Word: orkneys
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Died. Sir Norman Mcleod Buchan, 84, 18th Earl of Caithness, head of the ancient Highland family that once controlled northern Scotland† and the Orkney Isles; in Castle Auchmacoy, Scotland...
...Norwegians fumed last week when the motorship Cometa, bound from Bergen to neutral Argentina, was reported torpedoed by a U-boat right in Kirkwall, Britain's contraband control port in the Orkney Islands. The Admiralty quickly denied responsibility, said the sinking occurred "hundreds of miles" from Kirkwall in the North...
Next day a squadron of Heinkels swooped on a British convoy near the Orkney Islands. They let go several tons of their "problem children." The British said three neutral merchant ships were hit and two had to be abandoned. The Germans said they dispersed the convoy, sank nine warships and merchantmen, totaling some 42,000 tons, damaged two merchantmen totaling 11,000 tons...
...British Home Fleet was at Scapa Flow last week, because First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill had said it was not there. It was bigger news that a battle squadron of 14 or more Heinkel bombers from their base 600 miles away in Germany sighted the Orkney Islands just as the Saturday sun was setting. Nazi scouts had said the Fleet was there, but the airmen were amazed by its numbers when they got overhead. They picked out the biggest ones, started down...
...quick to admit: 1) that the Fleet was back at Scapa (each ship girt with a "hula skirt" of cables to foil magnetic mines, à la Queen Elizabeth); 2) that at least one ship was seriously hit; 3) that while some of the raiders targeted the fleet, others attacked Orkney airfields where Britain's pursuit ships sat, scoring hits on hangars, planes, civilians (one killed, seven wounded, in addition to seven Jack-tars admitted dead). The Germans said they bombed the airfields because they would not make the same mistake the British did in December "when they tried...