On 27 May “Operation Dynamo” got underway, the evacuation of Allied forces from the Dunkirk beachhead. The operation would last into next week, by which time almost 340,000 men would have escaped to England, of whom 139,000 were French. On 28 May Belgium surrendered to Germany and King Leopold was interned. Meanwhile fighting continued in France, and General Charles de Gaulle, in command of the French 4th Armoured Division, forced a German division to retreat at Caumont.
In Caithness, men were responding to the call to join the Local Defence Volunteers (or LDV, which would later be known as the Home Guard). Employers submitted lists of their employees who wished to join to the police. In the case of Wick Post Office Radio Station, it was agreed that these workers would be issued with rifles for use “should the occasion arise”, but because of the nature of their work would otherwise not be expected to participate in general LDV duties.
The John O’Groat Journal reported that the Caithness LDV had already begun operations. Under the command of Captain Ian M’Hardy, the following Platoon Leaders had been appointed: southern and eastern area, Admiral Sir E.S. Alexander-Sinclair, Dunbeath; Wick and district, Commander R.R. Gore Browne Henderson, Bilbster; central and western area, Captain William Reid, Halkirk; Thurso and district, Colonel D. Keith Murray, Thurso; and northern and eastern district, Mr D.M. Mackenzie, John O’Groats Hotel.
Instructions were issued to the LDV forces in readiness of a German invasion: soldiers were warned to be on the lookout for poisoned chocolate and cigarettes dropped from the air, and advised that when firing at descending parachutists, “the man will be aimed at and not the parachute”. Arrangements were to be made to have “all sign posts, names of villages, railway stations, etc. taken down and removed”.
The effect of the war on rural life was highlighted this week when the John O’Groat Journal reported that school holidays were to be “scattered” this year, so that “pupils will be free to help the farmers at the in-gathering of the harvest, for which there is expected to be a shortage of labour.” The idea was to have a month’s holiday in July, and then again in September for the “in-gathering of the harvest and the lifting of potatoes”.
Finally, Police Constable George Sinclair of Halkirk recorded that at 11.45 on the night of 5 June a bomb had been dropped on Loch More. It had been reported at 12.05 by John Mackay, gamekeeper at Strathmore, “saying that about fifteen minutes previously an aeroplane, the noise of the engine of which sounded similar to that of a German aeroplane (something like “hoo – hoo – hoo”), had circled above the lodge and had then passed over Loch More, into which a bomb, which exploded with terrific concussion, was dropped”. Fortunately no one was hurt, though two men had been fishing in nearby Loch Beg at the time.
