Defending The Rock From Spanish Invasion.

 

In the early hours of May 1982, following indications that a Spanish amphibious force, ostensibly on exercise, had begun sailing closer to Gibraltar, the Governor exercised powers to sortie armed Royal Navy warships, and deploy the Army onto the streets of the rock, to defend it from potential Spanish invasion. This sounds like the plot of a poor Cold War thriller but nearly happened for real. This article is about how in the 1980s the UK actively planned to defend Gibraltar from both Soviet & Spanish aggression in the most unlikely of circumstances.

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In 1982 the UK and Spain had strained relations over the issue of Gibraltar since the Spanish closed the land border in 1969. Throughout the 1970s there was genuine concern that Spain could attempt some kind of military operation, leading to elaborate plans being developed to defend ‘the Rock’ against attack for long enough for cooler heads to prevail. The invasion of the Falklands by Argentina was a particular concern, given the vital military role played by UK military facilities in Gibraltar supporting the Task Force.

In April 1982 the Service Chiefs urgently reviewed plans and capabilities were needed to keep Gibraltar safe, both from Argentine attack and to deter the Spanish from taking advantage of a distracted UK both in the short and medium term. The plans to reinforce the Rock were known as Joint Tactical Plan (JTP) 52 existed to reinforce against the risk of Spanish aggression, but as the Chiefs noted “the plans concerns reinforcement of Gibraltar to meet a direct threat to the Rock, not a contingency plan for a war with Spain. Naturally should events escalate to such an unfortunate level, appropriate forces would be assigned as the situation dictated”!

There was an immediate concern about the presence of a Spanish amphibious force, with 4000 marines embarked operating barely 35 miles from the colony from 26 April to 4 May. While the threat was seen as extremely unlikely, it could not be ruled out. To reduce this risk two RAF Jaguar ground attack jets and an RN Lynx helicopter were dispatched to provide a level of anti-ship capability against Spanish vessels that posed a risk to the Rock.

The CINC in Gibraltar was sufficiently concerned about the risk from this exercise, however unlikely it may have been, to formally put in place “covert preparations to deal with any attempt, admittedly extremely unlikely, at an amphibious assault on Gibraltar”.

These measures included covertly preparing and arming Royal Navy warships to be ready to sail at short notice to monitor the force if it moved eastwards out of the exercise area towards Gibraltar. If it continued, then the Army units would be brought to very high readiness, and aircrew in their cockpits. The proposed ROE stated that the Royal Navy would not engage until “enemy opens fire or have landed in Gibraltar and opened fire”.

Spain did not, of course, invade, but it led to an urgent MOD reappraisal of the defences needed for Gibraltar to defend against “the situation in which a local Spanish commander might decide to attempt an unsupported and unauthorised adventure against the Rock”. The conclusions were that there was insufficient anti-aircraft artillery, relying on WW2 40mm bofors guns to defend the airfield, insufficient counter battery fires to counter Spanish artillery (16 x 105mm guns and AA missiles) as well as a lack of surveillance radar.

The central tension though was balancing the requirement to defend and reinforce Gibraltar against the need to manage local tensions and diplomatic relationships. Too visibly surging too much military equipment onto the Rock would potentially ratchet up tensions and damage bilateral relations. Consequently, everything had to be done through the prism of balancing off the need to defend the colony with the need to maintain a low profile.

After the end of the Falklands War the UK continued to be concerned about the defence of Gibraltar, from both the risk from an unauthorised Spanish ‘adventure’ and that of Soviet attack in general war. For several years after the war ended, the RAF maintained a Jaguar detachment of two aircraft in Gibraltar to provide an immediate close air support capability, while the Royal Navy kept a Lynx with anti-ship missiles and surveillance equipment, to both monitor passing Soviet naval vessels and defend against any Spanish amphibious ships.

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The mid-1980s was a politically complex time in bilateral relations, with Spain moving to democracy and joining NATO and the EU. The UK was keen to improve the relationship but remained concerned about the risk from a rogue Spanish commander attacking. The presence of the Jaguar and Lynx detachments were seen as timely and effective, but they imposed a significant operational burden on the Jaguar force, which was committed to operations in central Germany. The RAF was keen to end the detachment, while the CINC of Gibraltar wanted reassurance that in an attack the UK could defend the Rock.

This led to discussions in the MOD around how to balance off a reduction in commitments, ensure that the removal of the Jaguars didn’t send the wrong signals to Spain about UK commitment to Gibraltar, while also enhancing the overall defences locally. Much of this was non contentious, for example stockpiling more NBC suits and opening a NATO operations centre,  but there was a real challenge with coastal defence.

An ongoing concern was the lack of credible anti-ship capability on the Rock – until the 1960s there had been a significant coastal artillery capability, including 9.2” guns able to exert significant sea control over the Strait of Gibraltar – any opposing force would struggle to defeat them while also taking considerable damage. By the 1970s these guns were all but obsolete.

This shortfall was a significant risk within NATO, increasingly concerned about the ability to prevent a Soviet naval task group from entering /exiting the Med during wartime. Comprehensive plans existed for NATO to reinforce during crisis, particularly before Spain joined NATO, when its neutral status meant that Gibraltar was particularly important to defensive planning. OPLAN ‘FORTRESS GATE’ was created to surge escort ships, maritime patrol aircraft and other surveillance assets to monitor and attack Soviet warships when war began.

To overcome this shortfall, in 1983 the Royal Navy identified an opportunity to take spare Exocet anti-ship missile launchers, freed up because of Leander class frigates being paid off early, and convert them to a Land Based Exocet Launch System (LABELS). The idea of the system was to create an anti-ship missile battery that could be used to attack hostile shipping in wartime, or in extremis, to attack Spanish warships invading Gibraltar.

In wartime the MOD wanted to deploy LABELS at a site some 90m high, on an escarpment able to have fields of fire across the Straits. The challenge with this though is that firing Exocet in a different way from a ships deck required the missile to have certain data programmed into it to enable it to know what mission profile to fly.  Only the French manufacturers could do this, but the MOD was concerned about operational security due to MOD and FCO concerns about how Spain would react if it knew the system was being deployed and “any leak could have an impact on the state of UK / Spanish negotiations over Gibraltar at the time”.

The MOD felt that it could firstly deceive the French and hide the Gibraltar option among various ‘dummy’ options, to conceal from France (and potentially Spain) that Exocet would be deployed. Two alternative lower firing sites were identified that could allow for normal mission profiles to be flown, but due to budget constraints, only one control cab was purchased, which would lead to a two-hour gap between firing salvoes as the cab moved between the two sites.

The challenge was that deploying the system led to a significant Ministerial level falling out between the FCO and the MOD. Baroness Young, then Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, was deeply concerned that deploying LABELS would damage UK bilateral relations with Spain. She noted in a 1984 letter to the Prime Minister that the Spanish:

“could interpret such a move, despite its NATO presentation, as involving a direct threat to Spanish shipping. Second… the Spaniards could still – either genuinely or as a matter of tactics – interpret a decision of this kind by us as impinging unacceptably on their national interests, since it would arguably alter the balance of forces around the coasts of Spain in such a way as to increase the threat to Spain in the course of a wider conflict”

The decision taken in 1985 was that the UK would draw down the Jaguar force, while seeking to fill the gap with regular visits by other RAF jets. The idea being to replace presence with detachments while continuing to send a message of deterrence, along with Exocet to reinforce NATO defences.  The MOD was keen to deploy by 1985, but Prime Minister Thatcher wanted to exercise caution, keen to not risk relations with Spain, while equally not letting NATO down either.  

As best as can be determined, Exocet  was deployed to Gibraltar by about 1986 at a time when the Spanish threat had passed. Indeed, by 1983 the Joint Intelligence Committee had concluded that there was:

“no likelihood of a brigade level attack on Gibraltar. But there will always remain the possibility that a local commander might attempt a comparatively low-level action against Gibraltar. Such an operation is unlikely to have the support of any senior Spanish commander, and it would have none from the Government. Advance warning of an attack of this nature could not, however, be guaranteed.’

The MOD was confident that with the defences in position, the UK could more than hold its own in the unlikely event of an attack transpiring: “To meet the Spanish threat there is currently in Gibraltar a regular infantry battalion, equipped with MILAN and mortars, supported by a company and 6 x LIGHT GUN of the Gibraltar Regiment. A surprise Spanish infantry assault might take some ground, but with the Rock's superb defensive positions the attack ought quickly to be halted near the airfield. Thereafter events would depend upon political negotiations, although a counterattack to restore the airfield and border would be likely.”

Even with this improved situation, the threat from the Soviet Union remained – the MOD assessed that in war it would be a prime target for attack by the Soviets through  “mining the approaches to the harbour, or, less likely, the Strait itself; the insertion of special forces from submarines or merchant ships to sabotage military installations; submarine launched missile attacks; and air attack by medium bombers using bombs and stand-off missiles.”

With the need to demonstrate to NATO that the UK took the defence of the Straits seriously, the decision was taken at some point in 1985 to deploy Exocet to Gibraltar. Records of its time in service are highly limited, as best as can be determined it was deployed in the late 1980s, but by 1991 was probably already out of routine use due to the collapse in threat. The withdrawal of Exocet from Royal Navy service in 1997 would have seen its final withdrawal, at a point when the threat from Spain had vanished too.

This story shows us the challenge of planning for unthinkable contingencies. Today the notion that barely 40 years ago the UK continued to assess there was a very remote, but still credible military threat to Gibraltar, and actively planned how to defend against a surprise Spanish attack seems barely believable. Thankfully our bilateral relations are in a much stronger position, and we should all be relieved that this subject is now one for ‘what if’ threads on the internet, not planning sessions in military headquarters preparing for the unthinkable.

 

Of note here is the ROE referring to Spanish troops as "enemy on Gibraltar territory".