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AROUND THE WORLD IN '39
GIBRALTAR:
Anne's Travel Journal
February 11, 1939 - on Board the Conte di Savoia
Today we just sailed on - nothing very startling. Daddy and I went to the dancing class in the Winter Garden and had a lot of fun learning tango and rumba steps. I think we’ll take a few private lessons as it is a lot of fun. Miss K __ invited us to have cocktails with her in the Bamboo Bar tonight at 7. Mrs. F__ will be there too. We saw the moving picture, “Secret Agent,” with Madeline Carroll, Peter Lorre, and Robert Young at 5 in the Colonna Hall. It wasn’t so hot – hard to understand their English pronunciation. We didn’t get back to the cabin until 6:40 and rushed to dress, but we were late – 7:15. Mrs. F__ didn’t show up until 8:00. We had several scotch and sodas, and then went down to dinner. We had coffee in the lounge. There was a ping pong game. Mr. L__ and the winner of the ping pong tournament on the ship had a match – L__ won. We went to bed at 10:30 as there will be a big day in Gibraltar next day. We left a call for 6:30 and time advanced 30 minutes today which makes it very early. They said that we would see the coast of Africa before seven and we wanted to be up early.
February 12, 1939 – Gibraltar
We were up about 8, but they were anchored. We could see the famed rock, but it didn’t seem quite as large as we had imagined. On the opposite side, to the south, was Morocco on the African Coast with one big mountain peak standing out called “Apes Hill.” Gibraltar, on one side, and Apes Hill in olden times were known as the “Pillars of Hercules” – they marked the boundary of the then known world. We were anchored in the bay at Gibraltar. The nearest African Coast is about 8½ nautical miles away across the straits. Gibraltar is a free port and belongs to the British. It guards the entrance to the Mediterranean. The old fortifications were in a series of galleries or tunnels hewn out by hand with occasional chambers where guns were stationed. These are old style and obsolete now, so the galleries are thrown open to the public. We were taken ashore in a big tender where we found our cars for a tour of the city and to the galleries. It was a steep climb and we didn’t go very far up – but far enough to get a general idea. There was an observation point where we stopped and had a marvelous view of the bay and the road to Spain. There were innumerable old buildings – barracks, but now used mostly as store houses, situated near the galleries. The town lies at the west side of the Rock and has quaint narrow streets, with houses right up from the curb. They have no lawns and are very, very old and so foreign looking. These seemed to house the poorer classes. Farther out were very nice homes and villas with lovely gardens with flowers like in California. Iris and calendulas were in bloom. It’s warmer than California. The average temperature is about 60 degrees. Halfway up the mountain, we could see the Moorish Castle, built by the Moors in the 8th century. The tower is still standing though some parts of the castle have been rebuilt. Father M___, a Catholic priest from Maine and a very interesting person, said he went thru the Castle. He saw the dungeons which he said were pretty terrible. The galleries, the Moorish Castle and the waterworks are the three great sights. The waterworks are a series of catchment areas on the sides of the rock – smooth surfaces improved by man with cement. The rain is collected and stored in huge reservoirs hewn out of the rock. We were taken thru the town to Europa Point – the nearest point to Africa. Between Gibraltar and Spain is a neutral zone, and we were taken there and took pictures at the gate leading into Spain where the Spanish and British soldiers stood guard. We saw the village of Catalan on beautiful Catalan Bay where fishermen dive. After the sight-seeing, we went to the shops and they were very interesting. We bought quite a lot of French perfume and a morocco floor cushion made of camel skin. We meant to get more, but spent so much time deciding on perfumes. Paul was rather tired and we came back to the ship about 2. I did buy a string of white carved bone beads in all sizes of elephants for 50¢! We wished we had bought more cushions – so pretty and unusual in America. It was all intensely interesting. I only wish we could stay longer everywhere.
The only photograph of Gibraltar in Anne's scrapbook is this rather poor one of her with Miss F__ and Mrs. K __ at the gate to Spain with Spanish and British officers.
Anne and Paul did buy a few postcards. Here is one showing the old Moorish Castle that Father M__ toured. You can imagine how "terrible" dungeons in that ancient bastion would be!
This postcard shows part of the city. Notice how densely the buildings are packed. The Rock is only 2.51 square miles.
The photo in this postcard shows the road to Spain. The Strait of Gibraltar is just 8.9 miles wide at its narrowest point.
Now we come to Paul's description of Gibraltar, written in the form of a letter to the readers of his brother's newspaper. This was the very same newspaper which Paul had owned prior to his marriage to Anne. A number of the readers would have been personally acquainted with him.
Paul was very impressed with Gibraltar. In addition, he discusses its strategic importance in terms of the world situation.
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Excerpt from Paul Stillman’s Article in Vol. 72 of “The Bee,” May 10, 1939 (written after he returned)
Back in the Mainland, May 10.
Dear Bee Readers:
Somebody asked me what particular spot or place around the world seemed the most important and outstanding. Well, if we mean by “important” the spot that seems to have the greatest effect and influence on every-day affairs of the world, I should unhesitatingly say that it is that little tip end of Spain called “Gibraltar.” Familiarly known everywhere as “The Rock.” For the Rock dominates the greatest trade channel of the world- the Mediterranean sea- and therefore it dominates the commerce of the world.
Whoever wants to go in and out of the Mediterranean has to have the consent of Great Britain. She owns Gibraltar, and has owned it for 250 years. It is only two square miles in extent, but it is the very apple of her eye. With it she absolutely controls her great trade routes to the Orient, which are her life blood. The other day Herr Hitler naively suggested that inasmuch as General Franco was taking over all the rest of Spain, it would be a pleasant gesture for Britain to turn over Gibraltar to him. Oh boy. The Lion let out a roar that could be heard around the world, and the British were so mad that their foreign policy perceptibly stiffened. The only way anybody will ever get Gibraltar, is over the dead and prostrate body of the British Empire.
We spent a whole day on the Rock, which is long enough to see everything there is to be seen, and buy some perfumery. It is a “free port,” and there is no duty or tax on anything. The result is that the ladies could buy the choicest and rarest of French perfumes, of well known and famous brands, at just about one-fifth of what they would pay at home. And did they load up! Nearly every port is noted for some special thing and Gibraltar is known far and wide for its wonderful bargains in choice perfumes.
The rock of Gibraltar, 1,450 feet high and about a mile thru at the base, resembles an enormous crouching lion, its paws in the water, facing out towards Africa, ten miles away. It looks perfectly innocent, but in its upper half the solid rock is honeycombed with passages and galleries containing untold quantities of ammunition and all the equipment of a great fortress. And it fairly bristles with high-powered cannon, the very latest and best that modern warfare has developed – great rifled tubes of destruction, to which a mere ten mile range is nothing. It is regarded as impregnable, and it is claimed it could stand off the combined fleets of the world, because they would have nothing to shoot at but a rock a mile thru, and the effect of the highest powered shells on such a target is negligible. Meantime the gunners on the Rock, in their snug retreats, could blow their enemies right out of the water.
One time, before the days of ironclads and steel-armored ships, a great fleet of French and Spanish ships tried to take Gibraltar away from the British; and after four years of siege and bombardment, they found they had lost most of their ships, while the Rock was still unharmed; so they built a new fleet with sides of wood so thick that the cannon balls of that day could not pierce them; and this time the gunners from the Rock waited till these ships were in easy range, and then they heated their cannon balls to a white heat and poured them into the enemy ships, and before long the waterfront was ablaze with a lot of huge floating bon-fires, and that attack was over. The French and Spanish went home and attended to their own business, and for the last 150 years nobody has disturbed British possession of the Rock.
Gibraltar had, however, a serious weakness. There is absolutely no water there, as wells are impossible. But some thirty years ago a bright Englishman had an idea which his country, without a moment’s hesitation, adopted and made its own. This idea was to catch all the rainwater that fell on the Rock, and store it away in huge cisterns built inside the Rock. So they have smoothed off great surfaces on the eastern face of the Rock from which direction most of the rains come; and they have surfaced these faces with cement so that the water will come down fast and clean; some of these cemented spots are as much as 40 acres in extent; the rainwater from these surfaces is caught in huge troughs far up on the sides of the Rock, and conveyed to the cisterns inside, where they have means of keeping the water fresh and pure. We were told they have enough water stored away in the Rock to last several years, in addition to the amount used by the people of the city of Gibraltar. The annual rainfall is about 35 inches. The point is, that with plenty of water, and untold quantities of food, ammunition and guns, the old Rock can stand quite a siege; and that is exactly what the British think it may some day have to do.
The city of Gibraltar, population about 20,000 over and above the soldiers, is located on a sloping shoulder of the Rock, and offers a very poor target for bombing planes. In fact with the protection afforded by anti-aircraft guns on top of the Rock, they do not consider it vulnerable to this sort of attack at all. They may have a Chamber of Commerce there, but its activities must be limited, for they do not want new citizens, new manufacturing enterprises, or new stores. They have more people living there now than they want, and wish they could find some good way to get rid of them. If you want to go there to live, you are sure out of luck, for they not only do not want you, but they positively will not have you as a citizen. Citizens are no assets; they are a liability on the Rock of Gibraltar; besides they use up water, which is precious. Wouldn’t it be a unique idea to have a Chamber of Commerce which devoted itself to getting people to leave and go live somewhere else!
I said above that control of Gibraltar, and the Straits of Gibraltar which lie under its guns, gives Britain absolute sovereignty over her trade routes to India and the Orient; but to make her control complete she should also control the Suez canal, which is at the other end of the Mediterranean. And that is exactly what she does. The Suez canal is owned by a stock company, and Britain owns a majority of the shares. The “Old Lady of Threadneedle Street” (which is the other name for the Bank of England) found an Egyptian government some time back in desperate need of money. In the transaction which followed Egypt got the money, and Britain got the very large holdings of Egypt in the Suez Canal company, giving her a majority of the stock. That did not seem terribly important then; but it is terribly important now.
All of which brings us right down to the conclusion that the Mediterranean sea is pretty much a British lake. Britain and Britain alone says what comes in there and what goes out. And Bro. Mussolini and that huge boot-shaped peninsula which is Italy, although residents of the place, have nothing to say about it. Their fleets and their huge commerce on the seas are subject to British say-so. The Italians love to refer to the Mediterranean as “Mare Nostrum” (meaning “our sea”); but that is about like a man in jail speaking of “my prison.” It seems to me that Mussolini made a terrible blunder when he chose Germany, in place of Britain, as his “axis” companion. With British friendship and co-operation, he would have been in a swell position – to go places and do things; all he will ever get out of Hitler is a chance to play second fiddle to the German merry-go-round; and we heard before we left those parts that being put into second place by Hitler is simply burning Mussolini up.
Paul was absolutely correct regarding Gibraltar's importance in world affairs. In just a few short months, Gibraltar would play a vital role in World War II. Its commanding position, as shown on the map, would give Great Britain and the Allies strategic control over naval traffic into and out of the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean. With a harbor that could be strongly defended, Gibraltar would also prove critical to convoy efforts to and from the besieged island of Malta. The Rock's extensive underground tunnels would be used to create barracks, offices and even a fully equipped hospital. These were to be occupied by a special British military unit in the event Francisco Franco allowed German troops to march through Spain to take Gibraltar. The men left would send reports of enemy movement back to Britain. However, Franco refused to enter into the War and Hitler's "Operation Felix" to wrest control over Gibraltar from the Allies had to be shelved. There has been much speculation over the years regarding how very different the outcome of the War might have been had Franco granted Hitler's request.
The Rock's underground facilities and miles of tunnels were used later in the war when Dwight Eisenhower, the Allied Supreme Commander, established his headquarters there during "Operation Torch," the Allied invasion of North Africa. During the final phase of the war, after combat had shifted to northern Italy and northwestern Europe, Gibraltar still played an important role as a logistics center and for dry-dock ship repairs.
Gibraltar was subject to attack during World War II. French Vichy aircraft and the Italian Royal Air Force bombarded the Rock, and the Italian Royal Navy frogman unit, with their human-manned torpedoes, conducted underwater attacks. However, relatively little damage was sustained.
Citizens did indeed prove to be a liability during World War II. Most of the civilian population of Gibraltar were evacuated to Britain, French Morocco (prior to the French surrender), Portuguese Madeira, and British Jamaica. Some of these evacuees spent ten years away from their homeland, finally being repatriated from Northern Ireland back to Gibraltar in 1951.
Today, 33,695 people call Gibraltar home. The Rock remains strategically important to shipping; half of the world's seaborne trade passes through the Strait of Gibraltar into and out of the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean. However, most of the underground tunnels have been decommissioned by the British military. Some of the tunnels are open to the public as tourist attractions. Gibraltar remains a popular port for cruise ships. Visiting passengers can still tour the ancient Moorish castle and buy perfume duty-free.
Next time...the Stillmans leave all thoughts of pending war behind and have a delightful time on the French Riviera, their 4th port-of-call.
