Prison Break - Irish Style

CDfm

Next Thursday the story of the Limerick man at the center of KGB spy jailbreak is on TG4 at 10.30.

Jailbreak!

The incredible tale of a Limerick man who sprang a KGB spy from prison is just one of many daring Irish escapes, says Penny Cronin





By Ailin Quinlan

Saturday February 11 2012

Armed only with a pot of pink chrysanthemums and a walkie-talkie, a Limerick convict sprang the UK's most-wanted KGB spy in a daring prison escape that would go down in British penal history.
The tale of how Seán Bourke helped double agent George Blake outwit his jailers is just one in a new series of stories of Irishmen who made breaks for freedom.
There was Francie McGuigan -- hooded, beaten, subjected to sleep deprivation and thrown out of a helicopter -- who later coolly escaped through the main gates of Long Kesh dressed as a priest.
Then, there was Charlie 'Nomad' McGuinness, who helped execute a high-wire escape across the walls of Derry jail before scattering cayenne pepper to throw the bloodhounds off the scent.
And there was George Gilmore, who waded to freedom through sewage, and 38 IRA prisoners in Long Kesh who used soup ladles to tunnel, Colditz-style, more than 40 metres to freedom.
"The Irish are great at two things -- funerals and prison breaks. We have a long history of prison breaks, especially among Republican prisoners," says Paddy Hayes, director of 'Éalú', a six-part series on notorious Irish prison escapes which begins on TG4 on Thursday.
"Some of them were reckless. Some of them had no fear for their own safety while others were opportunists. The guile these men used and the painstaking research they went into for some of these escapes was extraordinary," Paddy says.
The series begins against the backdrop of 1960s Cold War paranoia when Limerick man Seán Bourke made international headlines by masterminding the escape of George Blake, a British spy who worked as a KGB double agent.
In 1961, George was sentenced to 42 years in prison, the longest sentence ever handed down by a British court.
Seán later explained how it all started: "Britain's most-wanted man came up to me in D wing and said: 'Seán, will you help me escape?'"
At the time, Seán was serving a seven-year sentence for sending a letter bomb to a policeman, on which he engraved the words 'Rest in Peace'.
On his release, Seán spent six months making detailed preparations. Using smuggled walkie-talkies, he communicated covertly with George on a nightly basis, and even recorded their conversations, which feature in the programme.
He also enlisted the help of another former inmate, Michael Randle, who later described Seán as a "total maverick".
In October 1966, against all the odds, he sprang his pal from Wormwood Scrubs. The prison is beside Hammersmith Hospital in London.
"Seán's plan was to park the getaway car outside the wall of the prison, and if he was challenged he'd hold up the pink chrysanthemums saying he was visiting a relative in the hospital -- that was his cover," says Paddy.
Seán hid the walkie-talkie microphone in the chrysanthemums so he wouldn't appear to be acting suspiciously when he communicated with George.
Following the escape, which made international headlines, an ITN reporter at the scene wondered about the pot of chrysanthemums at the foot of the prison wall.
It remained a mystery until 1970, when Seán published his account of the adventure.
Following the escape, seaports and airports were scoured by the police, while the pair holed up together in a bedsit half a mile from the prison.
"What ensued were weeks of chaos where Seán's erratic and drunken behaviour threatened to blow their cover," says Paddy.
The conspirators finally managed to smuggle George to Russia -- in a camper van. He still lives there today, aged 89. Seán died on January 26, 1982.
The ordeal suffered by IRA man Francie McGuigan makes for compelling viewing. In 1971, Francie, then just 23, was taken from his home during a British army swoop and imprisoned for seven days at Girdwood Barracks in Belfast.
There, says Paddy, he became one of the 'Hooded Men' -- he was hooded, beaten and subjected to psychological torture including white noise, sleep deprivation and being thrown out of a helicopter.
Francie was sent to Long Kesh Internment Camp, where on being asked by the governor if he had any questions, he cheekily asked: What's the best way out of here?"
The governor replied coldly that "the only way out is through the front gate". Later, after his escape, Francie sent him a postcard thanking him for his advice.
Breaking out was more complicated for Laois man Paddy Fleming, who escaped more than 17 times from straitjackets in Portlaoise prison in 1918.
A member of the IRA's Kilkenny Brigade, Paddy was sentenced to five years in Maryborough Prison, now Portlaoise Prison, for attempting to purchase arms from British soldiers in 1917.
Paddy's demand for political status -- which would allow him visiting rights, the right to wear his own clothes and mingle with other political prisoners -- was refused.
Then, one night he kicked his chamber pot at the window. "Shards of glass fell into the cell. He hid pieces of glass and, holding a shard in his mouth, he cut his way out of the strait-jacket."
Paddy Fleming held out until the authorities granted him political status and transferred him to Mountjoy in 1919.
But on March 29, 1919, he led a cunning prison break right under the noses of the warders.
Using a fake fist-fight among the prisoners as a decoy, Paddy and 19 of his comrades managed to scale Mountjoy's outer wall and escaped.
It was the biggest jailbreak in Ireland's history at the time.
When it comes to prison escapes, however, Frank Carty was one of the most colourful. He made two breakouts, culminating in a high-wire act across the walls of Derry Jail in 1920.
Frank's superior in the Sligo Brigade of the IRA, Billy Pilkington, decided to spring him.
A very devout man, Billy sought divine inspiration while drawing up the escape plans and after a decade of the rosary and a blessing from a nun, he and his brigade set off.
They cut telegraph wires and erected barricades. At night, they scaled the walls of Sligo Jail, overpowered the sentry, held up the governor in his bed and took his keys.
Armed with two guns, they took over the entire prison before smashing down the front door and departing through the prison gates.
Frank was soon re-arrested and charged with the murder of an RIC inspector, and the authorities sent him to the high-security Derry Jail.
Here he languished once again until Charlie 'Nomad' McGuinness stepped in.
A smuggler, spy and a soldier of fortune, Nomad hatched a plan which involved a tightrope walk from Frank's cell window to the outer jail walls.
Once he got Frank over the wall, Nomad scattered cayenne pepper in their wake to throw the bloodhounds off the scent.
Finally, there were the 38 IRA prisoners who, in 1974, tunnelled over 40 metres to freedom outside the perimeter fence of Long Kesh.
It had been a meticulously planned escape -- in the best Colditz tradition, the mouth of the tunnel was hidden under pieces of corrugated iron and the internees held sing-songs every night to conceal the sound of their digging.
The painstaking work was done over the course of three weeks using soup ladles and metal trays, and pieces of wood were used to shore up the roof of the tunnel.
On November 6, 1974, the prisoners made a break for it. One by one they crawled on their stomachs into the tunnel, through the underwater section, to freedom.
In all, 38 prisoners escaped, but one escapee drew the attention of the armed sentries, and in the ensuing chaos one man, Hugh Coney, was shot dead and more than 30 prisoners were captured.
The six prisoners who managed to get away were re-captured within 48 hours.
'Éalú' begins on Thursday at 10.30pm on TG4 with 'Bourke & Blake'
- Ailin Quinlan

There must be a rich history of Irish prison breaks involving Irish people .

Lets be having 'em.

Dr.Nightdub

Escape from the Rath Camp 1921

The man named Glennon in the last paragraph was my granda. In a really neat twist, while I was researching my granda's life last year, the Curragh Military Museum put me in touch with an officer in today's Defence Forces - he's a grandson of the man who escaped with my granda. His grandfather, Joseph Lawless, gave a witness statement to the Bureau of Military History which goes into their escape in a lot more detail.

CDfm

Thanks for the link.

I know that road and stroll is what you do on it. "Procured" a car. Nice.

On an aside, I am sure people would be interested in how went about & handled contacting the Bureau of Military History and what to expect.

Judgement Day

CDfm - caught several accounts of this prison break on the radio including the use of early walkie talkies etc. great stuff and the story has featured in several plays and with artistic licence in the movie "The Mackintosh Man" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mackintosh_Man which may be had on DVD. The true story sounds like it would make a cracking movie with the right director - and Brendan Gleeson of course!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxMtP5xjiTU

Judgement Day

Portlaoise Prison has been the scene of a number of successful, and unsuccessful, escape attempts and the one that sticks in my memory dates from March 1975. The sheer scale of what took place is stunning - inmates using explosives, IRA activists throwing chains over electricity wires and blacking out half the town, other units exchanged fire with soldiers on duty at the prison and an armour plated JCB charged the main gates.....it broke down due to the weight of the armour plating! A movie for the future to be sure!

Portlaoise Prison Attempted Escape: Statement by Minister.
Wednesday, 19 March 1975
Dáil Eireann Debate
Vol. 279 No. 5

Page of 48
Minister for Justice (Mr. Cooney): At 8.22 p.m. on Monday, 17th March, a carefully prepared and elaborate attempt to effect a break out from Portlaoise Prison was made by a large group of prisoners there. The group were at the time in the prison recreation hall where a film was being shown. The sequence of events which ensued is as follows.

The lights went out suddenly and, at a word of command, the prisoners threw themselves to the floor. The doorway from the recreation hall to the yard was then blasted by means of an explosive charge and about 40/50 of the group rushed into the yard and towards a gate-way in the wire enclosure surrounding the yard, while the Prison Officers and the gardaí present were threatened by the remaining prisoners using chairs as weapons. The emergency lighting system in the prison had automatically taken over from the main supply, which, it was later discovered, had been cut off deliberately by the creation of a shortcircuit not far from the prison. The gate in the wire enclosure was also blasted.

At about the same time fire was being directed at the prison from outside and Army personnel returned fire. At approximately the same time a vehicle specially adapted so as to be, in effect, an armoured battering-ram for use against the prison perimeter [748] was driven right through a closed gate leading from the main Dublin Road to the prison farm and then in the direction of the prison wall. A Garda car was immediately positioned at the farm gate to cut off the vehicle's retreat and gardaí from the area of the main gate of the prison moved towards the vehicle, which by then had come to a halt having been entangled with the protective wire fence which surrounds the prison wall. Two men are being charged in court today in connection with this particular incident.

The prison had been placed on general alert and the prisoners in the yard were by this time covered by armed soldiers, some of whom fired warning shots and thereby forced them back inside the wired compound. After staying in the compound for some short time they re-entered the recreation hall and the cell block. Later it was established that one prisoner, Thomas Smyth, had been killed from a wound received outside the recreation hall and that two other prisoners had received minor injuries while in the yard. It is not yet possible to say precisely how the injuries were received. The results of tests on pieces of metal found in the dead man's body have not been received.

At this point I want to make it quite clear that allegations or reports that official spokesmen have been asserting that the dead man was shot, or alternatively, have been asserting that he was not, are equally without foundation. From the facts as estab lished to date it does not appear that the dead man was killed by a direct hit by a bullet. The question whether he was killed by shrapnel from the explosion or from parts of a ricochetting bullet remains to be established by scientific tests of various pieces of metal. The results of the tests will be presented publicly at the inquest. The necessary tests were in progress yesterday and are being continued.

The amounts of explosives used to blast the two gates were very small. A tentative estimate is that not more than 4 ozs. were used and possibly less. A search of the prison and the [749] prisoners which was carried out on Monday night did not uncover any explosives or any other escape material.

The foregoing is a summary of the main facts as known to me at this stage. I regret that a life was lost in the course of this incident. I am in no way qualifying that expression of regret if I immediately add that the responsibility for the death rests squarely and entirely on the shoulders of those who planned and those who helped in this attempt at escape in the full knowledge that the attempt could not but involve the most serious risk of death or injury to very many people — innocent civilians, prisoners, prison staff, gardaí and Army personnel. The responsibility of these people for the loss of life is equally clear and equally undiminished no matter whether the death was caused by one of the explosions or by a ricochetting bullet or even by a direct hit.

More here: http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/1975/03/19/00034.asp

CDfm

Treatment of Irish escapees by the Japenese Imperial Army in WWII.

Review: History: The Emperor’s Irish Slaves – Prisoners of the Japanese in the Second World War by Robert Widders

History Press, £14.99
Available with free P&P on www.kennys.ieor by calling 091 709350



Saturday February 11 2012

Timothy Kenneally was only following orders. Like all Allied servicemen were supposed to, in March 1943 he attempted escape from a Japanese prisoner of war (POW) camp but was caught, tortured -- crucified -- and executed.
The Japanese Imperial Army recorded the 29-year-old's death on his POW index card.
Noting he was from Bishopstown in Cork and serving with the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, his final moments were simply recorded: "Escaped on March 8, 1943, and caught on March 23 and disposed of."
There was no mention of how he met his end. No mention of the appalling cruelty he suffered and terror of his final moments.
But now Robert Widders tells his story, and that of 650 Irish POWs forced to live and die in the most appalling and inhumane conditions, in the excellent The Emperor's Irish Slaves: Prisoners of the Japanese in the Second World War'.
This is the first book to explore the fate of the 650 British Army-serving Irishmen and women in Japanese POW slave labour camps, mainly on the Burma railway in 1942. Many were killed trying to escape or died from cholera.
The discovery of Fusilier Kenneally's body and that of three others is revealed in the book by his comrade, Sergeant George Priestman: "In the undergrowth we found three bamboo crosses, about seven feet by four feet. We also saw another bamboo cross jutting out of the ground. We uncovered it and found the dead body of a British soldier, tied to the cross with his arms outstretched. He had been shot.
"Nearby there were three mounds of loose earth. We did not uncover these mounds but built up four proper mounds and placed small bamboo crosses on top."
Fusilier Kenneally was one of hundreds of Irishmen and women imprisoned by the Japanese Imperial Army, many of whom met their deaths because of a lack of basic medical supplies, negligence and outright cruelty.
They included Sister Mary Cooper, who died in a POW camp in June 1943.
Two brothers from Cork -- Lieutenant Richard Duke and Private Basil Duke -- also lie buried at opposite ends of the Burma railway after dying from preventable diseases.
But rape, torture, deprivation and daily humiliation were the lot of the POW at the hands of a merciless army who saw their charges as sub-human.
The sinking of prisoner transport vessel the Lisbon Maru on October 1, 1942, perhaps best encapsulates the living hell that many POWs went through.
Conditions were cramped for the 1,800 prisoners on board, of which at least 22 were Irish. There were no medical supplies and food and water were not provided.
And when it was torpedoed by a submarine, its officers and crew left the prisoners locked under the hatches and abandoned ship, although it was not to sink for another 24 hours.
Some POWs escaped and started to swim for shore, but were shot dead in the water.
But why were the Imperial Army so brutal? Widders explains: "The Japanese army trained recruits by a methodology based on fear and brutality. Any mistake, no matter how minor, was punished by beatings with a fist or bamboo stick.
"It was a system based on blind, unquestioning obedience and terror. Given that this was the norm within the army, it was inevitable that similar disciplinary codes should have been imposed on its prisoners. Japanese soldiers were conditioned to believe that other races were inferior . . . it was a concept that would have lethal repercussions for the POWs."
But who were these people that left Ireland to fight in a far-flung land?
An examination of British Army records by Widders reveals that about 15pc of Irish POWs enlisted before 1930, and were career army officers.
The majority joined after 1931, and many in 1940 when the war was going badly for Britain.
And they came from all walks of life, from every county and every social and political background.
Private Jeremiah O'Connor from Kerry was a staunch loyalist, who said he was Irish but "British by birth".
POW Frank McGee was a republican from Carrick-on-Shannon, who joined with his nine brothers. Asked after the war why, he said: "The English are our enemies and nobody else is allowed to fight them."
This is a grim book, but an important one. No subject is avoided, including the issue of collaboration with some POWs killed by fellow inmates for being "Jap happy".

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/review-history-the-emperors-irish-slaves-prisoners-of-the-japanese-in-the-second-world-war-by-robert-widders-3016721.html