he tried to fly back to Spain. He chose to fly in a small biplane aircraft piloted by Juan Antonio Ansaldo. One of the main reasons for the crash was the heavy luggage that Sanjurjo insisted on bringing. Ansaldo had warned him that the load was too heavy, but Sanjurjo answered back: "I need to wear proper clothes as the new caudillo of Spain." Unaccountably, Sanjurjo chose to fly in Ansaldo's plane rather than a much larger and more suitable airplane that was available. The larger plane was an 8-passenger de Havilland Dragon Rapide, the same one which had transported Franco from the Canary Islands to Morocco. Sanjurjo, however, apparently preferred the drama of flying with a "daring aviator" such as Ansaldo (who himself survived the crash). When Mola also died in an aircraft accident, Franco was left as the sole effective leader of the Nationalist cause. This led to rumors that Franco had arranged the deaths of his two rivals, but no evidence has ever been produced to support this allegation. In 2017 the Historical Memory Law was applied by the authorities of Navarre and required that the Sanjurjo's remains be disinterred, over the objections of surviving family, and reburied in the military section of a municipal cemetery in the Spanish city of Melilla—an enclave on the coast of Morocco where Sanjurjo had once been in command. Further controversy ensued when Sanjurjo was buried with military honors in a military Pantheon of Heroes, as confirmed by the army. The government of Navarre received assurances from the Ministry of Defense that special "honors were not offered" and that the remains were received as "just one more soldier". In fiction The opening of the alternate history novel by Harry Turtledove, Hitler's War, in his series The War That Came Early, begins with Sanjurjo's flight from Portugal. The point of divergence is that he accepts the pilot's advice and abandons the luggage so the flight is not overloaded and thus arrives safely. His behavior from then on is described as diverging from that of the actual Franco, with Spain taking a less isolated role in World War II and joining the Axis Powers. José Sanjurjo, the beginnings of the Spanish Civil War, and his ill-fated flight are discussed in José Saramago's book The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis. See also Sanjurjada Villa Sanjurjo White Terror (Spain) References Citations Sources 1872