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Artillery battery in Gibraltar
Napier of Magdala Battery
is a former
coastal artillery
battery
on the south-western cliffs of the
British Overseas Territory
of
Gibraltar
, overlooking the
Bay of Gibraltar
. It also overlooks
Rosia Bay
from the north, as does
Parson's Lodge Battery
from the south.
[1]
It contains one of two surviving
Armstrong 100-ton guns
.
History
[
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]
In 1883 the
British Government
installed a single
100-ton gun
: a 450 mm
rifled muzzle-loading
(RML) gun made by
Armstrong Whitworth
, at the battery by Rosia Bay that they named
Napier of Magdala Battery
after
Field Marshal
Robert Napier, 1st Baron Napier of Magdala
, who had served as
Governor of Gibraltar
from 1876 to 1883.
[2]
Earlier, in 1879, they had mounted another such gun in Gibraltar at
Victoria Battery
. These two batteries, together with two in
Malta
(
Cambridge Battery
and
Fort Rinella
), were a response to the
Italians
having, in 1873, built the
battleship
Duilio
, which was to receive four
Armstrong Guns
of the same design. The British authorised the construction of Victoria and Napier of Magdala batteries in December 1878; they completed Victoria in 1879 and Napier of Magadala in 1883, at a total cost of
£
35,707. Because the British viewed the two batteries as part of the one large fortress that was the
Rock of Gibraltar
, the batteries lacked all-round protection and any of the close-in defences such as the dry moats with
caponiers
or
counterscarp
galleries that the British installed at Cambridge Battery and Fort Rinella, both of which were free-standing pentagonal forts.
The gun that is now at Napier of Magdala Battery originally armed Victoria Battery, but the British moved it to Napier when the original gun there split during firing practice. The gun at Napier Battery received the nickname, "
The Rockbuster
".
During
World War II
, the
British Army
stationed a battery of four
3.7"
and two Bofors
quick-firing
anti-aircraft guns
at the site. In 1945 they almost fired upon an
Iberia Airlines
Junkers Ju 88
that had wandered into Gibraltar's airspace while on a flight from
Malaga
to
Tetouan
.
[3]
The "Rockbuster" was last fired in 2002 (with a very small signaling charge) to mark the 2002
Calpe Conference
between Gibraltar and Malta.
Philately
[
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]
In 2010 Gibraltar and Malta
jointly issued
a four-stamp set of stamps featuring the two countries' 100-ton guns. Two stamps show the gun at Napier of Magdala Battery, and two the gun at Fort Rinella. One of each pair is a view from 1882, and the other is a view from 2010. The stamps from Gibraltar bear a denomination of 75
pence
, while those from Malta bear a denomination of 0.75 euros.
Gallery
[
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]
Napier of Magdala Battery
Notes
[
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]
- ^
Finlayson (2006), p.34.
- ^
Moreman, T. R. (May 2008).
"Robert Napier"
.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(online ed.). Oxford University Press.
- ^
Galliano (2003), p.76.
References
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]
External links
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]