Thousands of Irish Army "deserters " court-martialed in 1945.

marcsignal

Saw this on another forum, thought it was interesting.

It concerns those Irish Army soldiers who left the Irish Army to fight in WW2.

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”.

Apparently deserters who stayed at home were let off/ignored, while those who joined the Allied armies were court-martialed. The book also details how an Irish Naval captain took an Irish ship (which was out on sea trials) to Dunkirk to help with the evacuation.... in secret of course.

Certainly news to me anyway.

A review of the book here

Fuinseog

marcsignal wrote: »

Saw this on another forum, thought it was interesting.

It concerns those Irish Army soldiers who left the Irish Army to fight in WW2.



Apparently deserters who stayed at home were let off/ignored, while those who joined the Allied armies were court-martialed. The book also details how an Irish Naval captain took an Irish ship (which was out on sea trials) to Dunkirk to help with the evacuation.... in secret of course.

Certainly news to me anyway.

A review of the book here

the book was reviewed todays by Ireland's Recruiting Sergeant for the British Army, also known as The Irish Times.

an Irish ship participating at Dunkirk was reckless move. he should have nen court martialled.

Stovepipe

Hi all,
Fuinseog, reel it in, will ya? The MTB in question did two runs and was sent to Ireland thereafter. It saved lives, so who cares, in the end.As for the treatment of deserters, I met a man one time who was such a case.He was arrested off the boat when coming home on leave from a British unit.He was sentenced to a year in Cork Military Prison and the treatment of such men was medieval.(if the treatment he mentioned was ever admitted by the State, you could see more court cases). When he got out, he was told that he was officially booted out of the Irish Army and was, essentially, unwelcome in Ireland.So he went back to the UK and was promptly arrested there for alleged desertion of HM Forces, until he explained his case and was let off to rejoin his regiment. Contrast this treatment with that meted out to Allied PoWs who forcelanded or were washed ashore in Ireland and were allowed to return via Norn Iron.
The treatment by the State was illegal and immoral and simply cruel.
regards
Stovepipe

Fuinseog

Stovepipe wrote: »

Hi all,
Fuinseog, reel it in, will ya? The MTB in question did two runs and was sent to Ireland thereafter. It saved lives, so who cares, in the end.As for the treatment of deserters, I met a man one time who was such a case.He was arrested off the boat when coming home on leave from a British unit.He was sentenced to a year in Cork Military Prison and the treatment of such men was medieval.(if the treatment he mentioned was ever admitted by the State, you could see more court cases). When he got out, he was told that he was officially booted out of the Irish Army and was, essentially, unwelcome in Ireland.So he went back to the UK and was promptly arrested there for alleged desertion of HM Forces, until he explained his case and was let off to rejoin his regiment. Contrast this treatment with that meted out to Allied PoWs who forcelanded or were washed ashore in Ireland and were allowed to return via Norn Iron.
The treatment by the State was illegal and immoral and simply cruel.
regards
Stovepipe

they were deserters and deserters in every army get a jail sentence, even today. they deserted their country in its hour of need to act as mercenaries for another. hardly surprising then that they received shoddy treatment. it was definitely not illegal to imprison them.


as regards the MTB skipper he placed our neutrality in jepoardy, which was a reckless thing to do

Stovepipe

Hi all,
Fuinseog, I agree that the MTB skipper's act was completely illegal but at least it was moral.As for jeopardising neutrality, wasn't it risky enough for the Irish State to allow the Donegal Corridor to exist, as well as the repatriation of UK/US internees and even force-landed aircraft? As for the treatment of deserters, I agree that they should have been punished for desertion but the treatment meted out in Cork MP was barbaric and also, punishment wasn't applied evenly.Some people got off lightly, others were severly punished. And as for banning them from public jobs, that was unfair, immoral and also illegal as two seperate punishments cannot apply to the same crime and it effectively punished their families by default, who were, anecdotally, punished by also being treated as criminals.
regards
Stovepipe

FiSe

Reminds me of the treatment of people from the eastern block, who left their countries to fight against Nazism on the west /and on the east too/.
They've been locked up for years in the worst conditions and persecuted most of their lives after the war by the commies.
I think it has nothing to do with HM or US forces or in WH or LW for that matter. It's the determination, courage and certain sense of general justice those people have shown in the time of need.
A very dangerous spirit to have in a state which isn't really run as it should.

Hence the different approach to the people who left to fight another day and to those lazy 'soldiers' who just couldn't be bothered to leave their bed in the morning.

marcsignal

A follow up article connected with the OP

In one of the forgotten stories of the conflict, 5,000 men who deserted the Irish Defence Forces faced a heavy penalty at war’s end, says a new book, writes MARK HENNESSY London Editor

THOUSANDS OF MEN deserted the Irish Defence Forces during the Second World War to fight with the British armed forces. Some did so because of their feelings about fascism, some because they were bored, others for better pay. When those who surivived the war came home they found that, as well as dismissing them from the Defence Forces, Éamon de Valera’s government had, more damagingly, blacklisted them from all state jobs.

Many, such as Nicholas McNamara from Limerick and Joseph Mullally from Westmeath, never came home. McNamara was killed in an RAF bombing raid over Germany in 1944; Mullally fell in the opening hours of the D-Day landings in Normandy.

The Irish authorities had been irritated by British attempts to recruit in Ireland during the early war years; the efforts included newspaper advertisements that talked of excitement and a better life – provoking numerous complaints to London. A Fianna Fáil cumann in Dundalk complained about “English Sunday newspapers publishing articles to stimulate British recruiting in this country, whilst at the same time doing their best to demoralise recruiting for the Irish National Army”.

The Defence Forces took a similar view: “The principal cause of desertion from the Defence Forces, to the British forces, is the higher rates of pay and allowances (including marriage allowance) in the latter.”

The charge that money was the motivation angered many of those who deserted, including Paddy Sutton, a Dubliner who was present for the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945. “My pal turned to me. He said, ‘If we ever needed a reason to join up, this is it. It was a just war.’ I agreed with him. It really hit home then what an evil regime we had been fighting,” Sutton has told Robert Widders, the author of Spitting on a Soldier’s Grave, a new book about the treatment of the servicemen.

By 1945 many of the survivors were heading for home. The Free State under Éamon de Valera’s government could not “jail all of them”, as one of the deserters put it. It could take revenge in different ways, however; in early August 1945, an Ireland shielded from the worst of war’s horrors learned some of what had taken place through the List of Personnel of the Defence Forces Dismissed for Desertion in Time of National Emergency Pursuant to the Terms of Emergency Powers.

Containing each soldier’s last recorded address, date of birth, declared occupation prior to enlistment in the Defence Forces, and date of dismissal, it was circulated to all government departments and state-run bodies, to ensure that nobody who quit in such circumstances ever secured a state job. Given the climate of the time, it made most unemployable.

Soldiers who deserted but did not join the British army were treated differently: some were not even arrested, and their names were left off the list, says Widders, who came across this chapter in military history through “a dismissive, almost contemptuous reference” in an out-of-date history book on sale in a Limerick charity shop.

Widders also argues that the 1941 Children Act, which sent thousands of youngsters to industrial schools exposed by the Ryan report in recent years, was used with particular vindictiveness against the children of deserters from the Defence Forces. “The Irish government lobbied the British government to have the payment of family allowances, to which married Irish soldiers in the British Army were entitled, paid directly to the Irish State [for children held in care]. In effect, this helped finance incarceration,” he writes.

Some became involved in the war even before they deserted. Gerry O’Neill, who was born in Fermoy, Co Cork, was one of a number of Irish sailors sent to Southampton in 1940 to collect a motor torpedo boat bought by the Irish authorities. By the time they got there the British navy was in the middle of the Dunkirk evacuation. “Our skipper had been in the Royal Navy and he decided to join the rescue fleet. He asked us if we’d volunteer, which we did.”

The crew made two trips across the English Channel, rescuing French and British soldiers, although their efforts could have had serious implications for Irish neutrality if they had been captured. After the second trip they were told to go home.

On his return to Haulbowline, in Cork Harbour, the crew were sworn to secrecy. “After this, I soon got browned off with the inactivity in the Irish Navy – and I decided to join the RAF,” said O’Neill, though he actually ended up in the Royal Navy.

Back in Ireland in 1942 on leave, he decided to join the Irish merchant fleet. His position as a deserter was quickly solved when he met Oscar Traynor, the minister for defence, at a dinner aboard the Irish Larch, a vessel owened by Irish Shipping. “I told him I’d deserted from the Irish Navy and asked if I could be pardoned, in view of the fact that I was now a greater help to the nation, serving with Irish Shipping exposed to all sorts of dangers.” Days later he received his discharge papers from the Irish Navy.

Hundreds of the men included on the list were dead by the time of its publication: Mullally and McNamara were two; Stephen McManus from Sligo, who died in a Japanese concentration camp in Burma, was another. The inclusion of such names rankled with families deeply, Widders argues.

The returning soldiers had few friends. Michael Moran, the Fianna Fáil Mayo TD, believed that being on the list was not enough of a punishment – and his view was the majority one, though TF Higgins of Fine Gael complained about whether there “was any other army in the world” that asked for “military offences to be punished by county managers, town clerks and corporation secretaries”.

The men, he said, had fulfilled a higher moral duty only “now to find themselves branded as pariah dogs, as outcasts, as untouchables for the crime of going to assist other nations in what they believed was a fight for the survival of Christianity in Europe”.

article here

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2010/1106/1224282773969.html



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Mahatma coat

Many Irish men went of and Voluntered with the British Army, they didnt get into trouble when they returned home.

However These men SWORE AN OATH OF ALLEGIENCE to the Irish State, and then Fecked of to the BA for whatever reason, Thats Treason EOS, they deserved everything they got

Prefab Sprouter

Mahatma coat wrote: »

Many Irish men went of and Voluntered with the British Army, they didnt get into trouble when they returned home.

However These men SWORE AN OATH OF ALLEGIENCE to the Irish State, and then Fecked of to the BA for whatever reason, Thats Treason EOS, they deserved everything they got

Maybe it speaks more about Irish Neutrality in the Second world war than the "treasonable" behaviour of the "deserters".

FiSe

...from the other hand, those guys had first hand experience in the modern combat, army/navy/airforce organisation and some of them proved to be good leaders under enemy fire and difficult conditions.
Something which could be used within the Irish Army to improve its organisation, training and efficiency. Something which would be more than useful only a few years later - in the UN missions and something which Irish Army officers without proper knowledge or experience could not deliver.

Tabnabs

I have great respect for the skipper and crew of the MTB. A proper sense of seamanship over perceived protocol. I would like to think that I would have readily volunteered had I been in their boots.

PatsytheNazi

FiSe wrote: »

...from the other hand, those guys had first hand experience in the modern combat, army/navy/airforce organisation and some of them proved to be good leaders under enemy fire and difficult conditions.
Something which could be used within the Irish Army to improve its organisation, training and efficiency. Something which would be more than useful only a few years later - in the UN missions and something which Irish Army officers without proper knowledge or experience could not deliver.

:rolleyes: We had plenty of experienced men and excellent leaders during 1939 to 1945. Their experience and leadership skills been developed fighting your beloved British army 1916 - 1921.

Simples.

PatsytheNazi

Stovepipe wrote: »

Hi all,
Fuinseog, reel it in, will ya? The MTB in question did two runs and was sent to Ireland thereafter. It saved lives, so who cares, in the end.As for the treatment of deserters, I met a man one time who was such a case.He was arrested off the boat when coming home on leave from a British unit.He was sentenced to a year in Cork Military Prison and the treatment of such men was medieval.(if the treatment he mentioned was ever admitted by the State, you could see more court cases). When he got out, he was told that he was officially booted out of the Irish Army and was, essentially, unwelcome in Ireland.So he went back to the UK and was promptly arrested there for alleged desertion of HM Forces, until he explained his case and was let off to rejoin his regiment. Contrast this treatment with that meted out to Allied PoWs who forcelanded or were washed ashore in Ireland and were allowed to return via Norn Iron.
The treatment by the State was illegal and immoral and simply cruel.
regards
Stovepipe

" It saved lives, so who cares, in the end " It endeared lives more like, Irish lives in our neutral country. This clown was rightly court martialled. If the same clown had gone to the rescue of Germans you and the rest of them would be screaming calling him a war criminal, collaborator etc etc

Prefab Sprouter

PatsytheNazi wrote: »

:rolleyes: We had plenty of experienced men and excellent leaders during 1939 to 1945. Their experience and leadership skills been developed fighting your beloved British army 1916 - 1921.

Simples.

some of those never lived past the Civil War having decided to fight each other!!

PatsytheNazi

Prefab Sprouter wrote: »

some of those never lived past the Civil War having decided to fight each other!!

Did it not occur to you that if they had been killed in the Civil War they wouldn't be around for 1939 - 1945 ya idiot :rolleyes:

Prefab Sprouter

PatsytheNazi wrote: »

Did it not occur to you that if they had been killed in the Civil War they wouldn't be around for 1939 - 1945 ya idiot :rolleyes:

I was referring to the fact that a lot of men who fought the war of independence were subsequently killed in the civil war, and that a lot of the knowledge gained was subsequently lost and therefore not available in the Emergency! But you knew that didnt you??

Sticks and Stones Patsy, sticks and stones

PatsytheNazi

Prefab Sprouter wrote: »

I was referring to the fact that a lot of men who fought the war of independence were subsequently killed in the civil war, and that a lot of the knowledge gained was subsequently lost and therefore not available in the Emergency! But you knew that didnt you??

Sticks and Stones Patsy, sticks and stones

Your just a clown kid, a total clown.

Prefab Sprouter

PatsytheNazi wrote: »

Your just a clown kid, a total clown.

Thanks for your unique and positive insight into the discussion at hand. You're a credit to the rock you crawled out from.

Manic Moran

OK, I'm going to lock this.

It's an interesting piece of history I was not aware of, particularly the MTB at Dunkirk (Flew a white ensign?), but I don't think we're going to get much more meaningful discussion out of this.

NTM