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.”