Scottish Forces in the Second World War

• This is a synthesis card. The regiments (Cards #4–16), the 51st and 52nd Divisions (Cards #21–22), the SAS (#20), the commandos (#29), the Arctic convoys (#30), Scapa Flow (#36), the Shetland Bus (#42) and 602 and 603 Squadrons (#43) have their own cards. This one draws the threads together.
• The war started early for Scotland. HMS Royal Oak was torpedoed in Scapa Flow on 14 October 1939, with the loss of more than 830 men. Two days later, on 16 October, German bombers attacked warships in the Firth of Forth. It was the first German air raid on Britain of the war, and Spitfires of 602 and 603 Squadrons shot down the first enemy aircraft destroyed over Britain.
• St Valéry was the defining disaster. On 12 June 1940 most of the 51st (Highland) Division, cut off on the Normandy coast under French command, surrendered to Rommel's 7th Panzer Division. Around 10,000 British troops became prisoners.
• The Highland Division was reborn. A new 51st, formed from the duplicate 9th (Highland) Division, fought at El Alamein in October–November 1942, in Sicily and from Normandy to the Rhine.
• Clydebank was the worst-hit Scottish town. On 13–14 March 1941, German raids killed 528 people in Clydebank, and only a handful of its roughly 12,000 houses escaped damage.
• Scotland trained and hosted armies. Commandos trained at Achnacarry from 1942. The Polish Army was rebuilt in Scotland after 1940, and its 1st Armoured Division was formed there in 1942.

Scotland's naval bases made it a target from the first weeks. On the night of 13–14 October 1939, Günther Prien's U-47 slipped into Scapa Flow and torpedoed the battleship Royal Oak. Many of the dead were boy seamen. The anchorage's defences were then strengthened, including the causeways later called the Churchill Barriers, built partly by Italian prisoners of war.

When the Germans broke through in France in May 1940, the 51st (Highland) Division was serving on the Saar front, away from the main British force. It was not evacuated from Dunkirk. Retreating west to the Channel coast, it was surrounded at St Valéry-en-Caux, and Major-General Victor Fortune surrendered on 12 June. Part of the force, about 4,000 men, escaped from Le Havre. The rest spent five years as prisoners. The 52nd (Lowland) Division was also sent to France in June 1940, as part of a second British force, and was brought home again within days.

The new 51st (Highland) Division, rebuilt from the 9th (Highland), reached Egypt in 1942. At El Alamein, Highland battalions attacked behind their pipers through the minefields. The division fought across North Africa to Tunisia, then in Sicily in 1943. Its "HD" signs painted on walls and vehicles earned it the nickname "Highway Decorators".

Scottish battalions fought throughout the Italian campaign, and others served in Burma with the Fourteenth Army. The Cameron Highlanders, Royal Scots and others fought at Kohima and in the advance to Mandalay.

On D-Day, 6 June 1944, Lord Lovat landed at Sword Beach with the 1st Special Service Brigade, and his personal piper, Bill Millin, played on the beach. The 15th (Scottish) Division fought its first major battle in Operation Epsom near Caen in late June 1944. The 51st returned to France and, in September 1944, liberated St Valéry. The 52nd (Lowland) Division, trained as a mountain division, fought its first major action on Walcheren in the Scheldt estuary in November 1944, below sea level. Scottish divisions took part in the crossing of the Rhine in March 1945.

Scotland's shipyards built and repaired warships and merchant ships, and the liners Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, both Clyde-built, carried troops across the Atlantic. ROF Bishopton made cordite on a large scale. On the nights of 13 and 14 March 1941, the Luftwaffe bombed Clydeside. Clydebank was devastated, and Greenock was heavily bombed that May.

Loch Ewe was an assembly point for the Arctic convoys to the Soviet Union. The Shetland Bus ran agents and supplies to occupied Norway. In 1942 Gruinard Island in Wester Ross was used for anthrax trials, and it stayed contaminated until it was cleaned in the 1980s. On 10 May 1941, Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy, parachuted into Renfrewshire on an unauthorised peace mission.

Women joined the services and also worked in munitions, in the Women's Land Army and in the Women's Timber Corps, formed in 1942. When Italy entered the war in June 1940, Scottish-Italian men were interned and Italian shops were attacked. Hundreds of internees died when the Arandora Star was sunk in July 1940.

After the fall of France, the Polish Army was re-formed in Scotland. Polish troops guarded the east coast, and the 1st Polish Armoured Division, under General Stanisław Maczek, was formed there in 1942. Norwegian forces were based in Scotland, and Free French, Czech, Dutch and other Allied units trained there. Foresters from Newfoundland and British Honduras worked in Scottish woods, and Indian Army mule companies were stationed in the Highlands.

• Bill Millin's pipes from D-Day are preserved, and a statue of him stands at Colleville-Montgomery in Normandy.
• The Churchill Barriers, built to protect Scapa Flow after Royal Oak, now carry the road between Orkney's islands.
• The Italian Chapel on Lamb Holm in Orkney was built by Italian prisoners of war who worked on the barriers.

• Casualty totals: no reliable Scotland-wide figure exists, so this card gives none.
• St Valéry prisoner numbers: totals vary between sources depending on whether French troops and attached units are counted.
• Clydebank: the death toll of 528 is the official figure for the burgh, and wider Clydeside deaths were higher.

• 51st Highland Division
• 52nd Lowland Division
• Commandos at Achnacarry
• The Arctic Convoys and Scotland
• Scapa Flow
• The Shetland Bus
• 602 and 603 Squadrons