Video: WWII Bunker Hidden Inside Gibraltar’s Rock

An aerial view of Gibraltar. Photo by Adam Cli.

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, John (KC8RZM), who writes:

Hi Thomas,

[The following] is a fascinating little documentary I found on YouTube.

A secret bunker hidden inside Gibralter’s rock with a self-contained transmitter and self-generating power source (a bicycle frame).

The radio details start at the 11 minute mark:

Just thought some SWL might find it interesting, I sure did.

Best,
John
KC8RZM

A fascinating documentary! Thank you for sharing, John!

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5 thoughts on “Video: WWII Bunker Hidden Inside Gibraltar’s Rock”

Paul Evans February 22, 2022 at 11:47 am

Gosh, I watched all of it. In a weird twist, I visited Gibraltar on a school trip in 1971. On the ‘cruise’ ship UGANDA!!! This was one year before I got my ham licence. I imagine my uncle was intriged that I had been to the top of Gib and had even been on the Uganda.

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Paul Evans February 22, 2022 at 11:27 am

There’s some real family history in this one. Our Uncle Fred was a natural wiz at chess and deep mathematical ‘games’ and was recruited to Bletchley Park early in WWII and worked with the Navy group in one of the huts. He travelled across the Atlantic on convoys a couple of times, I think to train-up American agents and to help with the export of the prototype magnetron for safe keeping.
Then he was suddenly sent to Gibraltar and was in the coding group (not actually an op. on radios). He would swim on Europa Point beach and he said in later life he would hear morse ‘in his head’ at night, but not be able to copy it, so clearly was near the ops. Going back to 1939, 10m was wide open and was used by German tanks in Poland for coded comms. As skip lengthened he was moved from BP to Gib. Two years later he was moved to Sierra Leone, thus following the propagation range as it had become better in Sierra Leone than Gib for some of the comms. His brother Peter (my father) was in the UK training radar to new intakes and became a ham right after the end of the war. Both his sons (me and my brother Doc) became hams. Finally, his other brother Alan became a ham in retirement. He never spilt the beans on any detail because of the Official Secrets Act, but it’s what I have pieced together and was amazed to see an article in CQ Magazine years ago as to the reason for West Africa being in the mix! The downside was that after the war he suffered periodic malaria bouts until his death in 2003, caught by being bitten in Africa.

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