Operation ‘Postmaster’

Occurring on 13 January 1942, this was a British seizure of Axis shipping in Santa Isabel harbour on the neutral Spanish island of Fernando Pó (now Bioko in Equatorial Guinea) in the Gulf of Guinea off the west coast of Africa. The operation was undertaken by the Special Operations Executive’s ‘Maid Honor’ Force, so-named for …

Operation ‘Tracer’ – a British oddity in the defence of Gibraltar

Gibraltar was rightly seen by the British in World War II as one of the three keys to the Mediterranean, and thus the prosecution of the war against Italy after that country had declared war on the UK on 10 June 1940. With the Far East and Australasia vital to British strategic, political and economic …