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Description area
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History
John Charles Firmin was working on a farm north of Lethbridge, Alberta when he heard about the Spanish Civil War. With sympathy for the Republic and indignation over fascism and Nazism, he left Lethbridge for Toronto, from where he was sent to New York and then to Manhattan, heading across the ocean for France. He went from Le Havre to Carcassonne and after a long trip climbing over the Pyrenees, he finally reached Figueras in March 1938.
Joining the Mackenzie Papineau Battalion on March 28, 1938, he billeted in a camp in Figueras for about two weeks for training before going to Gandesa, where he was involved in a battle and badly wounded. He was carried to a field medical ambulance for treatment and then transferred to a prison hospital in Saragossa for operation. Following that he was sent to another hospital in Bilbao along with some of his Spanish comrades and received another operation on his arm. He spent the Christmas of 1938 in the hospital and stayed until his arm had healed up. Following his stay in Bilbao, he was kept in prisons in Burgos and Valdemoceda until May 1939, when he was released from Spain and returned to Canada. He later joined the Mackenzie Papineau Veterans Association in Toronto. He died in 1982 in Semans, Saskatchewan.