Coaling Island in WW2.

This was Coaling Island many years ago and you can see HMS Cormorant (rhs) in the corner of what is now a marina and HMS Hart astern, with an unidentified destroyer on the outer side. On the quay can be seen the collection of fuel storage tanks, which were to become the target of one of the few successful WW2 sabotage attacks against The Rock by enemy agents.

 
                                          The arrangement of the fuel storage facility Coaling Island.

On 30^th June 1943 a bomb was placed on an 11,000 gallon petroleum tank in the enclosure which caused a serious fire spreading rapidly to adjacent fuel drums. Lt. Colonel Henry Clement Medlam, the District Security Officer (DSO), noticed the fire at 1.45 pm and wrote in his report; ‘Drums of petrol were exploding all around me and were being flung into the air by the force of the explosion.’  Witnesses described how ‘sheets of flame shot into the air and a thick cloud of black smoke swirled back over the top of the Rock’ … reported to the Times of the 1^st July 1943.

The bomb was placed by Jose Martin Munoz, who had been born in La Linea on the 18^th July 1924 and after spending several years in Ceuta had returned to his family home in early 1943. He resumed his original profession, as a street photographer, but abandoned that after a few  months and found employment in the Gibraltar shipyard on March 2^nd. After arguments with his family he left home to live in a shack in Calle Nueva where he met Paciano Gonzalez, liaison officer for Abwehr, the German intelligence organisation. On June the 27^th Paco gave him a ‘cigar’ bomb (what SOE called a time pencil) to place in one of the torpedoes of a destroyer that Munoz had access to. The next day Munoz tried to access Coaling Island to place the device but was prevented by the Port Police. So, he hid the explosive device in the coal bunker of the Café Imperial. Munoz had agreed to become a saboteur on the promise of 40,000 pesetas (of which he received only 25,000) so the next day he collected a ‘terrapin’ style bomb which he successfully attached to the fuel tank. In all ten tanks were destroyed, each of 3,300 gallons as well as the original of 11,000 gallons. The loss was estimated at £7000 by Harold Smith, Chief Inspector of the Gibraltar shipyard.

Many of the Spanish agents operating in Gibraltar saw the Abwehr as a source to be milked of cash, for as long as it lasted. Consequently, having no patriotic relationship to the Germans, they often reported their activities to the DSO in Gibraltar and became double agents… milking both sides... fairly typical.. no?  It was one of these, an agent codenamed NAG, who provided the information leading to Munoz’s arrest by Sgt Ferro of the Gibraltar Security Police, as he tried to enter Gibraltar next day.

Munoz was charged with offences under Section 23 of the Gibraltar Defence Regulations 1939 and pleaded guilty before His Honour John McDougall in the Supreme Court that August. He was sentenced to death by hanging. Albert Pierrepoint and his assistant Harry Kirk were flown out via Lisbon to administer the long-drop, at Moorish Castle on Tuesday 11th January, 1944.

               

                                                                    Albert apparently set the drop for 6’ 10”.    

First prepared for Gibraltar History Society Chronicle 2020.       Paul Hodkinson.