Ukes and Finns of the Mac-Paps, unattributed
Mac-Paps, August 1938
Ukes and Finns of the Mac-Paps, The Volunteer For Liberty, v. 2, No. 29, August 13, 1938.
Our battalion has them too. We mean the Ukes and the Finns. They come from Canada too, but most of them have not only experienced the class struggle in Canada but have received an even more adequate preparation for the war in Spain by being through the war in Spain by being through the Russian and Finnish Civil Wars.
Back in Tarazona we admired the Ukes for their swell songs and choruses and the pleasure it was to march with them. Once at the front the Ukes proved that they could fight even better than they could sing. They have played a great part into making our battalion the crack unit it is.
The Finns have been called the “eighth wonder of the world.” You can’t say for what exactly, they have so many remarkable things to their credit. Size for one thing, discipline for another, and above all their love of Maxims. Dearer than a wife, dearer even than an American cigarette, is the Maxim to the Finn. He oils it lovingly and then he will tote it and safeguard it for weary kilometers under the heaviest shell fire. For this, “for saving his company’s arms and keeping high the morale of the company in the last action,” our comrade Epp, Commander of the machine gun company, was complimented by Brigade. Another Finnish comrade swam the Ebro with a Tuckeroff.
These are our “National Minorities” who find themselves fighting side-by-side with other Canadians and with Spaniards. Their freedom is the forerunner of the freedom that the Catalans, the Galacians and the Basques will experience, once we all drive fascism out of Spain.
