The Spanish government has ordered the removal of a monument to the sailors of the British designed cruiser, Baleares, which was sunk during the Spanish Civil War and claimed the lives of 765 sailors including one from the Royal Navy. The monument, in Plaza Sa Feixana in Palma, has always been controversial even though it was part paid for by the people of Santa Catalina.
In March 1938, Baleares—along with fellow Nationalist cruisers Canarias and Almirante Cervera—faced the Republican cruisers
Libertad and Méndez Núñez, accompanied by five destroyers, off Cartagena, in the Battle of Cape Palos. At around 02:15 am on 6 March, the Nationalist and Republican cruisers engaged in an ineffective gunnery duel. During this gunnery duel, the Republican destroyers Sánchez Barcáiztegui, Lepanto, and Almirante Antequera all fired their torpedoes. Two or three torpedoes from Lepanto hit Baleares detonating her forward magazine and sinking her. Out of her crew of 1,206, she had 765 seamen killed or missing. among them Vice-Admiral Manuel Vierna Belando, commander of the cruiser division.
The monument in the Palma park was inaugurated nine years later. It has always been controversial and the Palma city council just a few weeks ago said the monument was safe. The Spanish government thinks otherwise and has ordered its as part of its drive to rid the country of Civil war monuments.
The British destroyers Boreas and Kempenfelt rescued part of the survivors, although a Republican air attack interrupted the rescue and caused one British fatality.