Gibraltar Posting was Lucky Break

Junior reporter Alan Moorehead was certainly in the right place at the right time — Gibraltar.

Moorehead, who would go on to become a famous war corre spondent was a young man in his twenties when he sailed from his native Australia to London in hopes of finding work as a journalist. His ambition was to be a foreign corre spondent for a major newspaper.

Before applying for a job Moore head traveled around the conti nent to gain some life experienc. He celebrated his 26th birthday, 22nd July 1936, in Paris where he watched Josephine Baker dance in her famous 'banana' girdle at the Folies' Bergere. He took in the 'Nazi' Olympic Games at Berlin before returning to London where a friend introduced him to, Arthur Christiansen, an editor of the Daily Express owned by Lord Beaverbrook.

In his biography of Moorehead, Tom Pocock wrote: "Christiansen, knowing Beaverbrook's liking for keen young men from the frontiers of the Empire, greeted Moorehead warmly. There were no staff jobs available, he said,but he could offer temporary work,"

The big story of the day was the Spanish Civil War.

That was being covered by senior staff reporters but Christiansen liked to keep reporters just off stage and there was an opening at Gibraltar. He offered Moorehead the job on a retainer of £5 a week and expenses. Two weeks later the inexperienced lad from Down Under was checking into the smart new Rock Hotel.

Initially Moorehead found little to do in Gibraltar.

He met government officials and officers of the garrison and "...walked endlessly up and down the narrow length of Main Street, noisy each night with the blare of flamenco musicfrom gramophones playing in shops and brass bandsin the bars; he scanned the bare hills across the bay through binoculars for signs of war."

Then on 30th May, a Sunday, Moorehead got his big break when a pale-grey warship steamed slowly into the harbour.

She was the German battleship Deutschland and she had been given permission to dock at Gibraltar to offload her dead and receive medical attention for her wounded. The Deutschland had been bombed while lying off Ibiza and twentythree of her crew had been killed and another eighty-three were wounded.

It was not known if the Deutsch land had been giving covert aid to Franco's Nationalist army or if she had been bombed in a case of mistaken identity but Moorehead had his first big story.

The next morning the headline 'Nazi Battleship Bombed'stretched across the top of the front page of the Daily Express and on page two there was a report from Gibraltar by a'Daily Express Correspondent'. Newspapers were very miserly with bylines in those days.

In his book Pocock recorded that the text, "...was largely couched in the sub-editors'journalese but a few descriptive touches suggested that its original author had been an eye-witness. Enough remained to convince Moorehead that the way to success in journalism lay as much in descriptive writing as in the delivery of hard news",

In London Christiansen was im pressed with the young reporters 'fresh' eye so when Deutschland's sister ship Graf Spee bombarded Valencia in retaliation Moorehead was ordered to go there and report. The only transport Moorehead could find, however, was a tramp steamer and he arrived too late for the main story.

Buthe wasnow firmly entrenched in the job and was assigned to sail around the Mediterranean and investigate blockade running by the Russians (for the Republicans) and the Italians and Germans (for the Nationals). fMoorehead had spent six months in Gibraltar learning his craft and from there he never looked back. During World War II he won an international reputation for his cov erage of campaigns in the Middle East, Asia, the Mediterranean and Europe. He was twice mentioned in dispatches and was awarded an OBE. He also became a successful author with his books Gallipoli, The White Nile, The Blue Nile, The Traitors, The Russian Revolu tion and a biography of General Montgomery.

Gallipoli, released in 1956, re ceived unprecedented critical ac claim, won the Sunday Times gold medal and was the first recipient of the Duff Cooper Memorial Award* (see below) and the presentation was made by Winston Churchill.

Moorehead visited Gibraltar again during World War II. He reacquainted himself with the Rock Hotel and was given a personal tour ofthe tunnels by the Governor, General Mason-MacFarlane. After the war he became a celebrity in his own right and hob-nobbed with the likes ofErnest Hemingway,Charles Laughton, P.G. Wodehouse and the cartoonist Charles Addams. He confessed that his social life had "a whiff of F. Scott Fitzgerald" about it.

Alan Moorehead was born in Melbourne in 1910. He married Lucy Milner in October 1939 and they had two sons and a daughter. Lucy was killed in 1980 when the car she was driving in Orbetello, Italy was hit by a lorry. Moorehead was in the passenger seat at the time. He was unharmed except for a mild concussion but he had suf fered a stroke a few years earlier and after Lucy's death his health deteriorated. He died in London on September 29th 1983.

* Alfred Duff Cooper, 1st Viscount Norwich(February 22,1890 - January 1,1954),known as DuffCooper, was a British diplomat. Cabinet member and acclaimed author.

Q: the name come? The word Casemates, meaning a bomb proof compartment, usually of masonry, to house a magazine or troop quarters, comes from the Italian 'Casamatta' from the Latin 'Casa'(house)and 'Matto'(mad) originating from the Latin 'Mattus'(drunk)!