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wartime Moville/Foyle/Derry

  • 10-05-2012 5:14pm
    #1
    martinedwards
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,045 ✭✭✭


    Hi folks,

    at the risk of getting told off, this is a duplicate post from the donegal section.........

    I'm researching a book about my grandfather who was a Royal Navy corvette captain who was invaleded out with TB.

    he spent the remaining years of the war in Moville (Gortgowan) where, according to family legend, he was still on full naval pay and had far more petrol ration than he SHOULD have had.....

    supposedly he would try to lay smokescreen rumours about convoy sailings to anyone who showed any interest in the hope that the disinformation would get back to german agents who would radio the lies to the Uboats waiting around the corner off Malin.

    apparently he used to signal ships in the Foyle bay with morse code using his hall light and was told off by the guards for flying a Union Jack on VE day.

    what I'm after is info on the general atmosphere around the border areas with a huge naval base in Derry and clearly an opportunity for contraband. would ships quartermasters buy illicit beef from a "bloke in a pub"? that sort of thing.

    allegedly he was caught trying to smuggle fireworks across the border on VE day and rather than surrender them to the border official he dropped a match into the box and set the lot off inside the office. My mum (now in her 70s) claims that there were still scorch marks on the cieling 10 years later.......

    I'm nearly local (Belfast) not some yank or anything......My Great grandparents on both sides were from Rathmelton and my father grew up there. still have cousins etc farming and running a farm shop there too...... The Speers in Leterkenny are 2nd cousins.....

    anyway, I'm going to try and get to visit old folks homes in the Moville area to chat with the folks who might be old enough to remember being an adult in the war years (my parents were both kids, born '36 & '37 so they haven't really got TOO much to tell.....)

    any (polite) suggestions as to where to continue my research would be greatly appreciated!!

    Thanks!


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