Kirkwall, Orkney; Churchill Barriers, Italian Chapel, Ba'; Lerwick, Shetland Islands;

We had time this morning to visit the WW1 and WW2 sites on Orkney.  Scapa Flow is a body of water bounded by Orkney Mainland and a number of smaller islands.  It forms a very protected harbor much like Pearl Harbor in Hawai'i.  During both the first and second world wars the Royal Fleet used Scapa Flow as the principle harbor for the Royal Fleet.  The channels between the mainland and the eastern islands of Burray and South Ronaldsay were to be protected by block ships (obsolete vessels that were deliberately scuttled in the channels to create impenetrable obstacle courses for German ships and submarines.  This proved to be wrong when around midnight on October 14, 1939 the German submarine U-47 entered Scapa Flow through Kirk Sound, between Mainland and Burray, and torpedoed the British battleship, HMS Royal Oak, sending the ship to the bottom of the Flow and killing over 800 sailors.  The U-boat then escaped back through the same straight.  That was enough for Churchill, he ordered the building of stone structures blocking the the eastern channels.  These structures, still called Churchill Barriers, now act as causeways linking Burray and South Ronaldsay to the Mainland.  All along the sides of these barriers the rusting remains of the old Block Ships can be seen.

With the Allied victory in Northern Africa, Great Britain had a great number of Italian Prisoners of War.  Some were brought in to aid in the building of the barriers.  They wanted a place to worship so the British gave them two Quonset Huts.  With those two huts and materials they were able to scrounge, the Italians built their own Catholic chapel.  The Italians were lucky that amongst them was a young soldier with true artistic skills, Domenico Chiocchetti, whose life's story is told in the book, The Italian Chapel. 

The people of Kirkwall, actually the men of Kirkwall, have an annual event called the Ba'.  It happens on Christmas Day and then on January 1, each year.  It consists of hundreds of men pushing against each other trying to get the ball to their designated goal.  The two teams are determined by where you were born; you are either an uppy, or a downy (pronounced dew-knee). There are NO rules and the pushing and shoving has lasted for seven hours.  The shops and businesses along the streets where this is done boards up the fronts of the building to prevent participants from flying through the windows.  The town embraces this annual event as part of their heritage.  I've watched a few of these scrums on YouTube, it's unique.

We flew Loganair from Kirkwall to Sumburgh (Sam-burr-ah) on the Shetland Islands.  Interestingly the road from the airport to the main city of the islands Lerwick, goes right across the runway.  There is a big red light that you are to stop for if a plane is coming in or out, otherwise you just scoot right across the runway.  We walked around the town a little, grabbed something to eat and headed back to our hotel.

                                    

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