Word: gibraltars
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Saltersgate. Captain Stubbs told me to go to the first hatch. This hold was to be my living quarters until we reached Gibraltar. We started from Cannes in the evening and arrived at Marseille the next morning...
...captain and ship's chandler were able to relieve the situation somewhat by increasing the stocks of food and tobacco in the town and that night they started for Gibraltar under another French convoy. But again they were unable to land. "Then many of us broke down. Women cried. It seemed too much to bear. An officer came on board and made us a speech explaining that Gibraltar was a fortress and that a large number of refugees had already passed through, that fifth-column activities were feared. . . ." Finally authorities relented, took off children, invalids and oldsters, allowed others...
Same time that Sir Andrew's fleet swept the Eastern Mediterranean, from Gibraltar toward Sicily swept the Mediterranean battle squadron of the west, including the 42,100-ton Hood and the much-exercised aircraft carrier Ark Royal. They found no Italian warships at large but south of the Balearics they were attacked by swarms of Italian bombers, of which they shot down four, damaged three. Vice Admiral Sir James Fownes Somerville, hero of Dukirk and Oran, reported his ships unscathed, and Spanish observers who saw them return to Gibraltar after two days at sea made no mention of visible...
...argument: European bases, such as Gibraltar, are just as essential to Atlantic security as are ships. As long as they remain in the hands of powers that respect the Monroe Doctrine, "no hostile ships, except for a few submarines and raiders, could get into the Atlantic at all." Second: "It is an illusion for people to believe that in the end the British Navy will pass easily to you. We in Britain shall certainly fight to the end to defend our country . . . [but] quite apart from the difficulties that would arise, if you were neutral, of handing over a fleet...
...Gibraltar's security now depends primarily on Spain's friendship, and Spain's occupation of Tangier last fortnight was no friendly omen. The pounding which Franco's guns could give warships inside Gibraltar's moles and booms would certainly be disastrous and perhaps, over a period of weeks, big shells could smash away the Rock's friable limestone-of which every splinter becomes a missile when a shell explodes-to expose the defenders' guns to ultimate destruction. If that should happen, Benito Mussolini would escape his Mediterranean cage...