Post by Waverley on Dec 29, 2011 10:46:55 GMT 1
Just shows you how evil De Valera really was as a person.
Heroism and Betrayal
A new book looks at the anomalous position of Irish soldiers during World War II. Robert Widders has the story.
IRELAND remained neutral throughout World War II, despite intense pressure from the USA and Great Britain.
But Ireland had little real choice at the time. This was a country that had not long won its independence, and had then fought a painful and divisive civil war. And joining the Allies would have alienated a significant part of the population, and probably led to widespread civil unrest. But it was an odd sort of neutrality, because over 70,000 men from the Irish Free State (as it then was) left their homes and families, took the train up to Belfast, and joined the British armed forces. After the war, the Irish Government made much of this fact to point out, quite rightly, that Ireland played a part in defeating Nazism and bringing the Holocaust to an end. But the story is not quite that straightforward...
When war broke out in Europe the Irish Government prepared for a possible invasion. But the Irish Army found itself seriously under-manned and woefully ill-equipped.
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the army had been organised, re-organised, and constantly underfunded. Now it lacked not just the essentials of modern warfare — such as aeroplanes, artillery, tanks and antiaircraft guns — but even sufficient stocks of small arms ammunition.
The wartime strength of the Irish Army was intended to be 40,000 men. But after the initial surge of recruitment in 1939 and 1940, the army struggled for the rest of the Emergency to keep up to strength. And one of the reasons for this is that literally thousands of soldiers deserted, crossed the border into Northern Ireland, and joined the British armed forces.
These so called ‘deserters’ fought in every battle and campaign of the Second World War. They served at sea on the hazardous Atlantic convoys bringing food and raw materials into Britain and Ireland. They flew near suicidal bombing missions with the RAF to destroy Nazi oil reserves and munitions factories. And they stormed the beaches of Normandy and fought to liberate occupied Europe from Nazi domination.
After the war, the Irish Government court martialled 4,983 of these men en masse and in absentia, contrary to all the laws of natural justice, without representation or right of reply. They were formally dismissed from the Irish Army and stripped of all pay and pension rights. The Government also decided to prevent them from finding work, by banning them for seven years from any employment paid by State or public funds. So it circulated the deserters’ names and addresses to every Government department, town hall, railway station and anywhere else that they might look for a job.
Of course, the Government had to take some action. But the legislation was framed so that it discriminated between those men who deserted from the Irish Army and fought with the Allies, and those who deserted and remained at home in Ireland.
For instance, Michael Joyce and William Moore deserted from the Irish Army in 1941. But unlike most of the other deserters, they didn’t join the British Army. Instead, they started a new career as burglars. Not long after deserting, they were arrested on charges of breaking and entering. But Joyce and Moore weren’t banned from employment with the state, though the men who had fought against Germany were. Clearly, the intention was to punish only those men who fought with the British Army after they’d deserted.
It’s difficult now, almost three-quarters of a century later, to realise the implications of the Government’s actions. We live in societies with a basic safety net of universal benefits, so no citizen regardless of his status need starve or be homeless. But in Ireland in 1945 there were few job opportunities, apart from with the State and local authorities. And men returning from the war, with no entitlement to dole or benefits, and little chance of employment, faced a bleak future in Ireland. So ex-soldiers were being pressured to live in Britain, where they would receive help in finding work and housing, and were entitled to financial benefits.
In effect, Irish citizens were being banished from Ireland by an Irish Government.
The Government was condemned in the Dáil by the opposition party, Fine Gael. They argued, with some justification, that the Government’s legislation was illegal: It had been framed as an Emergency Powers Act after the end of the Emergency. Fine Gael deputy leader, Dr. Thomas F. O’Higgins, described the Government’s action as “brutal, unchristian and inhuman, stimulated by malice, seething with hatred, and oozing with venom”.
But the Government’s actions were even more mean-spirited and vindictive than the opposition realised. Hundreds of men had died long before they were court martialled and banned from employment. Men like Joseph Mullally would never cheat the dole queue and get a job with the council. He’d already died on D-Day, June 6, 1944, fighting the Nazis on the beaches of Normandy — a year before his court martial.
And Stephen McManus would never get a job in Ireland either. Stephen had been captured whilst fighting against the Japanese Army, and was later forced to work building the Burma Railway. Another Irish soldier, who survived his captivity, described the sort of conditions they laboured under.
“The Nips [Japanese] were given orders that they had to get the railway finished early. That summer [July-October 1943] they worked us like slaves. Well, we were slaves really. We worked day an’ night with hardly any food, and men were dying like flies. My pal collapsed in the heat one day. The guard started hitting him with a bamboo stick. He couldn’t get up and the Nip just beat him to death and kicked his body down into the ditch. There was nothing you could do — if you tried to stop them, they would go crazy and you’d get the same. I don’t like to think of it really, but I can still see it now.”
Along with thousands of other soldiers, McManus suffered torture and starvation whilst being worked to death in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. He died in July 1943.
And Stephen McManus and Joseph Mullally were just two of the many dead men who were court martialled in 1945.
■ The full story is told in a forthcoming book, Spitting On A Soldier’s Grave,
by Robert Widders, which will be published November 1.
The book can be ordered via www.robertwidders. co.uk.
Heroism and Betrayal
A new book looks at the anomalous position of Irish soldiers during World War II. Robert Widders has the story.
IRELAND remained neutral throughout World War II, despite intense pressure from the USA and Great Britain.
But Ireland had little real choice at the time. This was a country that had not long won its independence, and had then fought a painful and divisive civil war. And joining the Allies would have alienated a significant part of the population, and probably led to widespread civil unrest. But it was an odd sort of neutrality, because over 70,000 men from the Irish Free State (as it then was) left their homes and families, took the train up to Belfast, and joined the British armed forces. After the war, the Irish Government made much of this fact to point out, quite rightly, that Ireland played a part in defeating Nazism and bringing the Holocaust to an end. But the story is not quite that straightforward...
When war broke out in Europe the Irish Government prepared for a possible invasion. But the Irish Army found itself seriously under-manned and woefully ill-equipped.
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the army had been organised, re-organised, and constantly underfunded. Now it lacked not just the essentials of modern warfare — such as aeroplanes, artillery, tanks and antiaircraft guns — but even sufficient stocks of small arms ammunition.
The wartime strength of the Irish Army was intended to be 40,000 men. But after the initial surge of recruitment in 1939 and 1940, the army struggled for the rest of the Emergency to keep up to strength. And one of the reasons for this is that literally thousands of soldiers deserted, crossed the border into Northern Ireland, and joined the British armed forces.
These so called ‘deserters’ fought in every battle and campaign of the Second World War. They served at sea on the hazardous Atlantic convoys bringing food and raw materials into Britain and Ireland. They flew near suicidal bombing missions with the RAF to destroy Nazi oil reserves and munitions factories. And they stormed the beaches of Normandy and fought to liberate occupied Europe from Nazi domination.
After the war, the Irish Government court martialled 4,983 of these men en masse and in absentia, contrary to all the laws of natural justice, without representation or right of reply. They were formally dismissed from the Irish Army and stripped of all pay and pension rights. The Government also decided to prevent them from finding work, by banning them for seven years from any employment paid by State or public funds. So it circulated the deserters’ names and addresses to every Government department, town hall, railway station and anywhere else that they might look for a job.
Of course, the Government had to take some action. But the legislation was framed so that it discriminated between those men who deserted from the Irish Army and fought with the Allies, and those who deserted and remained at home in Ireland.
For instance, Michael Joyce and William Moore deserted from the Irish Army in 1941. But unlike most of the other deserters, they didn’t join the British Army. Instead, they started a new career as burglars. Not long after deserting, they were arrested on charges of breaking and entering. But Joyce and Moore weren’t banned from employment with the state, though the men who had fought against Germany were. Clearly, the intention was to punish only those men who fought with the British Army after they’d deserted.
It’s difficult now, almost three-quarters of a century later, to realise the implications of the Government’s actions. We live in societies with a basic safety net of universal benefits, so no citizen regardless of his status need starve or be homeless. But in Ireland in 1945 there were few job opportunities, apart from with the State and local authorities. And men returning from the war, with no entitlement to dole or benefits, and little chance of employment, faced a bleak future in Ireland. So ex-soldiers were being pressured to live in Britain, where they would receive help in finding work and housing, and were entitled to financial benefits.
In effect, Irish citizens were being banished from Ireland by an Irish Government.
The Government was condemned in the Dáil by the opposition party, Fine Gael. They argued, with some justification, that the Government’s legislation was illegal: It had been framed as an Emergency Powers Act after the end of the Emergency. Fine Gael deputy leader, Dr. Thomas F. O’Higgins, described the Government’s action as “brutal, unchristian and inhuman, stimulated by malice, seething with hatred, and oozing with venom”.
But the Government’s actions were even more mean-spirited and vindictive than the opposition realised. Hundreds of men had died long before they were court martialled and banned from employment. Men like Joseph Mullally would never cheat the dole queue and get a job with the council. He’d already died on D-Day, June 6, 1944, fighting the Nazis on the beaches of Normandy — a year before his court martial.
And Stephen McManus would never get a job in Ireland either. Stephen had been captured whilst fighting against the Japanese Army, and was later forced to work building the Burma Railway. Another Irish soldier, who survived his captivity, described the sort of conditions they laboured under.
“The Nips [Japanese] were given orders that they had to get the railway finished early. That summer [July-October 1943] they worked us like slaves. Well, we were slaves really. We worked day an’ night with hardly any food, and men were dying like flies. My pal collapsed in the heat one day. The guard started hitting him with a bamboo stick. He couldn’t get up and the Nip just beat him to death and kicked his body down into the ditch. There was nothing you could do — if you tried to stop them, they would go crazy and you’d get the same. I don’t like to think of it really, but I can still see it now.”
Along with thousands of other soldiers, McManus suffered torture and starvation whilst being worked to death in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. He died in July 1943.
And Stephen McManus and Joseph Mullally were just two of the many dead men who were court martialled in 1945.
■ The full story is told in a forthcoming book, Spitting On A Soldier’s Grave,
by Robert Widders, which will be published November 1.
The book can be ordered via www.robertwidders. co.uk.