As March 1940 came to an end, and the Allies waited to see where Germany would strike next, Britain and France agreed on 28 March that neither country would make a separate peace with Germany. Meanwhile both sides were planning to violate Norwegian neutrality: Britain and France intended to mine Norwegian waters to interrupt the supply of Swedish iron ore to Germany and provoke a German response; while Germany planned a full-scale invasion of Norway and Denmark. It was obvious that the end of the “Phoney War” was imminent.
Over on Orkney, Hetty Munro recorded in her diary, “I certainly don’t have the excuse any more that I have nothing to write as we have had lots of air raids but the trouble is that I haven’t the time to write about them all. On March 31st there was a single enemy plane over about 8.30am which was shot at but not taken down. Of course we all expected a raid that night but nothing happened.”
Butter had been rationed since January; now there was some surprise when the ration was doubled just a couple of months on. It turned out that people had been using substitutes such as margarine and cooking fat instead, thinking “that it was patriotic not to eat as much butter as they could have obtained”. But in fact it was these substitutes that were scarce, not butter, since they often had to be imported. As a result, everyone was encouraged to eat more butter!
The John O’Groat Journal reported an epidemic of German measles which had “seriously affected the school attendance in Wick and district” – no less than 398 pupils were absent from Pulteneytown Academy, South School and the High School.
“Phoney War” or no, on 29 March the police reported the sinking by enemy action of the Danish ship SS Christiansborg. One man was lost at sea, but the other 24 crewmen were landed safely at Orkney. From there they were transported to Wick by the SS St Ola, and so on to Edinburgh; they had been going to land at Scrabster “but owing to weather conditions the St Ola was unable to berth at Scrabster”.
The John O’Groat Journal gave a dramatic account of the shooting down of a German plane into the sea. As an eye witness reported: “I saw a white streak coming from the sky. It burst into flames, black smoke arose, and the object disappeared from my view.”
On 31 March the Coastguard Station at Wick received the following message, which they passed on to the police: “We have been informed by the Coastguard Station at Duncansby Head that they had seen shells bursting in the Orkneys. We enquired of the R.A.F. and they have just informed us that a raid had started on Scapa”.
Finally, the John O’Groat Journal reported that Scottish farmers were not employing as many Land Girls as their English counterparts. What, it mischievously asked, was the reason? “Are the Scottish girls of today less suitable than were the Scottish girls of 25 years ago?” While acknowledging that the number of smallholdings in Scotland made employment of Land Girls less viable than elsewhere, the author nevertheless concluded, “it is felt Scottish farmers have proved rather shy of the Land Girls so far”.
