"Three Little Tales from Gib are we…..!"

by Brian Spurway

Over the three decades of my interesting, but unremarkable flying career, the '60s, '70s and '80s, holding six separate ranks and in five different RAF aircraft types, I staged through Gibraltar (the "Rock") many times. Three such trips remain clear in my memory, as clearly as the passage of time allows anyway.

Here is the first of those memories

Tale the First

Back in May of 1967 political relationships between the UK and Spain were becoming very fraught as the argument about Gibraltar's future reached the stage where Spain's land border with Gibraltar was to be closed (just to traffic I think) and its airspace denied to UK military flights. I was the Flight Engineer on a 24 Sqn Hastings scheduled from RAF Colerne to Gibraltar on May 10th the very day these two actions were to take place.

We flew our standard route over France and Spain to RAF North Front, Gibraltar, taking 71/2 hours, without any problems and after landing the six of us crewmembers retired to our respective messes; 50/50 usually those days with the two drivers and Nav going their way, the Siggie, AQM and me off south of the runway to the Sgts' Mess. A phone call from VASF shortly after the three S's let me know some eagle eyed Sumpie had found a prop snag and I was needed to have a shuftie; after all this time I can't recall the exact problem but it did necessitate a prop removal/change so any thought that we may fly on if the political situation escalated went out the window and we hit the Mess bar.

Then another message got to us, this time, we were led to believe, from the Station Commander. He'd like it if as many people as possible would make their way over the border, that evening, into Spain and stay there until the Spanish authorities closed the border at midnight; I guess his thoughts were that it would rattle the cage a bit.
In for a laugh a small crowd gathered and we nipped over to La Linea (well known to any of you reading this who did time at Gib) and, mob-handed, descended on "Dirty Dick's". Our 3 officers were already there, not having had so far to walk, or maybe having foregone the 3 S's unlike their nice clean SNCOs. A good evening was had by all with Dick, as always, winning the bet and none of us drinking enough to get it free; does anyone else remember that game he played? A glass from every one of the wine kegs on display at the bar and, if you made it to the last one, you got it all for nought. Not a good idea if facing a long flight early the next morning regardless of whether you got it for free or had fallen over trying.

Come the "witching-hour" we staggered off to the border expecting the Spanish customs officers to be overloaded and having their authority somewhat negated by the sheer number of us clammering to get back into Gib; not a bit of it, every available Customs officer had been called out and they had formed a line that we were all made to pass down so that everyone of them (I seem to remember about 12 or 13) could stamp our passports and ask the usual questions. No doubt it was 1-up to Spain as, although done in pretty good humour, this plot of theirs worked and it took ages to get past them all and back to our messes for a bit of kip.

Our scheduled departure the following morning was delayed pending a satisfactory airtest, again I can't remember details as to why that was necessary but I do recall the airtest itself; a quick 10 minute circuit south of Gib remaining well outside Spanish airspace. We took off on the Westerly runway, hurled into an immediate left hand turn over the harbour went out into the Med a bit then back to the Eastern side of Gib and in a continuous left hand bank, closer to that hunk of rock than seemed safe to me, we landed back on with no problems. During the short trip we had been informed that the Spanish airforce had a couple of fighters (F86s probably) keeping a close eye on us; they certainly seemed to be serious about their airspace closure.

These Spanish airspace restrictions were also to be factors in my other two memorable trips.

To be continued