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RAF Wick was a busy airfield during the Second World War, hosting squadrons from Coastal Command and Fighter Command as well as important reconnaissance units. Wick was also a key spot on the supply chain to Scapa Flow, and as a result was seen as a major German target. One of the efforts to protect RAF Wick was the construction of a decoy aerodrome at Sarclet, about five miles to the south.
The author was born at Sarclet three and a half years before the war, and grew up in the area, so he is able to combine his own wartime memories with stories told by older people.
We start with a useful examination of why Caithness was of military significance. There were several reasons – the most obvious is the presence of the major naval base at Scapa Flow twenty miles to the north of Wick. However there was also a possibility of German invasion – it had the right beaches, airfields that could be captured, and in theory invasion routes to the central belt of Scotland (admittedly any invasion here would have relied on the Royal Navy having already been destroyed). RAF Wick was an important target in its own right, and Wick (along with Hull) was the target of the first daylight raids on British towns during the Second World War). RAF Wick was a sector station, also making it a significant target.
We then move onto the decoy drome itself, looking at how it was designed, built and manned. Construction was difficult – it was built on a peat bog, so great care had to be taken not to lose machinery into the bog. Once completed it needed a significant work force – enough to carry out convincing daylight operations in case the Luftwaffe visited, as well as control the lights used to make it a valid target by night. Live at Sarclet can’t always have been easy – in one winter supplies had to be airdropped to them because the roads from Wick, only five miles away, were blocked! We get good pictures of what the area looks like now, including drone pictures that clearly show the remains of the dummy drone – as the cover picture shows the fake runways are still visable as lighter areas of heather while some of the buildings are still impressively solid – a reminder that even dummy dromes took some serious effort to construct!
Towards the end of the book we move on from the Dummy Drome to look at other impacts of the war on the area. This included the usual Home Guard, but also the local Auxiliary Unit, the secret units designed to stay behind after a German invasion and act as guerrillas. Most of these were entirely unknown in their local areas, but this one appears to have become at least suspected – perhaps unsurprising in such a sparcely populated area, where their hidden underground base was known to the local children (although it was believed to be a Home Guard ammo dump). The local coastline was also protected by underwater flame projectors, and some of the author’s contacts remember testing the system out.
This is an excellent examination of the impact of the Second World War on a very remote and rural part of Scotland, showing that the war could have a direct impact even on areas that didn’t have active military bases and wouldn’t otherwise have been the target of air attack. The author tells us interesting details about the people whose stories he tells, many of whom were either directly involved in building the base or in the Home Guard or had family members who had been.
Chapters
Why here?
Defence
Attack
Early memories of the Drome and the people it brought to Caithness
Forgotten but not gone
Planning the Drome: a man named Smith
A Campaign of Illusion and the reality of construction
How the Drome was made
Dangerous work
Looking like the real thing
Other operations
Early warning
Communications
R & R and bombing raids
Arms and ammunition
Letters home
Hitler won’t be pleased
The Home Guard
A clandestine war
Putting two and two together
A wall of fire
Encountering the enemy on home ground
Tales to tell
The ones who have gone
Life at home
Going forward
Looking back
Author: Rob More
Edition: Paperback
Pages: 128
Publisher: Whittles
Year: 2025