Lardner, James Phillips, 1914-1938.

Journalist and son of the humorist Ring Lardner. While working at the New York Herald Tribune's Paris bureau, he began writing about the participation of American volunteers in the Spanish Civil War. In March 1938 Lardner traveled to Barcelona in the company of fellow journalists Ernest Hemingway and Vincent Sheean to observe the conflict first hand. After witnessing an aerial battle that destroyed a bridge on the Ebro River, and seeing the dire state of the Loyalist forces, Lardner resolved to join the International Brigades. At first he was with a ragged battaion in Badalona; then he joined the Third Company of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade early in May, was wounded in July and hospitalized for a month. On September 23, 1938, the last day of fighting for the International Brigades, he was killed in action.