Hitler’s missed opportunity: failing to smash the rock of Gibraltar

It may be that only geological erosion, expected to occur sometime over the next ten million years, will finally remove Gibraltar as a source of friction between Britain and Spain. In the meantime, with a poll showing that nearly two thirds of Spaniards support their government’s current tough line on the territory, David Cameron has again reassured the Rock’s chief minister Fabian Picardo that Britain will always stand up for Gibraltar and safeguard the interests of its people.

But while the tension is real and enduring, there is no suggestion on either side that the situation might be resolved by force. Seventy-three years ago, in the autumn of 1940, the mood was very different. The threat to British sovereignty was real and imminent. France had fallen; the British Expeditionary Force had retreated from Dunkirk; the Luftwaffe was engaged in a battle with the RAF over the skies of southern England that was intended to clear the way for a full-scale amphibious invasion.