After the coup d'état of 18 July 1936, Carrillo fled to Gibraltar on her husband's José's insistence.[7] Whilst there she heard erroneous reports of his death and disguised herself as an "inglesa estrafalaria", (an eccentric Englishwoman) to go and retrieve his body. She discovered he was alive and from there, with her husband, she joined the 15th Anti-Fascist Militia Company of Málaga.[7] Her company was integrated into the Mexico Battalion.[3] In January 1937 the 52nd mixed brigade - at first known as the "B brigade" - was created, and the Mexico Battalion was integrated as one of its four battalions. Carrillo commanded the battalion's machine gun company as a captain of the Ejército Popular Army.[8]
With this rank, and as acting commander due to her husband José Torrealba's injuries inflicted on the Estepona front, Carrillo organised the evacuation of the wounded from Málaga Hospital before the imminent capture of the city by Nationalist troops in early February 1937. She was wounded in the Desbandá, the Málaga–Almería road massacre on her way to Almería.[4] She recounted the events in an interview with Margarita Nelken for the magazine Estampa in March 1937, which made her a Republican heroine.[9][10]
The Republican army decided to withdraw women from the front line and command of troops soon after which ended her military career.[10] On 20 June 1937, the director general of Security suggested Carrillo as an agent for espionage services behind enemy lines. On 3 March 1938, Franco's government placed her under arrest. With Franco's Nationalist victory in the Spanish Civil War, in 1939 she went into exile in Tangiers.[8]
In August 1954 Carrillo was arrested in Tétouan, in the Spanish protectorate in Morocco, and taken to the Spanish mainland. She remained in prison for a year, when she was pardoned and returned to Tangiers.[8]
Anita Carrillo died in poverty in 1974 in Madrid.[4][10][11]
