Battle of Cape Spartel (1936)
The Battle of Cape Spartel was a naval battle of the Spanish Civil War that broke the Republican naval blockade of the Strait of Gibraltar, securing the maritime supply route to Spanish Morocco for the Nationalists early in the war. The action occurred on 29 September 1936 between two Nationalist cruisers and two Republican destroyers.
Background
The rebels at Ferrol, Galicia, had been able to seize the city's naval base in July 1936, but at a large cost: over 30 mutinous officers had been shot dead by hundreds of sailors loyal to the Republic.Their prize included the old battleship España, the cruiser, the unfinished and, an older cruiser undergoing repairs, one destroyer, and a number of torpedo boats and sloops. In September, a small squadron, including Almirante Cervera and Canarias, steamed from Ferrol to engage the Republican navy.
At the start of the war, the Spanish Republican Navy had the battleship, three light cruisers, 14 destroyers, plus five submarines. In addition to España, the two cruisers and one destroyer taken by the Nationalists, by the following year they had completed Baleares and Canarias. They also had purchased four destroyers and two submarines from Fascist Italy. The Nationalists established a blockade of the Republican-held coastline for the entire duration of the war, but their paucity of ships limited the blockade's effectiveness.