Hora Zero

Summer of 1943. A possible English invasion of the peninsula was floating in the air to oust General Franco from power. British planes fly over Spanish territory and bomb German submarines. British Ambassador Samuel Hoare requests an urgent meeting with Francisco Franco at his summer retreat from Pazo de Meirás. The following days the rumor spread through the peninsular capitals that at the beginning of October a British landing would take place on the Tagus and that the following day Portugal would declare war on Japan. Samuel Hoare does not return to Madrid until October 10. In the conversations of these days between Churchill, Eden and Hoare the 8 of October was indicated like the "Zero Hour". This work deals with the process of construction, development and adaptation of British espionage in Spain in the years of the Second World War. Based on an investigation carried out on British and Spanish sources, it provides an overall interpretation of the intelligence services in Spain in those years of uncertainty.