From the Guardian, Saturday 1 January 2011 Full article here . On 15 September 1955, three marines and a civilian scientist from the Royal Navy's new survey ship HMS Vidal were winched from a helicopter on to a tiny, pyramid-shaped outcrop of granite sticking out of the Atlantic Ocean 240 miles west of the Orkneys. It was the height of the cold war and their secret mission was to annex the uninhabitable islet of Rockall and claim it as the last land grab of the British Empire. Witnessed only by a few gannets and sooty fulmars, Sergeant Brian Peel, Lieutenant Commander Desmond Scott, Corporal Anthony Fraser and the naturalist James Fisher mixed buckets of cement and erected a flagpole made from old propeller shafts. Then they bolted a brass plaque commemorating the event to the rock, raised the union flag – standing back carefully in case they fell into the sea – and saluted. "In the name of Her Majesty Queen Eliz...