1942: Gibraltar

Gibraltar, though accommodating a normal population of some 20,000, plus thousands more in war, is less a section of a country than a stationary battleship. The life within the Rock is for one purpose. Its history over any period of time can be scarcely more than the chronicle of a gun emplacement or the saga of a sharpshooter.

When in the fall, the United Nations made their historic juncture from West Africa to Egypt; as Malta still stood, and the Russians thrust the enemy westward from Stalingrad, the bastion at the Iberian peninsula arose again in the public interest.

At the beginning of the year, new defenses on the Rock were reported. In British hands since 1713, its fortifications had been altered to conform to every new defense need. Its readiness was a guarantee to the Empire's continuance. Though only 2¾ mi. long, ¾ mi. wide and 1,396 ft. high, it is the dictator of ingress to or egress from the Mediterranean on the west. It completely dominates the fourteen-mile strait between Europe and Africa.

The new defenses included precautions against a land attack from Spain; new harbor and dock facilities; a seaplane base, and work on the interior of the Rock. Some two thousand tunnelers had been working twenty four hours a day. When the war began, there were two miles of tunnels; in early 1942, 10 miles were finished. Twenty thousand men, and that number are now there, can live in Gibraltar indefinitely. There are six levels, and on each of these, ammunition stores fan out through tracked passages to the great gun emplacements.

The fortifications are centralized on each of the three faces. From the Spanish mainland a narrow isthmus is Gibraltar's only approach. Here 26 sets of concrete tank barriers cross the road for a mile. On each side is a flat space 700 yards wide. This is studded with immense pill boxes and tank traps, flame throwers and anti-aircraft batteries. At the Rock end, there are two canals like moats. Then appear the garrison gates and the cantonments, the mined approaches to the docks and the Mole.

Life in Gibraltar is one of austerity. It resembles that on a man-of-war yet there are alleviating conditions. One of these is the absence of blackouts. To a newcomer this is the antithesis of precaution until he realizes that such blackouts would be useless with the neighboring lights of Spanish La Linea in full glare.

In matters of governance, Gibraltar is a Crown Colony. In the early part of 1942 the Governor and Commander in Chief was General Viscount Gort. In June he was transferred to Malta, to relieve Governor Dobbie. Lord Gort was in turn succeeded as Commander of Gibraltar by Lieut. General Mason MacFarlane, who arrived by air on June 19. He was sworn in by the Acting Chief Justice, Mr. Arthur Carrara.