It took the German forces less than a month to overrun Western Europe. Luxembourg and Holland had already surrendered, and now the Allied armies in Belgium were trapped, cut off by the German “blitzkrieg” in a gradually shrinking pocket; Amiens, Abbeville and Calais were all captured by German troops this week. On Saturday 25 May the Allies began a desperate retreat to Dunkirk for evacuation to England. Also this week, the Allies finally abandoned operations in Norway and the British fascist Oswald Mosley and his wife were imprisoned.
On 24 May the head teacher of Whaligoe School reflected the sombre mood in an entry in the school log book: “Today, instead of carrying out the usual morning exercises a special lesson on The British Empire was taken. At the conclusion the National Anthem was sung. The pupils had brought a collection towards The Overseas Tobacco Fund for our soldiers in France.”
Meanwhile, the John o’Groat Journal ran an advertisement for the Local Defence Volunteers Force; but rather than just asking for general volunteers, and bearing in mind the rural, unoccupied nature of so much of Caithness, it called for, “Useful men, stalkers, gamekeepers, shepherds and others, who know the outlying districts of the County, are specially required for enemy attempts to land forces in the County by parachute or otherwise.”
Also this week, the County’s Director of Education, Captain Ian M’Hardy, was named as the commander of the Local Defence Volunteers for Caithness.
At the start of the war the RAF had requisitioned Wick’s recently-built North School for use as an operations centre, as well as some rooms in Pulteneytown Academy. Pupils from these schools were therefore dispersed for lessons among church and town halls, as well as in the previously condemned and empty South School. Now Captain M’Hardy noted that South School had been occupied as “an emergency measure, due to the compulsory requisitioning of Wick North School”, and adding that “such an intimation may have a useful effect on the question of compensation” when North School was eventually vacated.
Finally, the John O’Groat Journal reported how two Irishmen found themselves entangled in the red tape of the North Highland Protected Area this week. One had received a pass for Invergordon and, finding no work there, had been allowed to pass north into Caithness; the other had been working in the county when the Protected Area was established. In each case, the men had presented themselves to the authorities and asked for a pass to go south, only to be arrested for being in Caithness without a permit! Now, on top of that, the Sheriff ruled that one of the men would either have to stay in prison until his pass was issued, or pay a £5 fine.
