In Stalingrad the Germans were digging in for the coming winter; but the Romanians, positioned on their flank, reported alarming numbers of Soviet troops massing across the Volga. The German commanders noted the reports without concern. Meanwhile, in the Western Desert Rommel ordered a retreat from El Alamein on 4 November: the Allies under Montgomery had won their first major land battle against Nazi Germany, just days before Operation Torch, the American-led invasion of Morocco and Algiers, began on 8 November.
Across Caithness farms were now busy with sheep dipping and harvesting the potato crop. The John O’Groat Journal reported that in Dunbeath, “Farmers are now busy lifting their potatoes, of which there is a good crop, but labour is difficult to get. On some of the later holdings corn still has to be cut, while there is quite a lot of corn to drive in.”
The scarcity of labour meant that children had to be taken out of school for this crop too. Bower School log book records on 9 November, “Attendance irregular, partly due to children being employed at potato-lifting”.
In Gillock School, “Harvest operations, potato-lifting & … illness has interfered with the regularity of attendance.”
On the subject of harvests, the John O’Groat Journal reported an anecdote about Neil Macpherson, catechist, of Halkirk: “A storm of wind was driving his corn every way and, and his wife went out to rescue the crop. She wondered why her husband did not come out to help her, and on investigating found him in the barn praying. She asked why he did not come to help. Neil said: ‘Your God was scattering but my God was ruling.’”
On the previous weekend the civil defence authorities had mounted a large-scale “invasion” of Wick, exploring the scenario of heavy bombing on Saturday followed by an invasion on Sunday. In some places the attackers broke through the perimeter defences and fighting took place on the streets of the town.
The John O’Groat Journal reported the exercise, which even affected the monthly meeting of the Wick Harbour Trustees at the Town Hall on the following Monday. When several members were “reduced almost to tears”, Mr Harold Georgeson, interim clerk, asked “Are your eyes smarting?” “Everyone admitted so, and after a little it dawned upon the Trustees that they were suffering slightly from the effects of tear gas, which had been used the previous day when the “enemy” attacked the Town Hall during the weekend “invasion” exercise.”
