Spanish Civil War 1936–1939
Batería de Castillitos, Cabo Tiñoso (Cartagena)
Trenches & fortifications
The story
Cartagena's coast was guarded by a ring of modern batteries. Castillitos, built between 1933 and 1936 in a mock-castle style, mounted two Vickers 381 mm guns with a range of about 35 km. It is reported to have fired only once in the war, in 1937. The batteries of Cabo Tiñoso played their decisive part at the very end. After the anti-Negrín uprising in Cartagena of 4–7 March 1939, the Republican fleet left for Bizerte. A Nationalist relief convoy then approached the port after troops loyal to the Republic had retaken the batteries. On 7 March 1939, a 152 mm shell from the neighbouring La Parajola battery hit the transport Castillo de Olite. Of 2,112 men aboard, 1,476 died, making it Spain's deadliest shipwreck.
What you can see today
Monumental gun emplacements with both 381 mm barrels still in place, tunnels, magazines and fake-castle towers on a clifftop 250 m above the sea.
Plan your visit
Drive the narrow, winding military road from Campillo de Adentro to the car park; the site is free and open (Ministry of Defence property, partly restored in 2010–11). Allow time for the walk and the views; not for anyone afraid of heights.
Sources
- mapcarta.com/32941312
- castles.nl/castillitos-battery
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Castillo_de_Olite
- es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castillo_de_Olite_(1938)
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartagena_uprising
Nearby sites
- Refugio-Museo de la Guerra Civil, Cartagena · 14 km
- Albatera concentration camp memorial, San Isidro · 74 km
- Refugio de la Plaza Séneca, Alicante · 105 km
- Port of Alicante – Stanbrook and the last refugees · 106 km
- Mercado Central, Alicante (bombing of 25 May 1938) · 106 km
- Campo de Los Almendros memorial, Alicante · 107 km
All 158 sites in Spanish Civil War 1936–1939 →
The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939
A free field guide for your phone: the route, the maps and the stories built in, even with no signal. The battlefields, trenches, ruined villages, shelters, museums and memorials of the Spanish Civil War across the whole of Spain, told fairly from both sides.
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