Vulnerable fortress in wartime. Every day, Gibraltar allowed up to ten thousand Spanish workers over the frontier and across the airfield into the British colony. Among them were enemy agents bent on mischief, and good security foiled dozens of sabotage attempts.
The Rock of Gibraltar, a distinctive massif of Jurassic limestone, seen from the western beach at La Línea in Spain.
Exiled emperor among the journalists at the Rock Hotel, Gibraltar, 30 May 1936. From left to right, the Ethiopians visible are Lij Asfaw Kebede, Crown Prince Asfa Wossen, H.I.M. Haile Selassie I and Ras Kassa Hailu.
Fascist dictators (1). Spanish Caudillo Francisco Franco meets German Führer Adolf Hitler at Hendaye railway station, 23 October 1940. The interpreter is Paul Schmidt; the other man is the Spanish ambassador to Berlin, Eugenio Espinosa de los Monteros.
Fascist dictators (2). Generalísimo Franco encountering Italian Duce Benito Mussolini at Bordighera, 12 February 1941. On the left is the Spanish Foreign Minister, Ramón Serrano Suñer.
Democratic warlord. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill greeting well-wishers with a V-for-Victory sign. With him is his loyal wife Clementine.
Bloody war at sea. On 3 July 1940, a Royal Navy squadron from Gibraltar bombarded the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir in Algeria to stop their warships falling into enemy hands, killing thousands of matelots who had been allies days earlier.
The British aircraft-carrier HMS Ark Royal listing heavily to port after being torpedoed by a German U-boat on 13 November 1941. The Ark finally sank twenty-five miles from Gibraltar.
New broom at Government House. Viscount John Gort VC takes over from Sir Clive Liddell as Governor of Gibraltar, 14 May 1941. Between them is Admiral James Somerville RN, commander of Force H.
Helen Hiett, the enterprising young US journalist who won a prize for reporting two bombing attacks on Gibraltar in July 1940.
General Noel Mason-Macfarlane, second-in-command of British forces in Gibraltar July 1940–May 1941 and Governor of Gibraltar from May 1942–February 1944.
SECURITY INTELLIGENCE: David Scherr, Louis Bush and William Bulman foiled sabotage attacks on Gibraltar by using double-agents.
SPECIAL FORCES: Hugh Quennell, head of SOE Iberia section; Peter Musson, who ran SOE’s smuggling fleet; and Lt-Col William A. Eddy USMC, the Arabic-speaking OSS man in Tangier.
THE SPY, THE SUSPECT AND THE SABOTEUR: José Estelle Key (hanged in London); Biagio D’Amato (unfairly jailed in UK); José Martin Muñoz (hanged in Gibraltar).
Evacuated to London during the Blitz, the fifteen-year-old Gibraltarian Lourdes Pitaluga, later Galliano, served as a St John Ambulance Brigade cadet.
Lionel Crabb led the counter-sabotage submarine divers in wartime Gibraltar. In April 1956, he disappeared in Portsmouth harbour on an underwater mission for MI6, examining a new Russian warship.
The USA’s first major combat experience of WW2 was Operation Torch, the invasion of Northwest Africa in November 1942. General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s HQ was in Gibraltar, while General George S. Patton led the attack on Casablanca.
Talia Larios, the Marquesa de Povar, talking to Spanish military engineer General Pedro Jevenois. MI5 kept an keen eye on her activities.
Krishna Khubchand Daswani, the first Indian child born in Gibraltar, with Barsati Karya, the family cook who saved his life at sea.
John Burgess Wilson, better known as Anthony Burgess, married Lynne Jones on 22 January 1942. Burgess served three years in wartime Gibraltar.
David Scherr married Mollie Spencer in Gibraltar on 25 August 1945. The DSO, Philip Kirby-Green, gave the bride away; Billy Bulman was best man.
