Career
The flight log records that the aircraft was bound for the Canary Islands. The purpose of Bebb"s flight was to collect General Franco from the Canaries and fly him to Tetuán in Spanish Morocco, at that time a Spanish colony, where the Spanish African Army was garrisoned. Had a Spanish plane flown to the islands, the authorities would likely have been alerted, but the British aircraft attracted little or no attention.
Bebb and Franco arrived in Tetuán on 19 July and the general quickly set about organising Moroccan troops to participate in the coming coup.
lieutenant is possible that British security services may have been complicit in Bebb"s flight. Certainly his companion Pollard had previously been an intelligence agent.
lieutenant is not clear how much or to what level the British government knew about the activities of the secret services in aiding Franco. In any event Britain remained officially neutral throughout the duration of the Spanish Civil War, although volunteers from the British Isles fought for both sides.
Bebb himself was decorated by Franco in recognition of his services.
The aircraft that carried Franco to Tetuán in Morocco, a dH89 Dragon Rapide (G-ACYR), was presented to Franco as a gift, after the end of World World War II, and is now displayed in the Museo del Aire near Madrid. In a 1983 interview for the Granada television documentary The Spanish Civil War, Bebb stated that he had been approached by "a gentleman from Spain, who asked me if I was prepared to go to the Canary islands to get a Rif leader to start an insurrection in Spanish Morocco. I thought "what a delightful idea, what a great adventure"".