Second World War is keenly felt as battle moves closer to home
By 1941 the war was being decisively won by the Axis powers, writes Neil Owen.
Germany now dominated the continent of Europe, the British Expeditionary Force had been shattered and forced to evacuate back to the UK, and the U-boat packs would soon operate from new bases in north-western France.
Invasion had been averted by the outcome of the Battle of Britain and Hitler’s shift of focus to the forthcoming invasion of Russia. Only Bomber Command of the RAF represented an effective means of striking back against the might of Nazi Germany, although it was significantly compromised by a bomber fleet of obsolescent aircraft.
At sea, the capital ships of the Royal Navy remained a potent force but were widely dispersed across the globe, and aircraft carriers, the new and dominant elements in sea warfare, were in critically short supply.
The year began with some minor successes in North Africa against Italian forces but the promulgation of an “Afrika Korps”, under the resourceful Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, would soon reverse the initial advantage held by the British.
Oban began to lose men from its sea-faring tradition, the merchant fleet beginning to sustain an inexorable toll from the U-Boat “wolf packs” in the Atlantic. The sea area off Oban, Loch Linnhe, was by now an important convoy marshalling area for the escorted convoys crossing back and forth across the Atlantic. Oban Bay was now a naval base known as HMS Caledonia, with headquarters in the Station Hotel, and Ardentrive on the island of Kerrera was now home to a squadron of Royal Air Force flying boats, the huge Short Sunderlands of 210 Squadron. These aircraft would be the aerial escorts of the convoys, hunting submarines and searching for survivors of the numerous torpedo attacks on ships in the north Western Approaches.
More than 2,000 naval and RAF personal had now to be accommodated within the town, with most of the seafront hotels being requisitioned in this function.
Fear of fifth columnists and traitors was at fever pitch. The Luftwaffe had carried out a daring low-level bombing raid in December 1940 and sunk the SS Breda and severely damaged two other ships in the Firth of Lorn. Further raids were expected.