorial to be built for Hull war heroes","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9325"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9325"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9326,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9325\/revisions\/9326"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}