Britain issued a call for volunteers to fight against the Soviet invaders in Finland, but it was already too late: the Russian army had finally broken through the Mannerheim line on 15 February. Finnish forces retreated to a second line of defence, but it was now only a matter of time before this, too, was overwhelmed. On Friday 16 February the British destroyer HMS Cossack violated Norwegian neutrality and forcibly removed 303 British prisoners from the German transport Altmark while it was in Norway’s territorial waters.
Despite the lack of fighting during the so-called “Phoney War”, the next round of registration for conscription to National Service in Caithness took place on Saturday 17 February, for all men aged 20-23, except for those in reserved occupations.
Meanwhile, men and women across Caithness continued to join the armed forces, leaving vacancies that had to be filled. The head teacher of Wick North School recorded in the log book on 12 February, “Mr Cumming left this afternoon to take up military duties”. (Mr Cummings had previously had leave of absence for his army medical examination on 18 January.)
The war at sea continued to take its toll. The John O’Groat Journal reported that one sailor from Wick and two from Sutherland were believed lost when the oil tanker Gretafield of Newcastle was torpedoed 10 miles off the north-east coast of Scotland. Fishing trawlers rushed to the scene and rescued those who had been able to get to the lifeboats, but there were no other survivors from the burning tanker.
On land the authorities were concerned enough about accidents during the Blackout (regular readers will remember the elderly gentleman who fell into Scrabster harbour back in November during Week 10) that they felt it necessary to place advertisements in the newspapers, advising the public to “Look Out In The Blackout”, and pointing out that nearly 1,200 Britons had been killed in accidents in December alone – an astonishing number.
Finally, controversy reared its head in the leet (i.e., recruitment) of a Public Assistance officer to the Western District Council. Despite being advertised nationally, the Chairman, “in a few well-chosen if familiar phrases about our sea maws” (“our ain fish guts for our ain sea maws”), jokingly consigned almost all the applications from outside the county “to the waste paper basket, and the willing Committee were soon able to winnow the local list”. (In fact, within a few weeks public outrage would force the committee to re-run the leet, and include candidates from outside Caithness.)
