Altered States -Volume III. Hinge of Fate

Chapter 32

Just after 01:00 on the 15th of September the sirens began to wail when Gibraltar’s lone early warning radar, one of only three presently in the Mediterranean, picked up the inbound German raid. Almost immediately the long thin columns of the searchlights reached up into the dark skies, probing the soft late summer night for any sign of the enemy. Troops rushed to the 3.7 and 40mm batteries, elevating the thin barrels skyward as the first, distant rumble of the aircraft engines could be heard. The crews had scored their very first kill the previous month against the French, shooting down a single plane, and swiveled their guns into action with a jaunty confidence that would soon dissipate as the whistling bombs began to fall.

Dawes was awakened by the noise, sitting up bleary eyed in his bunk and hearing the haunting wail of the sirens. What in blazes? Are the French at it again? Then the bombs began to fall and he had the presence of mind to get dressed and look for a pith helmet.

Outside he ran towards the Naval Signals Station where he could get a good look at the harbor and town on the west side of the island. It was nearly a full moon, so he could see the town and harbor easily enough, and noted the dark shadows of the ships that remained anchored. There didn’t seem to be any trouble in the harbor for the moment, and the lights of the town itself had all been blackened. The sight of the searchlights fingering the darkness gave him an eerie feeling. Then he heard the thrum of engines and a sound unlike any plane he had heard before. It was a screeching wail, like a demon from hell, a howling sound that chilled his blood. Then came the first awful crash of the bombs.

There were explosions down at the southern end of the town, and a fire there. He could soon see that bombs had fallen near the Grand Parade, a wide area where troops would stand in ceremonial parade, and the navy bands would play. The light from the fire soon illuminated a warship there, so there was still some remnant of Force H at hand. Moments later he saw bright tracer rounds leap up from the harbor area, and heard the sharp crack of gunfire. The ship was firing, her stacks now getting up steam that drifted up to be illuminated by the pale moonlight.

The bloody French, he thought, but that wasn’t so.

These were German pilots, veterans of many grueling runs over English soil where they had faced intense anti-aircraft gunfire along with the superb aerial defense of the R.A.F. The fire put up that night seemed light by comparison, and the German planes soon began to pound known gun installations, the harbor district, the fortified line of pill boxes, and mined wire at the north end of the airfield. The big 9.2-inch gun at O’Hara’s Battery where Dawes had finished his day the previous evening on the top of the Rock got particular attention from the Stukas, receiving three hits within the first hour until it was put out of action. In other places the damage was far less than Goering had promised, though it was immediately clear that he could at least claim one boast-the airfield was pot marked with craters, the main hangers on fire and the old rifle range buildings to the north and east flattened by direct hits.

Now the truth behind the rumors became apparent. Forewarned that the German troops in Southern France were on the move, Force H had slipped its moorings at sunset and taken its heavy units out through the straits and into the Atlantic, where they hovered under the thin air defense umbrella provided by HMS Hermes.

The German Ju-88 night raid was augmented by squadrons of Ju-87 Stukas protected by Bf-109s, and their mission was to target and silence British artillery positions and deal with any ships that remained behind in the anchorage. These were the planes that Dawes had heard, the scream of their diving runs so very jarring to the nerves as they came in. If ever there was a sound that warned of imminent danger, it was the wailing sirens of the ‘Jericho Trumpets’ when the planes swooped in like dark evil crows.

Only one destroyer was left in the harbor when they arrived, the Hotspur, and though it was straddled by two near misses and badly splintered with bomb fragments, it was otherwise unharmed. Lieutenant Dawes stared at the scene, realizing that the war might not be so dull and uneventful after all. It went on for the better part of an hour, and several fires had started down in the town before it was over. When planes began to home in on Windmill Hill Dawes realized he had better get to a shelter.

He huddled there for some time, until the all clear was finally sounded after two in the morning. Rumors passed like fire in the shelter. These were not the French. Talk went round and round about it until a gritty Sergeant, a man named Hobson, finally chanced to speak up and interrupt the two other officers that had been debating the issue.

“If I may, sir,” the man said darkly. “If the Germans have gone to all this trouble to pay us a visit, we may very well be in for more trouble ahead. I’ve heard 2nd Kings Rifles has all been called out to the wire. Mark my words. They’ll be coming across the lines in due course.”

“I should certainly hope not, Sergeant,” said another Lieutenant in the Artillery. He was one of the officers that always seemed to lay on the old ‘chin chin’ a bit too thick for Dawes’ liking.

“I had my mind set on watching a good filly run the race course tomorrow morning.” The Lieutenant was referring to a makeshift racing circle out beyond the airfield and very near the frontier with Spain. The officers often ran horses there, and bet on the outcome while they had a good smoke, watched by men from the 2nd King’s Rifles, who sat behind their Vickers machine guns in their bunkers guarding the wire, and cheered the horses on.

“Well sir,” said the Sergeant. “If you do go out to the lines tomorrow, I can only hope you have a very fast horse.”

Something about the remark carried a hidden warning, and when the all clear was finally sounded, Dawes kept thinking about it as he finally settled back into his bunk to try and get back to his fitful sleep. What did the Sergeant mean by that? Was he suggesting the Germans might be coming with more than an air raid?

He only managed another two hours sleep before he had to get up and on his way down the hill and up through Buena Vista east of Rosia Bay to the harbor. There he saw that the German pilots were much better at their jobs than the French ever were. There was damage near the Destroyer Camber where Hotspur had been finally driven out to sea, and he saw the wreckage of several buildings off Grand Parade, the smoke from the fires still hanging in the air.

As he continued on, up past the Coaling Island and the old fortified position known as ‘King’s Bastion,’ he heard men talking in small groups by the wharfs and quays, and with worried faces. Soon he came to his tower south of the North Mole, and climbed up to report for duty. He was relieving another haggard looking Lieutenant

“Busy night,” said the man. “Didn’t get a wink of sleep. Well, At least you’ll have the day shift, and no bother with German planes buzzing about your ears. I was afraid they would put one of those bloody bombs right on my head!”

Dawes gave him a thin smile, then took his seat in the still warm chair, eyeing the telephone on the desk with some misgiving.

“That’s it,” said the other man. “Any problems and you just ring up the Colonel on the other end of that line. It’ll be dark another hour, so mind your orders should you hear anything out of the ordinary. You can expose the Mole with searchlights, but I wouldn’t get too jumpy. The sun will be up soon, and it’s almost breakfast!” The man smiled, and left Dawes sitting alone in his tower.

The German planes finished their work and landed at airbases near Seville, where supplies and air fuel had been secretly forward deployed to allow them to replenish and be available for rapid sortie turnover. They would have plenty of time to pound British positions, demolishing the radar station, knocking out several gun batteries, striking Devil’s Tower Camp and the barracks further south at Europa Point. They deliberately avoided targeting the main wharf and docking areas but soon drove the intrepid Hotspur out of the harbor-all this while the land assault force moved south.

The frontier gates on the Franco-Spanish border had been thrown open five days earlier, at a little after sunset on September 10, 1940, a full three months earlier than the initial plans had envisioned. It would be slow going at the outset as the long winding columns of motorized infantry made their way through the high mountains to Pamplona, some 60 kilometers away. Two days later the R.A.F. had seen them in the mountain passes, and the alarm had been secretly wired to General Liddell at Gibraltar, allowing Somerville to discretely move Force H out of the harbor.

They were through that town and on their way south through Navarre and then on to Soria. By dawn the Germans had demonstrated the lightning fast ground movement they had been famous for in France during the Blitzkrieg, and were passing through Guadalajara just northeast of Madrid. From there they surged due south to Granada, planning to approach Gibraltar along the coast of the Alboran Sea. It would be a journey of some 650 miles in all, with the columns averaging 30 miles per hour on good roads, slower in the mountainous regions.

By nightfall on the 15th of September their mad rush south was complete, and they had spent some time resting and assembling the front line units at La Linea. There they met up with forward elements that had been flown in to Spanish airfields to begin surveying the British lines and sighting for mortars and artillery. They worked closely with Spanish troops who knew this ground and could show them areas offering the best cover for infantry assault. They took particular note of the British bunker positions, assigning support fires and demolitions teams to each attack.

By the time the Luftwaffe got about their business that night, the element of surprise was long gone, except for a few little tricks of the trade the German army would bring with them. One would be the swift pre-dawn assault on September 16th, by a forward deployed unit of the elite Brandenburg Commandos. This 150 man contingent slipped into the bay in jet-black rubber swift boats and were approaching the prominent North Mole of the Harbor. Others had secretly moved in as frogmen, and were already lingering near the mole. One plan called for them to approach in the hold of a merchant ship claiming to have been the victim of a torpedo attack, but it was discarded in favor of a bold night attack by boat.

They waited until the pre-dawn hour, when the waning gibbous moon that was still near full would be very low, and already behind the 1700 foot high mountains overshadowing Algeciras across the bay. As soon as the moon was below the highest peak there, the first boats came in quietly, the black paddles dipping silently in the still waters. But there was just enough light for the sentry on the mole to catch the wet gleam on the sides of the lead boat. He stopped, peering into the darkness, and called out a time honored challenge, the litany of the Chief Warder of the Tower of London as he made his final round with the Keys each night to lock His Majesty’s Tower.

“Halt! Who goes there?”

Silence. Then came a voice in proper English saying they were seamen off a Spanish lighter that had been towed in to the smaller harbor of Algeciras to the west. The proper response to the challenge was, of course, only two words: “The Keys.” Had that response been given, the sentry would have asked: “Whose Keys?” to which the unexpected visitors should have answered: “King George’s Keys.” That done the sentry would have simply said: “Pass King George’s Keys, all’s well,” and carried on with his watch, but instead he quickly unshouldered his rifle to take aim.

Unfortunately the Germans had already taken aim as well. The crack unit was armed with sub-machine guns and there came a short, sharp burst that cut the sentry down. Then the first boat came scudding against the mole and the Brandenburgers scrambled up with demolition charges, wearing dark black uniforms and caps and racing swiftly along the Mole. They reached a narrow viaduct, which ran just north of the seaplane moorings and connected the mole to the shore at a spit of land that was once called “The Devil’s Tongue.”

The gunfire had just broken the silence when the telephone jangled at the harbor observation tower. Lieutenant Douglas Dawes was on duty that morning, still bleary eyed after a fitful night’s rest on Windmill Hill. Now he was Harbor Defense Officer for his ten hour shift in the North Mole Tower, peering into the shadows through the dirty glass windows when the phone rang.

“Yes? Duty Officer, North Mole.”

“What in blazes is going on there? Was that gunfire? Is there movement on the Mole? Expose! I should have you court martialed!”

“Right away sir!” Dawes put down the telephone and gave the order: “Expose the Mole!” Searchlights switched on, bathing the whole area in bleak white light, and Dawes could see men running in a crouch along the viaduct, and the slow rotation of one of the 6-inch naval gun batteries there-which suddenly went up in a tremendous explosion. The Brandenburgers were there to lay charges on the guns that could face north at the German assembly area and put them out of service. Now they were racing across the viaduct to the Devil’s Tongue.

A lone machine gun opened up from a sand bagged position on the tongue, and Dawes saw three of the German commandos fall. Then he heard the lead commando squad returning fire in sharp bursts with their sub-machine guns, and a firefight was on. The Germans ran for the cover of warehouses on the north end of the tongue, tossing in Model 24 grenades, the famous “Potato Mashers,” before bursting in with their guns blazing away. Others threw a variant that had been modified to produce smoke, which rolled like a thick white fog, masking the narrow viaduct. Lieutenant Dawes watched, almost in awe at the precision and ruthless advance of the Brandenburgers.

They were led by Leutnant Wilhelm Walther, the man who had captured the Meuse Bridge with an eight man team from this very same unit during Operation Fall Gelb in the battle for France. Walther already had 25 men over the viaduct and into the warehouses, and they were systematically clearing those buildings. More grenades soon silenced the chatter of the British machinegun and suddenly Dawes realized he was in a most precarious position, alone in his tower watching the steady advance of these elite German commandos.

Another 6-inch naval gun, positioned just south of the Devil’s Tongue, rotated and blasted away at the warehouses at near point blank range. It was at this point that Dawes thought he had better get down from the tower, just as a spray of small arms fire shattered the glass windows. He scurried down the ladder, with rounds snapping off the metal tower legs with bright sparks, and then leapt to the ground, the whine of ricocheting bullets frightening him out of his wits. Taking a deep breath, he crawled behind a shed at the edge of the Harbor Recreation Ground, then raced across the field into the edge of the town near the Gibraltar Post Office. Eventually he made his way south to the King’s Bastion near the Harbor Coaling Island, where he reported to the Flag Officer there for new orders.

“What was wrong with your old orders?” The man bristled at him, but with level British calm he folded his arms and simply said: “Well sir, the Germans seem to have shot my observation tower to pieces, and very nearly skewered me at the same time.” King George’s Tower had fallen.

The Flag Officer finally looked at him, seeing the soiled uniform from his long crawl to safety on the recreation field, and noting a nick on his left shoulder, and the stain of blood there. “I see… Then get yourself to the Hospital and see about that shoulder, Lieutenant. You can report back when you’ve had proper medical attention.”

Dawes saluted and was on his way. His wound was not bad, a mere scratch from a grazing bullet, but it would not be the last he would receive in the next 72 hours as the British Garrison dug in its heels and began to fight for its life, and the life of Britain’s position in the Western Mediterranean. On that day, September 16, 1940, Spain made a formal announcement that they had joined Italy, and Vichy France as a member of the European Axis powers.

High on the hills of the upper Rock, a troop of jittery Barbary Macaque monkeys chattered restlessly. The German bombers had frightened them badly the previous night and, sensing imminent danger, they deftly skittered down the craggy slopes and over the Devil’s Tower Road towards the shore. No man on the airfield watch saw them go, nor any man of the 2nd Battalion, King’s Rifles on the frontier line. Somehow they slipped through the minefields and wire unnoticed, scrabbling along the rocky shores of Mala Bahia and leaving the high, bomb scarred limestone cliffs of Gibraltar behind. With them they carried away the legend that as long as these troops of monkeys held forth on the Rock, the territory would remain under British rule. No man in the garrison knew it just then, but the Barbary Macaques were leaving.