Calle del General López Pozas

The calle del General López Pozas bears the name of Pío López Pozas, a career soldier born in Orihuela in 1871. He entered the Military Academy young and earned his promotions in combat: first in the Philippines, against the Moros of Mindanao, and then in Cuba, in the last years of the colonial war. Later he served in the Morocco campaigns, where he was wounded and reached the rank of colonel. He passed through the military governments of Segovia, Tenerife, and Madrid, and in 1927 rose to lieutenant general. Between 1930 and 1931 he was the last head of Alfonso XIII’s Military Household, in charge of the king’s personal guard in the months before the Republic. When the Civil War broke out he was imprisoned in Madrid. In November 1936 he was taken from jail and shot at Paracuellos de Jarama, together with his son-in-law, in the mass killings of prisoners of those weeks.