A bit of a coincidence... Today I found out that the 3rd Infantry Division received 600 Flying Fleas, just in time for the Normandy landing in June 1944.
Its almost one and a half year overdue but I hope useful.
I was very lucky to find the Spanish Communist website photographs.
There are plenty more for anybody to see.
I wonder if I should add a little more info on the Spanish civil war as nowadays most people have no clue.
The bikes were used by the "Republicans" which were a mix of Communists, Socialist and supported by "International Brigades" including people from all over the world, fighting against the Nationalists under the Faschist dictator to be, General Franco, supported by Hilter and Mussolini.
How Psalty got the bikes in Spain is still not known but I assume the French borde security must have been supportive.
I still have a small flag my father bought during that time to support the International Brigades.
I did not have access to Spanish Army records but found that information in an article on a Spanish website more than a year ago.
I need to trace back where. I should have copied the URL but for some reason I did not.
Fading memory does not help and I really need to copy URL's as soon as I find something useful.
I will ask a Spanish gentlemen (now retired)I worked with years ago if he is willing to search for information.
Not knowing any spanish myself makes searching very difficult.
Think this was "fake news" Rob... I've also searched the Spanish internet for more information on the Civil War Brit Bikes, but they are all copying each other, inclusive (a lot of) obvious errors.
The original documents, if they still survive, will be hidden somewhere in the "Salamanca Papers". I have tried to have a look at these, but no luck so far...
I do not believe it is "fake" news. At least not on the Nortons.
The amount of MC's mentioned in the article was only 2 off from what I could find in the assy book pages we copied.
As we did not copy 100% of all pages it may wel be incomplete. A single entry on a page could easily have been missed.
I only found 10 entries with sidecars while the article claimed 40. The remaining 30 could have been added by Psalty before delivery.
Will see if my Spanish contact can do/find something.