View across the Outer Harbour of Stornoway

Tuesday, 7 September 2010

Tuesday 7 September

Although the day started fairly bright, cloud increased through the afternoon and bits and pieces of rain started to bother us. The wind remained fairly strong through the day, leading to a slight delay on the ferry service to Ullapool. As my previous post indicated, I have been transcribing more evidence from the 1883 Napier Commission of Inquiry into the Condition of the Crofters and Cottars in the Highlands and Islands. The submissions at Glendale were a touch worse than from elsewhere in Skye, but I have yet to do Raasay and Portree.

Today saw the 70th anniversary of the start of the London Blitz, and the beginning of the end of Hitler's bid to invade Great Britain. It has been suggested that if he had kept up his attacks on RAF airfields and aircraft, the RAF would have been on its knees in a week or so. The Blitz, which was sustained for weeks and months, claimed thousands of lives, and not just in London. In 1941, a bombing raid on the Glasgow suburb of Clydebank was devastating, and the raid on Coventry in 1940 infamous. After bombing with aircraft, the Nazis switched to bombing with flying bombs (the V1) and rockets (V2) in 1944 and 1945. Again, it is suggested that Hitler's Germany was within weeks or months of developing a jet-propelled aeroplane, which would easily have outflown the propellor-driven planes that the Allies were using.

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