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  A Time of Tyrants

  A Time of Tyrants

  Scotland and the Second World War

  Trevor Royle

  First published in 2011 by

  Birlinn Limited

  West Newington House

  10 Newington Road

  Edinburgh

  EH9 1QS

  www.birlinn.co.uk

  Copyright © Trevor Royle 2011

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher

  The moral right of Trevor Royle to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  ISBN: 978 1 84341 055 3

  eBook ISBN: 978 0 85790 094 4

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Typeset by Iolaire Typesetting, Newtonmore

  Printed and bound by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin

  Always in the darkest loam

  A birthday is begun;

  And from its catacomb

  A candle lights the sun.

  William Soutar,

  ‘In the Time of Tyrants’,

  1937

  Contents

  List of Illustrations

  Preface and Acknowledgements

  Prologue: The Last Hurrah; Bellahouston 1938

  1 Here We Go Again

  2 Phoney War

  3 Defeat, Retreat and Making Do

  4 Frontline Scotland

  5 Scotland’s Conscience, Moral and Political

  6 Total War

  7 The Arsenal of War

  8 Home Front

  9 Sikorski’s (and other) Tourists

  10 Striking Back

  11 Victory in Europe and the Far East

  12 Brave New World

  Epilogue: The Beginning of a New Song

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Index

  List of Illustrations

  1. What Scotland’s future looked like in the summer of 1938: the Palace of Engineering at the Empire Exhibition in Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park.

  2. Hawker Hart light bombers of 603 (City of Edinburgh) Squadron above the Forth railway bridge in 1934.

  3. First casualties of war: survivors from the sinking of SS Athenia arrive at fog-bound Greenock on 5 September 1939.

  4. Mathematics class in progress at Broomlee evacuation camp near West Linton.

  5. Although the anticipated chemical warfare attacks failed to materialize, people were encouraged to carry gas masks and to practise wearing them.

  6. Kilbowie Road in Clydebank after the first intensive enemy bombing attack on the night of 13 March 1941.

  7. A section of local defence volunteers on patrol by Loch Stack in Sutherland.

  8. General Wladyslaw Sikorski and King George VI inspecting Polish troops at Glamis Castle.

  9. Tom Johnston, Churchill’s Secretary of State for Scotland between 1940 and 1945.

  10. Two foresters from British Honduras (Belize) cutting timber for pit props and wood pulp in East Linton.

  11. A working party of ‘Lumber Jills’ of the Women’s Timber Corps formed in 1942 to train young women for war work in Scotland’s forests.

  12. Fairfield drillers at work on a gun-shield for the battleship HMS Howe prior to commissioning in August 1942.

  13. Hugh MacDiarmid working at Mechan’s Engineering Company, 1942.

  14. A group of women workers preparing ration packs of tea, milk and sugar at the Scottish Co-operative and Wholesale Society (SCWS) factory at Shieldhall in Glasgow in 1942.

  15. Commandos cross a toggle bridge at the Commando Training Depot at Achnacarry in Inverness-shire.

  16. Men of the 2nd Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders engaged in jungle training in Malaya in 1941.

  17. Blindfolded survivors from the Scharnhorst are led ashore at Scapa Flow after the German battle-cruiser was sunk by a naval force led by HMS Duke of York on 26 December 1943.

  18. The two of the four-man crew of the X-class midget submarine HMS Extant (X-25) prepare to dock in the Holy Loch.

  19. A line of allied merchant ships makes its way around the north cape of Norway to the Russian ports of Murmansk and Archangel.

  20. The pipes and drums of the 51st Highland Division play in the main square of Tripoli on 28 January 1943.

  21. Led by a piper soldiers of the 2nd Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders move up to the attack during Operation Epsom on 26 June 1944 to outflank Caen.

  22. Major-General T.G. Rennie, commander of the 51st Highland Division in Rouen in September 1944.

  23. A De Havilland Mosquito VI fighter-bomber of 143 Squadron fires rockets at German merchant ship during an attack by the Banff Strike Wing on the harbour at Sandefjord in Norway.

  24. Soldiers of 10th Highland Light Infantry come ashore after crossing the Rhine at the end of March 1945 as part of the final push into Germany.

  25. Victory parade in Bremerhaven on 12 May 1945 led by the pipes and drums of the 51st Highland Division.

  26. Crowds celebrate VE Day in Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh.

  Preface and Acknowledgements

  This book was conceived as a sequel to The Flowers of the Forest, an account of the part played by Scotland in the First World War, which was published in 2006. It is similar in structure and sets out to bring together the military history of the Second World War with an narrative about Scotland’s political, social and economic role during the conflict. Like its predecessor the intention is not simply to write a history of the war as seen through Scottish eyes or to wrap its main events in a kilt. Rather, it is the story of the role played by Scotland and Scots in the British (and wider Allied) management of a war which was very different from the preceding global conflict. Inevitably, many of the concerns of The Flowers of the Forest are revisited in this book: the role of women; the contribution of the heavy industries; the ever-changing kaleidoscope of Scottish domestic politics; and Scotland’s contribution to the war effort through the armed forces, especially the roles played by the three Scottish infantry divisions and other Scottish forces on all the main battle fronts. Some personalities reappear from the earlier conflict – politicians such as Tom Johnston and James Maxton, and poets Hugh MacDiarmid and William Soutar, for example – and some issues resurface, such as the question of home rule which was one of the casualties of August 1914 and which remained unresolved until the passing of the Scotland Act in 1998.

  Otherwise the war of 1939–45 was a completely different experience, and it threw up problems and issues which were quite dissimilar from the events of the earlier conflict. For a start, between the fall of France in May 1940 and the decision of the USA to enter the war following the Japanese attack on its Pacific naval base of Hawaii in December 1941, Britain prosecuted the war against Germany alone, with the support of Dominion forces and the free forces of those European powers which had managed to escape from Nazi occupation. That gave Scotland a distinctive role as many of the émigré forces, notably the Poles, were stationed in the country and added to the sense that – in the closing stages, at least – the Allies were indeed a ‘united nations’. Many of the Poles stayed on in Scotland after the war, either because they had married Scottish girls or were persuaded not to return to their homeland following the carve-up at Yalta in February 1945 which laid the basis for the creation of a Communist government in post-war Poland. Norwegians, French, British Hondurans, Italians and Americans added to the racial mix, and for the first time in many years Scotland became a more variegated place socially and culturally, even if it was
only a temporary innovation.

  There were other factors. The Scottish land mass provided ideal territory for training, especially in the remote Highlands and Western Islands, most of which was a Protected Area throughout the conflict. Industry, mainly in the central belt, also played a part, and it is true to say that the war came as a lifeline to shipbuilding, steel and munitions. Whether that was for good or for ill in the longer term is still a moot point. As happened in the earlier conflict, women played a full role with thousands being conscripted under the terms of the National Service Acts of 1941. It is also fair to claim that the arts in Scotland flourished during the war, especially in literature where a new generation of younger writers such as J.K. Annand, Hamish Henderson, Maurice Lindsay, Alexander Scott and Douglas Young built on the example of Hugh MacDiarmid’s renaissance movement of the 1920s. But it was in the world of politics that the war had the deepest impact on Scotland. Although the country remained part of the union, and political nationalism was never a determining factor in national life until the 1970s, Scotland was offered a tantalising glimpse of what devolution might be like under the guardianship of Secretary of State Tom Johnston.

  Most of the research for this volume was conducted in the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh and the National Archives at Kew. In both places I received nothing but courteous assistance from the ever-helpful staff. Thanks are also due to the staff of the National Library of Scotland, where I have been a reader for over four decades, and the University of Edinburgh Library, where extended loans of key texts greatly aided my research. I am also grateful to Professor Tom Devine for making it possible for me to hold an Honorary Fellowship in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh, where I enjoyed the ready support of my friend Dr Jeremy Crang during his tenure as director of the Centre for the Study of the Two World Wars. After many years writing as an independent historian this was a singular privilege. It has also been of some significance to me that most of the book was written at my home in Portobello which stands less than a hundred yards from targets machine-gunned during the Luftwaffe’s first major attack on the UK mainland in October 1939.

  For permission to quote copyright material I would like to thank the following: Carcanet Press for ‘The New Divan 99’ by Edwin Morgan from Edwin Morgan, The New Divan, Carcanet Press, 1977; Eric Glass Ltd for ‘Consanguinity’ by Ronald Duncan from Ronald Duncan, The Perfect Mistress, Rupert Hart Davis, 1969; Robert Hale Ltd for excerpts from Maurice Lindsay, Thank You for Having Me, Robert Hale Ltd, 1983; Cath Scott for ‘Coronach for the Dead of the 5/7th Battalion The Gordon Highlanders’ by Alexander Scott MC, from Alexander Scott, Selected Poems 1943–1974, Akros Publications, Preston 1975. Extracts from regimental histories are produced by kind permission of the trustees of regiments concerned. Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders and any omissions will be made good in future editions.

  No writer could hope to have a more agreeable or supportive publisher than Birlinn. Hugh Andrew welcomed the proposal with enthusiasm, and I received nothing but professional help and support from him and his colleagues. They all have my thanks.

  Trevor Royle

  Edinburgh/Angus

  Spring 2011

  Prologue

  The Last Hurrah; Bellahouston 1938

  To the casual observer with only a passing knowledge of Glasgow’s history, a visit to Bellahouston Park is not very different from a stroll in the park in any other municipal recreational area in Scotland or the United Kingdom The grassland is well manicured, the pathways are meandering and discreet, trees punctuate the rolling terrain, locals and visitors mingle or take their ease in the sun. Hanging over the acres there is an air of gentle if poignant contemplation. It is still used for civic and national events – the park has been the scene of two recent papal visits and masses, for Pope John Paul II in the summer of 1982 and again in September 2010 for Pope Benedict XVI – and it is well used by those who live on the south side of the city. Once part of the lands of Govan and surrounding Ibroxhill and Drumbreck, Bellahouston came into civic ownership at the end of the nineteenth century, and at one time its 175 acres made it the largest public park in Britain. There are the usual sports facilities such as a bowling green, a golfing pitch-and-putt course and modern all-weather pitches, but Bellahouston Park is not just a civic amenity in which the locals take considerable pride. It is all that remains of a short-lived monument to a year, 1938, when everything seemed to be for the best in the best of all possible worlds. As such, the park was a last hurrah for a way of life that might have turned out very differently had Scotland and the rest of the world not gone to war in the following summer.

  Look again at the park and its contours, especially the central whaleback ridge which dominates the area, and let your imagination roam. That neat white building near the centre with the bold proclamation ‘Palace of Art’ gives a clue. Squat but angular, and book-ended by two small pavilions, its colonnaded front still catches the eye and it is as neat and robust as it was when it was first created all those years ago by Launcelot Ross, a well-known Glasgow architect with strong links to the Territorial Army. Today it acts as a centre of sporting excellence but it is also a reminder of one of the most extraordinary events in Glasgow’s history, a beacon of hope in a year when Scotland had put behind it the misery of the Great Depression, and national self-confidence was once again in the ascendant. Apart from the mirage of memory and a plinth marking the spot where over 140 buildings were thrown up between Mosspark Boulevard and Paisley Road West, it is all that remains of the Empire Exhibition of 1938, an event which has been described as ‘the last durbar’, a gathering place for an empire which would soon be swept away by the great storm of war. It is just possible to visualise other points of reference in the park, and a modern three-dimensional computerised project launched in 2008 has resurrected something of the original grandeur, but to all intents and purposes the Empire Exhibition is now part of the irretrievable past.1

  In common with many other similar events associated with the city of Glasgow, the planning for the 1938 Empire Exhibition was replete with civic confidence and was certainly not lacking in ambition. The original motivation was to promote Scotland as an important commercial and industrial centre, but the overarching aspiration was to create a bold and brash event which would provide a lasting impression of what Scotland had to offer the rest of the world. Quite simply, its organisers were determined that the exhibition should be the best of its kind, not a parochial event in a post-industrial city, but a prestigious exposition that would place Scotland at the heart of the British Empire. That much became clear at the first meeting of the steering committee which was held in the Merchant’s House in Glasgow on 5 October 1936. The gathering was organised under the auspices of the Scottish National Development Council (SNDC), which itself had been founded on 8 May 1931 by the Convention of Royal Burghs, to promote the cause of Scotland’s industries at a time when they had been battered by the effects of the economic depression of the 1930s and to attempt to find solutions to the prevailing malaise. Amongst those involved in the creation of the SNDC were Sir Henry Keith, former Provost of Hamilton and a prominent Unionist MP, William Watson of Glasgow, organiser of the Scottish Trades Development Association and Edward James Bruce, 10th Earl of Elgin, a director of the Royal Bank of Scotland, who outlined what the exhibition should attempt to produce: ‘The effort must embrace Scotland as a whole, it must aim at expanding Scottish industry and employment and must not overlook the great asset Scotland has in its charms of scenery and opportunities for holiday, sport and pleasure.’2

  It was a stirring call to arms but almost immediately the committee had a problem. Under the rules for regulating and staging international exhibitions agreed by the Bureau International des Expositions (International Exhibitions Bureau) there was no vacancy until 1947. This was clearly too far ahead for the organising committee and as a result it was decided to hold an exhibition which would
be centred on the British Empire, similar to one which had been held at Wembley in London in 1924. Not only would such an event fall outside the international regulations but it would also commemorate an entity – the British Empire – which covered 25 per cent of the globe and was home to some 450 million inhabitants.

  For Glasgow that had added resonance. Somewhat self-consciously it was styled the ‘Second City of Empire’ (Liverpool also laid claim to the title, as did Calcutta), Clyde-built ships helped to hold the empire together and the heavy industries of the Clyde valley looked to the empire for their main markets. The city was also home to the manufacture of a huge variety of goods, from marine engines and locomotives to carpets and foodstuffs, which were sold all over the world. There was also the experience of the recent past. Glasgow was no stranger to mounting this type of international exhibition: the first, held in Kelvingrove Park in 1888, was the largest to its kind since London’s ‘Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations’ of 1851 with its magnificent centrepiece of the Crystal Palace, a great cathedral of iron and glass which dominated the open ground on the south side of Hyde Park between Queen’s Gate and Rotten Row. Glasgow’s effort was equally successful in promoting ‘the wealth, the productive enterprise and the versatility of the great people who flourish under Her Majesty’s reign’ and it was followed by two further events in 1901 and 1911, the latter of which had the laudable aim of raising funds for the creation of a chair in Scottish history and literature at Glasgow University. (In this it was successful.)

  More than any other factor, though, the driving force behind the 1938 Empire Exhibition was the need to galvanise the industries of the west of Scotland in the aftermath of the recent economic downturn. By then twenty years had passed since the end of the First World War, and Scotland’s experience in those decades had been one of general decline and a gradual collapse in confidence. In the immediate aftermath of the conflict the economy had remained reasonably buoyant, mainly as a result of the wartime boom and the optimism generated by the end of the war, but by the early 1920s the alarm bells were ringing. Between 1921 and 1923 shipbuilding on the Clyde dropped from 510,000 tons to 170,000 tons as a result of cancellations, delayed orders and the effects of the Washington Treaty of 1921 which limited the size and extent of Britain’s future warship construction.3 Industrial unrest also added to the problems – a dispute with the boilermakers in 1923 and the effects of the general strike three years later affected production – but the Clyde was already beginning to pay for the artificial boom which had rescued it during the First World War. On 5 January 1931 the unthinkable happened when the last ship to be built at the huge Beardmore complex left the Clyde and the once-busy shipyard at Dalmuir was put up for sale.