Defending The Rock: How Gibraltar Defeated Hitler
by Nicholas Rankin /
2017 / English / EPUB
3.8 MB Download
Two months before he shot himself, Adolf Hitler saw where it had
all gone wrong. By failing to seize Gibraltar in the summer of
1940, he lost the war. The Rock of Gibraltar, a pillar of British
sea-power since 1704, looked formidable but was extraordinarily
vulnerable. Though menaced on all sides by Nazi Germany, Fascist
Italy, Vichy France and Francoist Spain, every day Gibraltar had to
let thousands of people cross its frontier to work. Among them came
spies and saboteurs, eager to blow up its 25 miles of secret
tunnels. In 1942, Gibraltar became US General Eisenhower's HQ for
the invasion of North Africa, the campaign that led to Allied
victory in the Mediterranean. Nicholas Rankin's revelatory new
book, whose cast of characters includes Haile Selassie, Anthony
Burgess and General Sikorski, sets Gibraltar in the wider context
of the struggle against fascism, from Abyssinia through the Spanish
Civil War. It also chronicles the end of empire and the rise to
independence of the Gibraltarian people.
Two months before he shot himself, Adolf Hitler saw where it had
all gone wrong. By failing to seize Gibraltar in the summer of
1940, he lost the war. The Rock of Gibraltar, a pillar of British
sea-power since 1704, looked formidable but was extraordinarily
vulnerable. Though menaced on all sides by Nazi Germany, Fascist
Italy, Vichy France and Francoist Spain, every day Gibraltar had to
let thousands of people cross its frontier to work. Among them came
spies and saboteurs, eager to blow up its 25 miles of secret
tunnels. In 1942, Gibraltar became US General Eisenhower's HQ for
the invasion of North Africa, the campaign that led to Allied
victory in the Mediterranean. Nicholas Rankin's revelatory new
book, whose cast of characters includes Haile Selassie, Anthony
Burgess and General Sikorski, sets Gibraltar in the wider context
of the struggle against fascism, from Abyssinia through the Spanish
Civil War. It also chronicles the end of empire and the rise to
independence of the Gibraltarian people.