ABSTRACT
After 1939, the Franco dictatorship’s economic policy was one of autarky (self-sufficiency); the vast majority of companies with foreign capital were therefore taken under state control. This was the case with the Spanish Society of Shipbuilding (SECN), founded in 1908 with 60 per cent Spanish capital and the rest held by the British shipbuilding firms, Vickers, Armstrong-Whitworth, and John Brown. 1 Prior to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, SECN, known widely as “La Naval”, comprised Ferrol and Cartagena shipyards and the artillery workshops at La Carraca in Cádiz. It subsequently acquired the shipyard of Matagorda (Puerto Real, Cádiz, 1914), built the shipyard of Sestao (1915-1916), and bought Astilleros del Nervión in Bilbao (1920) and other centres of armament such as Reinosa in Santander and San Carlos in Cádiz. In 1936 the navy took up arms against the Republic and seized the yards at Ferrol and Cádiz. Almost all warships built at the Ferrol yard were designed based on Royal Navy vessels. 2
