Held In Catalonia

In 1966 father decided we needed to spend the summer camping our way through Spain, Portugal and of course - Gibraltar.  Summer was perhaps a poor choice since the heat was unbelievable - hitting 121 on several occasions!  I can remember watching the tar on the roads bubbling when we would stop for a lunch or stretching.

So, we drove and camped our way south through France, through Andorra and then down into Spain.

It was late at night when we entered Spain.  As we wound down the narrow gravel road from Andorra and the heights of the Pyrenees Mountains, we were forced to stop at a roadblock.  A uniformed officer approached, asked for our papers, was delighted to practice his English and then spent some time on a walkie-talkie.  Returning the papers, he explained that the road would be closed for a few hours due to highway construction.  So, we were stuck.

About thirty minutes later a group of women approached, walking up the road, set up a table and motioned us to come join them.  A large pot was set out, along with plates and bowls.  They were providing a meal!  We marveled at Spanish hospitality!  The soup was good but the bread was first class!  Dad and the officer talked quite a bit - father in Spanish, the officer in English.  Though we could not know it, father was about to use a whole lot more Spanish in an official capacity!

Once done, the ladies packed up all of their stuff and trotted back down the road and around a bend we could not see beyond.  A short time later the officer returned again and told us that we could now pass the construction zone but to be very careful as workers were still on the roadway and to stay far right.  So we started down and around the bend.

What we were to pass by was miles of what looked like concrete water pipe.  Workers, hundreds of them, were busy drilling holes in the pipe.  It made no sense, but having no real knowledge of construction, who knows what they were doing!  We continued on through the night, eventually reaching a campground by early morning, where we set up and went to bed.

About mid-day we were awaken by the local police whom told us they were interviewing all travelers and wanted to know if we had come from the north the night before.  We said we had and then father told them all about the road construction the night before, the great soup and bread, and then being allowed to continue on after a while.

We then learned that Catalonian Separatists had bee sabotaging the new water pipe construction project.  Ah, that explains all of the holes in the pipe - they were making it unusable!  Then across many questions we were to learn about Franco's problems in Catalonia, the guerrilla movement and the policeman's concerns over Communist activities in the area.  Of course, as we were to find, Franco's freedom was so heavily socialist and the people so preyed upon by the government - no wonder people were involved in what father called Monkey Warfare.....

James Bond For Real?

My father made a point of taking me to all of the opening nights for James Bond films.  Dr. No - stupid, Goldfinger - mostly stupid by I liked the girl with the rifle, Thunderball - pure gold.

I was not really impressed with the beginning of Thunderball and I felt real sorry for that snake if it was real and thrown from one vehicle to another.  The take over of the Vulcan bomber, priceless.  I always loved Delta wing aircraft and the Vulcan was probably the largest and longest living of all of these 1950's relics.

Suddenly, the movie was stopped, the lights came up and an officer standing at the front of the theater ordered all disaster preparedness personnel to report to the lobby immediately.  Father left, the movie restarted and about three hours later father returned to take me home.....  He was very angry over being called out of a movie and not being reimbursed the admissions price!  Plus the NATO theater was a 70 mile drive one way for us.

Seems someone in the audience was familiar enough with the breathing systems on the Vulcan and wondered if the same was in usage on the B-52 and Convair's Delta Dagger (F-102), both nuclear equipped.  If it was multi-passenger and could carry a nuke, its air systems were thoroughly investigated that evening.

I can't say whether or not any problem was actually found, but I am sure that after the release of Thunderball - there was no possibility any gassing of the crew, via the movie plot scenario, as being any longer a possibility.

Tales of Pork

The US used to have a base outside of Tripoli, obviously, if my father was involved - nasty stuff was present.  The base had been there since the end of World War II.  And it seems that there was a certain young officer in the Libyan Army whom was attempting to breech the base perimeter either for the sake of gaining arms or cause an international incident.

What is one to do?  The US Government under Lynden B. Johnson was committed to not offending host countries, but here was a situation where a loose cannon officer was trying to cause an incident and rightfully, even by treaty should be shot for his attempts to scale the wire..

Of course, he did get the incident he sought, just only not quite the way he thought it would go.

Father ordered the water trucks filled with the deep fry fat (hot pork grease) from the NCO club and then driven out to the fence the radicals were gathering near for their morning - "go ahead and blow me off this wire with a fire hose" routine.

The group rushed the fence, a translator warned them of what would happen and they dared the pumpers to make them unclean.

Yeah, a certain young Lieutenant Gaddafi was completely hosed down and left standing covered in pork fat.

Father had a very great laugh over that one.  Of course, officially he was reprimanded by the US State Department, as the Department of Defense promoted him at the same time.

As an aside to this tale, father expressed complete satisfaction at having taken a situation and defused it without the taking of human life.  Since the wire was now even unclean, no one attempted to scale it again.....