Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
would only be illuminated very briefly at specified times, usually to mark the passage
of coastal convoys or single ship movements. All of them were 'blackened' i.e. hastily
overpainted with a concoction of soot, usually from the station's own resources. After
theSecondWorldWarthetowerswouldbelimewashed, andformanyyearsafterwards
large 'flakes' would occasionally break off so that the black wartime finish could still
be discerned.
In the case of the Flannan Isles, the First World War came close to home with the
sinking of two vessels by U-boats. The first sinking took place on 14 June 1915, when
the Norwegian cargo ship SS
Davanger
, owned by Westfal-Larsen & Co A/S, Bergen,
was on a voyage from Liverpool to Arkhangelsk. She was shelled and sunk by the Ger-
man U-boat U-33, 12 miles west-south-west of the Flannan Isles. Over a year later, on
30 October 1916, the
Floreal
(a British fishing vessel of 163 tons) was sunk by U-boat
U-57 approximately 20 miles north-west of the Flannan Islands.
During the Second World War, the lighthouses and their occupants, in the eyes of
Luftwaffe crews, were providing assistance to the economic and military war effort
of the Allies and despite being civilian-run, became quite legitimate targets for attack.
There were twenty-four separate attacks by the Luftwaffe on lighthouses in the Second
World War; the most seemingly senseless was on the South Fair Isle Lighthouse in
December 1941 when the wife of an ALK was killed. In a second attack January 1942
the keepers' accommodation block was destroyed, killing the principal lightkeeper's
wife, daughter and a soldier who was stationed nearby. A further attack in 1942 com-
pletely destroyed the accommodation block and it had to be rebuilt. Evidence of these
attacks can still be seen in the form of pock marks on the tower itself and the outline of
bombcraters justoutside thelighthouse walls. FairIsleSouthwasthelast lighthouse to
beautomatedinScotlandon31March1998.Theaccommodationblockwassoldtothe
National Trust for Scotland and eventually became bed and breakfast accommodation.
Fair Isle had been designed by David Alan Stevenson and first lit in 1892, after which
his next project was the new lighthouse on Eilean Mor.
AnotherexampleofastationattackedbytheLuftwaffewasRattrayHead,locatedon
theeastcoastofScotland,northofPeterhead.Machine-gundamagetothelenswasstill
apparent over thirty years later.
Rattray Head was regarded by more than one lightkeeper as a strange place. It was
located maybe 500 yards or so along a very long, straight and sandy beach. It also had
whatwasbelievedatthetime(1970s)tobethelongestunsupportedlengthoftelephone
cable in the United Kingdom. The cable ran from the shore station, a short distance be-
hind the sand dunes, where the four keepers were said to live in 'splendid isolation', to
the tower. To the amusement of some and the annoyance of others, the cable was regu-
larly carried away by very low-flying jets, mainly from the Royal Naval Air Station at
