Irish Soldiers who deserted during WWII to join the British Army & Starvation order

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I think you are going a bit OTT on the anti Irishness and war time debt thing. It leads back to the old question of what did Hitler have I'm mind for Ireland had he successfully invaded Britain. You also need to take into consideration the fate of those interned during the emergency, or even Sean Russell.

Britain, through her death squads over the centuries and through direct anti-Irish Government policies, had a hand in the deaths of well over 1 million Irish people, do you really think Hitler would have been worse for us?

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Were there any?

All WWI "Deserters" executed have been pardoned www.shotatdawn.info

Not really much use to them though is it?

Yahew wrote: »

The people living then were not living in "this day and age". The modern version of the war sees it as a war against the most evil racist power ever by nice and kind democracies. In 1939, however, the Nazis had not started the holocaust. All belligerents were racist - all had racist laws on the books, or had de jure discrimination against people based on race in territory they occupied. A war with Britain, would be a war with the British Empire - which in 1939 included South Africa, Rhodesia, Kenya ( all white run), India ( white run), and majority white colonial states with discriminatory laws against aboriginal populations. The US of course had Jim Crow - but it was neutral in 1939.

wake up and smell the coffee, when you realize Devs gamble in keeping ireland out of the war was foolhardy,and they paid a price for it afterwards,as churchill said,our merchant seamen as well as public opinion generally take it much amiss that we should have to carry irish supplies through air and u-boat attacks and subsidize them hansomely when de valera is quite content to sit happy and see us stranded,yet even gandhi [the great indian pacifist ] urged and recruited over one and a half million indians to fight for the british against the nazi,by staying neutral ireland did not get the help that other european countries got after the war to build up their economies,in fact ireland was a outcast,and was rejected membership of the united nations,on the grounds that it had made no contubition to the war against fascism,hardly anything to be proud of.and yet irish men and woman gave their lives in their thousands to help in the war effort

LordSutch wrote: »

I think you are swimming against the tide there Oasis, ths Irish men who deserted the Irish army did so against the backdrop of an inward looking, isolated neutral Ireland, a neutral & neutered Irish state who should have rowed in behind the Allies 100% against Hitler & Nazi Germany!

Those Irish men who saw the bigger picture left these shores and fought Hitler, they were heroes in my book, and they did the Allied war effort proud, they were true Irish heroes and they should have been treated like heroes on their return to Ireland.

They (and their sons) all deserve a pardon > hurry up Mr Shatter.

Their sons?

Only the Irish who deserted the Irish army and joined the British army were treated badly.

The British would have been better off to stay neutral too.
The Germany war plan was to create an empire from the Rhine to the Ural and enslave the peoples there and steal their resources.
They had no interest or ability to invade the British isles.

One of the reason we become an Independent nation was so we did not have fight in large wars that were none of our business.

The BBC seem to take the view these men were only doing what the Irish state should have done anyway.
They see the war as a moral crusade against evil.
The British empire that had taken over one third of the would and committed genocide against native peoples all over the world was were not in a position to condemn the Germans for that they had been doing themselves.

if the soldier shad joined the British army directly without deserting the Irish army there would have have had so much trouble after the war.

Fratton Fred wrote: »

He took a British Passport and was only tried for treason up to the point his passport expired.

It was tenuous, but how many people actually mourned his death? Also, as I said in a subsequent post, there is some speculation that he did a deal which kept his wife away from the gallows.

My point though with regards the difference, is that Joyce left the country he had lived and worked in (and became a political activist in) for the majority of his life to join a nation Britain was at war with and set about to subvert Britain.

I know there is a strong argument that he was unfairly tried for treason, but I don't see his death as being any great loss to the gene pool.

William Joyce went to Germany before the war started.
In late August 1939, shortly before war was declared, Joyce and his wife Margaret fled to Germany.
perhaps only his friend and family missed him. it was still not right to hang him.
I am against the death penalty.

I heard the speculation about his wife. Not sure how true it is.
I think that she was not considered very important and hanging a woman was not something the wanted to be seen doing.

In hanging Joyce them made him seem like a victim. If he was not hanged he might be seen a mad man who went to work for some very evil people.

CDfm wrote: »

Public opinion, a bit ungrateful methinks.

Look what happened in France, Vichy and all that ?

The sheer numbers of Irish serving in the British Forces and working for the war effort should have put that to bed and our efforts in dealing with the IRA's membership and British Campaign yet we are begrudged our own internal security needs.

Tsk tsk.



Submarine technology advanced so much that the Treaty Ports were not needed and it was safer for the British to be based in Iceland and the Germans in France.

Churchill was so WWI with that.



In return for the promise of independence.


Very generous that.

We gave our help for nothing.



Ireland benefited under the Marshall Plan AFAIK





True

http://www.ipa.ie/pdf/IRELAND%20AT%20THE%20UNITED%20NATIONS%20By%20Noel%20Dorr.pdf

Maybe because our friends that we so generously supported were not as public in their thanks.

Don't forget Spain, Portugal & Greece were hardly democratic post WWII whereas Ireland was a model of political stability.

ireland was refused help under the marshall plan,devs love for the nazi did not stop even near the end of the war , devs well known sympathy for the nazi did not stop at telling germany he was sorry for his death ,japan was the only other country in the world that sent their sympathies,dev also made ireland a safe haven for wanted nazi criminals,some of them were involved in ethnic cleansing.he told one to change his name so if a goverment ask him if that man was living in ireland,he could say;i dont have anyone by that name living here

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I know the daughter of a man who joined the Royal Engineers in 1941. When he returned to Ireland, he was treated very badly. Whenever he applied for a job, as soon as the employer found out he had been "abroad" for five years, the job was mysteriously filled.

Was her father a deserter from the Irish army?
I know my Grand father employed a man who served in the British army.
the man he employed suffered shell shock from his time in combat and hard a drink problem and would disappear for weeks at at time. He never fired him.
Ireland must had had a lot of Irish who had served in the Crown forces at one time or another.
My mothers cousin served on a royal navy Submarine during WWII.

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Anyway, based on the rest of your post, there isn't a lot of point debating with you.

Not sure why?
My opinion is based on my reading of history.
It is that not nothing comes good come from war, but killing and misery and from the ash of old wars comes the seeds of new wars.

Fratton Fred wrote: »

No one can tell what will happen in the war, but you still feel obliged to bring up Kenya?

Why did so many people from all over europe flock to fight Franco?

People did come for all over Europe and America to fight Franco, but not enough or well enough lead to change the course of the war.

People fight in wars for many reasons.

Sad truth is it is not that hard to persuade men to kill each other in a war.

“It is only the dead who have seen the end of war”. Plato

WHY MEN FIGHT
by George S. Patton, Jr.

1927
(A Posthumous Study)
http://www.m1-garand.com/Info%20Pages/World_War_II_infopage15.htm

Yahew wrote: »

Where do the badly educated English classes pick up this nonsense?

try checking out these notorious war criminals,ANDRILA ARTUKOVIC,[involved in the murder of over one million jews] BOZEN PERROT,PIETER MENTON,just for your information,like your grandfather people like me left school at 13,we had to work to help feed our families,so we could also pay taxes ,that pays for the schools to educate dick heads to insult us.

getz wrote: »

wake up and smell the coffee, when you realize Devs gamble in keeping ireland out of the war was foolhardy,and they paid a price for it afterwards,as churchill said,our merchant seamen as well as public opinion generally take it much amiss that we should have to carry irish supplies through air and u-boat attacks and subsidize them hansomely when de valera is quite content to sit happy and see us stranded,yet even gandhi [the great indian pacifist ] urged and recruited over one and a half million indians to fight for the british against the nazi,by staying neutral ireland did not get the help that other european countries got after the war to build up their economies,in fact ireland was a outcast,and was rejected membership of the united nations,on the grounds that it had made no contubition to the war against fascism,hardly anything to be proud of.and yet irish men and woman gave their lives in their thousands to help in the war effort

When World War II broke out in 1939. Gandhi initially favoured offering "non-violent moral support" to the British effort, but other Congressional leaders were offended by the unilateral inclusion of India in the war without consultation of the people's representatives. All Congressmen resigned from office.[53] After long deliberations, Gandhi declared that India could not be party to a war ostensibly being fought for democratic freedom while that freedom was denied to India itself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi#World_War_II_and_Quit_India

CDfm wrote: »

Lots of countries took in Nazi's -shamefully the formed part of the emerging states etc - and DeV turned a blind eye to Briscoes Zionist activities too.

The leading minds behind much German arms development in WWII were much sought after the wars end by the main victor nations. They may have punished political leaders but the minds behind weapons such as the V bombs were an important commodity. This even had an operational code name; Operation Paperclip, as it is widely known.

After WWII ended in 1945, victorious Russian and American intelligence teams began a treasure hunt throughout occupied Germany for military and scientific booty. They were looking for things like new rocket and aircraft designs, medicines, and electronics. But they were also hunting down the most precious "spoils" of all: the scientists whose work had nearly won the war for Germany. The engineers and intelligence officers of the Nazi War Machine.

The U.S. Military rounded up Nazi scientists and brought them to America. It had originally intended merely to debrief them and send them back to Germany. But when it realized the extent of the scientists knowledge and expertise, the War Department decided it would be a waste to send the scientists home. Following the discovery of flying discs (foo fighters), particle/laser beam weaponry in German military bases, the War Department decided that NASA and the CIA must control this technology, and the Nazi engineers that had worked on this technology.

There was only one problem: it was illegal. U.S. law explicitly prohibited Nazi officials from immigrating to America--and as many as three-quarters of the scientists in question had been committed Nazis. http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/operationpaperclip.htm

They were also to play an important role in the moon landings:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4443934.stm

early attempts to exclude ardent Nazis were to be ignored when America sorted out its 'priorities'.:

Truman expressly excluded anyone found "to have been a member of the Nazi party and more than a nominal participant in its activities, or an active supporter of Naziism or militarism."

The War Department's Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA) conducted background investigations of the scientists. In February 1947, JIOA Director Bosquet Wev submitted the first set of scientists' dossiers to the State and Justice Departments for review.

The Dossiers were damning. Samauel Klaus, the State Departments representative on the JIOA board, claimed that all the scientists in this first batch were "ardent Nazis." Their visa requests were denied.

Wev was furious. He wrote a memo warning that "the best interests of the United States have been subjugated to the efforts expended in 'beating a dead Nazi horse.'" He also declared that the return of these scientists to Germany, where they could be exploited by America's enemies, presented a "far greater security threat to this country than any former Nazi affiliations which they may have had or even any Nazi sympathies that they may still have." http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/NWO/project_paperclip.htm

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, Norway and numerous other countries all tried that approach. Unfortunately Hitler didn't have much respect for neutrality.

You should check Wikipedia for a quote "peace in our time" by a chap called Neville Chamberlain.

As I recall Britain tried to invade Norway as the same time as Germany did.
and had been laying mines in Norwegian waters to sink German ships iron ore ship sail through Norwegian waters before Norway was invaded.

The soviet union invade Poland too with with the agreement of the Germans.
The Soviet occupation of Poland in 1940 was very nasty affair also.
Katyn massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre

"Stalin had decided in August 1939 that he was going to liquidate the Polish state, and a German-Soviet meeting in September addressed the future structure of the "Polish region."[11] Soviet authorities immediately started a campaign of sovietization[12][13] of the newly-acquired areas. The Soviets organized staged elections,[14] the result of which was to become a legitimization of Soviet annexation of eastern Poland.[15] Soviet authorities attempted to erase Polish history and culture,[6] withdrew the Polish currency without exchanging roubles,[16] collectivized agriculture,[17] and nationalized and redistributed private and state-owned Polish property.[18] Soviet authorities regarded service for the pre-war Polish state as a "crime against revolution"[19] and "counter-revolutionary activity",[20] and subsequently started arresting large numbers of Polish citizens. During the initial Soviet invasion of Poland, between 230,000 to 450,000 Poles were taken as prisoner, some of which were executed. NKVD officers conducted lengthy interrogations of the prisoners in camps that were, in effect, a selection process to determine who would be killed.[21] On March 5, 1940, pursuant to a note to Stalin from Lavrenty Beria, the members of the Soviet Politburo (including Stalin) signed an order to execute 25,700 Polish POWs, labeled "nationalists and counterrevolutionaries", kept at camps and prisons in occupied western Ukraine and Belarus.[22] This became known as the Katyn massacre.[23][21][24]

During 1939–1941 1.450 million.of the people inhabiting the region were deported by the Soviet regime, of whom 63.1% were Poles, and 7.4% were Jews.[10] Previously it was believed that about 1.0 million Polish citizens died at the hands of the Soviets,[25] however recently Polish historians, based mostly on queries in Soviet archives, estimate the number of deaths at about 350,000 people deported in 1939–1945.[26]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territories_of_Poland_annexed_by_the_Soviet_Union#Soviet_occupation_of_Poland.2C_1939.E2.80.931941

if Britain declared war on Germany to save Poland to from invasion why the they allow the Soviets to keep it at the end of the war?

if Ireland were in the way of Germany invading France or the Soviet Union we would have been invaded too.

Why did Britain invade Iceland?

Not sure why Neville Chamberlain thought telling the Czechoslovakia not to defend the Sudetenland would improve chance of peace.,and it was not any of his business.

I think here was buying time to prepare Britain for war with Germany.