Useless Mouths sheds light on Gibraltar’s overlooked wartime history

Richard Garcia’s new book, Useless Mouths, explores Gibraltar’s preparations for the Second World War and the sudden evacuation of its civilian population. It is the first volume in a planned trilogy and he will present his book in the Gibraltar Gibunco Literary Festival. Mr Garcia discusses the book with Gibraltar Chronicle Features Editor Maria Jesus Corrales. 

You will be presenting your new book at the Gibraltar Gibunco Literary Festival. 

Yes. The book is called Useless Mouths, because that was the term the Governor used to refer to the people of Gibraltar at the time. He said: “I will get rid of them.” 

It is a topic that has not been studied until now. 

The book deals with the period leading up to the evacuation of the civilian population. Tell me a bit about it. 

This is the first volume of a larger work, a trilogy called Gibraltarians at War. 

The first volume deals with the build-up to the war, beginning with the Sudeten crisis in September 1938, when Neville Chamberlain went to see Hitler and came back saying that he had agreed “peace for our time”. Of course, it was just appeasement. 

While people in England were being prepared for war and issued with gas masks, there was nothing in Gibraltar. 

People suddenly became aware that there might be a war and that they were not prepared. They were afraid. A civil defence structure then began to develop, eventually becoming the Air Raid Precaution (ARP) scheme. 

Were people trained for the war? 

The air raid shelters were built by the City Council with money provided by London. There were a lot of people undergoing training and aid training. People were trained, for example, to remove rubble from bombed buildings. 

Meanwhile, people were trying to get on with their ordinary lives. There were parties, the first Walt Disney colour film was shown in Gibraltar, and there was a fancy-dress event for children at the Rock Hotel. 

Lionel Codali, who later became an undertaker, won the prize as Prince Charming. 

There was also horse racing, football tournaments and the very first fashion show in Gibraltar. A couturier from Paris came and showed his designs at the Rock Hotel. He brought over two models, but they were called mannequins. 

At the same time, was the British government preparing the Rock for war, given Gibraltar’s strategic importance during the conflict? 

No. The assessment of the British government was that Gibraltar was not initially at risk. 

One of the things I found was that Gibraltar had only one third of the guns it should have had at the outbreak of war. People did not know that. It was a big secret. 

One governor, Lord Ironside, who supported the people a lot, left just before the war, and General Sir Clive Liddell came in. He was the one who called the people the “useless mouths”. 

He did not have the respect for Gibraltarians that Governor Ironside had. Things were different. Governor Liddell did a lot to develop the fortress but could not care less about the people. They were in the way. 

That is what I am looking at with my work. This period has never really been studied. 

In housing, for example, the irony was that Harrington Buildings on Cumberland Road was being built to provide better housing for people living in slum accommodation. 

The flats were allocated at the very end of 1939 and into 1940, just in time for the people who had finally got their new homes to be evacuated. 

It is a contradiction. 

There was also a fear that Gibraltar’s civilian population, which numbered about 17,000 at the outbreak of war, would be joined by another 3,500 people from La Linea if war started. It was thought that they would come rushing into Gibraltar, and we could not cope with them. 

The military therefore cleared the whole North Front area, forcing people to lose their factories there. My grandfather lost three factories. They knocked everything down, clearing the area for military purposes. Everyone who had a licence there lost a great deal without compensation. 

There were also refugees from the Spanish Civil War living in Gibraltar, some of them in Western Beach. They were moved out. 

How many of these refugees remained in Gibraltar, given that around 10,000 arrived in 1936? 

There were still between 1,500 and 2,000 Spanish refugees, including women and children. People were being cleared out of the area. 

The Colonial Secretary then wanted to put the people coming from Spain in tents at North Front. So, on the one hand, the military were saying, “We're going to clear it”, while, on the other hand, the colonial government was saying, “right, we're going to populate it.” 

It was the usual story of the right hand and the left hand not working together. 

A lot of Spaniards were working in the dockyard, which was important at the time. But the biggest of its three main docks, its greatest asset, was out of commission because it was being rebuilt and enlarged. 

Talk about bad planning. 

The Gibraltarians did not know they were going to be evacuated? 

They did not know. They thought they were going to stay. They were told they were going to be evacuated just days before it started. 

That was the notice they had. You can imagine the panic, and many of them had never been further than their own streets in their lives. They were very vulnerable people. 

They were the ones who started being sent off to Morocco. It was an enormous culture shock for them. 

They left without knowing when they would be able to return. 

This is also the back story to the evacuation, and I think it is an important story to record. It also covers relations with Spain. 

The priority was to keep Spain out of the war.  

And keep it neutral. 

Remember that the British government was paying enormous bribes to Spanish generals. They were close to Franco to keep Spain out of the war. 

But the workforce was important. The British Government did not want any Spanish territory to be used as a forward base, for example, for Italian aircraft. 

The Italians wanted to bomb Gibraltar, and at times they were unable to do so because of the Levante cloud. They could not see the Rock. The people who stayed here used to call the Levante cloud “La Mano de Dios”. 

Richard Garcia will give two lectures in the Gibraltar Gibunco Literary Festival. The first will be on Tuesday, November 10, from 10:00 to 11:00h. The second will be November 12, from 14:00 to 15:00h. Both will be at the Garrison Library.