The great fear of the people
that they might not be allowed back to their own houses wasn't realized
and permission to return was granted. Everyone was not allowed to return
at the same time but in May and June of 1944 a steady stream of nearly
200 villagers could be seen making their way back to the village. Despite
the sight that was to meet them they were absolutely delighted to be
returning.
The houses were damp after the long hard winter, windows were broken
and the streets churned up by the tanks. The minutes of a Ross and
Cromarty Council meeting of that time reported considerable malicious
damage being done to the property in the evacuated area. One person
recalls that the mantelpiece in one of the houses was ripped out from
the wall, the work of vandals looking for any money that might have
slipped down behind it. Another recalls the house being filthy because
the soldiers had used it for eating in. Others remember the houses
being infested with fleas but Keatings soon got rid of them.
It's rather ironic that the people were being evacuated so that the
combined forces could practice the Normandy beach landings, but this
was not really the case.The area around Inver had been picked out from
the air as the nearest resemblance to the 'Normandy Beaches' where
troops were to be landed back in France. But they never asked any of
the local people who could have told them the tide moved the sand and
the water channels.
At last when they sent the barges from Invergordon to Arboll, the
conditions round Tarbat lighthouse were treacherous and only one actually
made it, and grounded under Lower Arboll. Things got worse when the
barge opened up and out came tank, and disappeared in the channel,
which runs from Inver to Portmahomack. By good luck the tank came out
at the other side of the channel. So the army decided that they could
not practice the landings but instead they brought the tanks by land
and used the area as a shooting range.
Extract from School Log
Aug 21st 1944 - School re-
opened today. There are 48 children on the roll.
Aug 25th 1944 - A good beginning
has been made. There is a shortage of School equipment and pupils
are backward after the evacuation. A fresh supply of school material
will be ordered shortly.
(Signed by N. MacDonald)
Sep 1st 1944 - Attendance is
disappointing. Some of the boys absent themselves from School for
no apparent reason.
|
One of the less pleasant finds when the people returned were the
tanks and unexploded bombs that were left lying around, and the rolls
of barbed wire that were all over the beaches.
The farmers had a very interesting way of removing the shells that
hadn't exploded. They used to pull the unexploded shell out of the
ground, cover the shell with straw, light a match and RUN!
Extract from ‘Third Statistical
Account of Scotland the County of Ross & Cromarty’
At the 1951 census, the population of
Inver numbered 191, of whom 97 were males and 94 females. This shows
an increase of 40 compared with the year 1836, as reported in the
new statistical account of 1837. The census also revealed 71 persons
in the parish as able to speak both English and Gaelic. Most of
these 71 live in Inver. The village was completely evacuated from
December 1943 to May 1944 on account of pre-military manoeuvres.
The evacuees were housed in the burgh
of Tain and adjacent parishes. For long primitive to a degree, the
village has been greatly modernised within the last ten years, houses
have been enlarged, gravitation water and sanitation have been introduced,
and electric light power made available.
When the evacuation took place, it was
widely felt that Inver was finished as a community; instead, it
seems only to have received a new lease of life, at least as a residential
village.
|
Broken walls |
Broken walls were the order of the day on returning as tanks had
flattened them in training. |
Bullets from the evacuation days still turn
up embedded inside the trees from beside what was Geanies Primary
School. |
Sixty years later on the 6th of June 2004
the evacuation of the village was commemorated in the unveiling of
a plaque. |
Commemorative plaque |
1939 map showing the proposed gunnery range
to be used by ships and aircraft
Propsal for gunnery range |
1939 document showing the proposed gunnery range to be used by
ships and aircraft. Below the original gunnery target photographed
from the air by a German plane in 1945 |
Gunnery target photographed from the air
by a German plane in 1945 |
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