[32] In addition to the resemblance of names, the party formally retained most of the platform of FE de las JONS (26 out of 27 points) and a similar inner structure.

[citation needed] With the eruption of the Civil War in July 1936, the Falange fought on the side of the Nationalist faction against the Second Spanish Republic.

Led by José Antonio's sister Pilar Primo de Rivera, this latter subsidiary organization claimed more than a half million members by the end of the war and provided nursing and support services for the Nationalist forces.

[citation needed] On April 19, 1937, Franco issued a Unification Decree, which forcibly merged the Falange with the Carlist Comunión Tradicionalista to form the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS (FET y de las JONS).

The merged party incorporated many Falangist symbols–the blue shirt, the yoked arrows, the red and black flag, and the anthem Cara al Sol among others.

Franco had sought to control the Falange after a clash between Hedilla and his main critics within the group, the legitimistas of Agustín Aznar and Sancho Dávila y Fernández de Celis, that threatened to derail the Nationalist war effort.

[6] Despite the official unification of the various Nationalist factions within the party in 1937, tensions continued between dedicated Falangists and other groups, particularly Carlists.

Such tensions erupted in violence with the Begoña Incident of August 1942, when hardline Falangist activists attacked a Carlist religious gathering in Bilbao with grenades.

[42] By the middle of the Second World War, Franco and leading Falangists, while distancing themselves from the faltering European fascists, stressed the unique "Spanish Catholic authoritarianism" of the regime and the Falange.