Gilbraltar, the rock of!!! It's a shocker!!!! 4-19-07

The tiny British colony of Gilbraltar, has an imoressive silhouette that dominates the strait between Spain and Morocco. It was one of the two pillars of Hercules in ancient times, marking the western limits of the then known world! Today, Gilbraltar is a bizarre anomaly of Moorish, Spanish and British influences. It's LOCATION must be where the term, location, location, location comes from! It's location is at the gateway to the Mediterranean Sea and in the other direction to the Altantic Ocean. You can imagine over the years that Gilbraltar has had to face many enemies in order to retain it's British presence. Everyone wants a piece of the rock, we all know that!!! The Moors did control the Rock in 711 and did that for 750 years. After that the Spaniards took back control in 1462. In 1704 after many skirmishes, Gilbraltar finally was taken over by the British and they have held on to control since. However, Spain has been trying to get it back ever since! Relations today with Spain are much better and even up until 2006 there were no flights from Gilbraltar to Spain. Why do you need to fly when you can walk?? Anyway, the bigggest problems for the tiny British controlled rock came during WWII. Hitler wanted to squish England and he was having a time of it crossing the English Channel. Although their were bobmb raids in England, Hilter never could take over England as they were too protected by the sea. He had a plan. He became big buddies with the then dictator of Spain, Franco. He convinced Franco that if he could overtake England, then Franco would open his borders to the Germans so they could also have the Rock of Gilbraltar. No scheme that Hitler came up with worked and Franco never had to make good on his promise. Spain was a neutral country during WWII. Franco was not doing very well within his borders because of what was all around him and he knew he better get on the good side of someone. Everyone wanted the Rock of Gilbraltar. The British troops that were there were told to defend the rock at all costs!! They did. Those poor soldiers died trying to defend that tiny rock. They needed help and fast. They were trying to defend the rock from the outside of it. A Miner that had been mining tin came up with the idea to dig into the big rock and let the rock protect them. The idea was tremendous but they needed help. The Americans and Canadians came to their aide to dig out tunnels and come up with ways to get their cannons inside the rock. The whole mission was unbelieveable and more unbelieveable was that got it done. They built tunnels needed for large equipment and to build a hospital in there, a power station, a military headquarters and it needed to be large enough to house over 10,000 troops and civilians!! Genius, just pure genius. Once inside those miles of tunnels, they dug holes to the outside to position their guns, some were cannons. Long before WWII, the problem was the cannon balls would roll out if too much at an angle. If they heated the balls and shot them at a high trajectory, they disentigrated before they would hit the ships. The general in charge told his men that he needed a plan to be able to use the cannons. Any plan, just bring him ideas. He promised if any idea worked and they were able to save the rock for Britan, it would be their name, not his that got into the history books. Many plans came and went, one day a young lieutenant came to the general and said he though he had figured the perfect position a cannonball had to be in and still be pointed in a downward position but not roll out. It would be in the cannon sort of wedged. The real key was he wanted to heat the balls before they were put into the cannons and then fire them in a downward position. It had to be perfect or the cannon would blow up on them by wedging the balls, it was and it worked. Remember how the balls desinigrated when they were shot at high trajectories out to the ships?? This was the plan. To shoot those shot balls and let the pieces of those hot balls hit the enemies, killing some, but for injuring them enough that they would have to retreat. Can you guess who this guy was??? Lieutenant Henry Shrapnel. This is where the term "shrapnel shell or shrapnel metal" comes from. It is those tiny pieces of shattering hot lead and it was all because they could not get their cannon balls to stay in at the Rock of Gilbraltar. You can read about this man. He was born in 1761 and died in 1842. When he died he was a lieutenant -general! I had no idea of the wonderful history of this rock. Today the insurance company Prudential uses one of the faces of the Rock as their logo, "Get a Piece of the Rock". Today, the Rock is very charming and are it's people. One of the big surprises for us all were the Barbary Apes! They are a breed of cinnamon-colored, tailess monkeys that are native to Morocco's Atlas mountains. Legend holds that as long as these apes ( monkeys) remain in Gilbraltar, the British will keep the Rock. Winston Churchill went as far as to issue an order for their preservation when the apes' numbers began to dwindle during WWII. They are publicly fed twice daily. They all have names and are considered officers of the British army, hencew killing one would be a grave punishment. The are mischievous little things. They love shiny things, bags that rumple, purses and cameras!! One gal in our goup, Lynn, was attacked by one that wanted her brown bag full of her souvenirs!! She screamed and the monkey ran off. They come very close up to you, uncomfortably close. Here we go on our day....