7 JANUARY 1949, Page 21

RECOGNISING FRANCO

Snt,—In his excellent letter in The Spectator of December 24th, Mr. Shackleton Bailey writes that had Franco decided to declare war on ns, " Gibraltar would again have been besieged ; it might even have fallen." It is, I think, not sufficiently realised that if the Germans had occupied Spain, Gibraltar would have been neutralised, even if not captured, in a very short time. Under modem conditions of war, none of our ships could have used Gibraltar harbour and none of our aircraft could have

used the aerodrome.—Yours faithfully, C. A. MILWARD. Wickham Market, Suffolk.