Is Irelands neutrality stance in WW2 unfairly criticized? (see Mod note 217)

Stop diverting. Still waiting on your books you claimed to have saying the Allies having treaty ports or bases in Ireland would not have helped the Allied war effort. You lied again, so many of your claims have gone down in flames.

I never had a theory there was only one view on the Treaty Ports. Of course the Allies had a different view to Dev and co.

You said there were books that argues the Allies would not have found bases in Ireland beneficial. You have been caught lying yet again.

Portugal gave the use of the Azores and was never bombed by the Germans, unlike Ireland ( about 50 times). The Germans also sunk a lot of our merchant navy. What more could we lose? If Dev had played his cards right he could have had the US air force protecting us.

Good for Portugal but you see Francis you would need to have been drawing that conclusion AFTER the war, which wouldn’t have been much use to Dev etc when they had to make decisions.

Is there any chance you can get your head around that?

If Dev was hoping for a German victory

He wasn’t.

Stop wasting your time posting it. Because I am not reading past nonsense like that.

I don’t care what they ‘thought’.
Discuss this with someone deluded enough to think like you do.

Neutrals don’t kill anyone. I’d be pretty sure those folk died because two sets of belligerents were at war.

Just a mad guess.

Constantly making stuff up about others just confirms your obsessive un-reseached sycophantic tosh.
You have nothing left, think up something new.

These people were lost because two sets of belligerents were fighting a war. No war - no losses.

From the BBC History site below. Did the Admiralty ever come up with a precise figure for how many lives were lost in 1941/42 due to this internal RAF power struggle? Maybe Dev or Ireland had something to do with it.

"The B-24D 'Liberator', a very-long-range aircraft, was the victim of a power struggle within the RAF. At first it was used only for the strategic bombing of Germany, the dominant strategy within the RAF at that time, and was only released to Coastal Command towards the end of 1942.

The argument of 'Bomber' Harris had been that the RAF's most useful contribution to the Battle of the Atlantic was to bomb the U-boat pens and production facilities on land - a view that was, and remains, deeply controversial. By the second half of 1943, however, as these longer-range aircraft were released for the sea battle, the mid-Atlantic gap was at last being satisfactorily covered."

As for books, Jonathan Dimblebys The Battle of the Atlantic never mentions Ireland, Dev, Treaty Ports..nothing in relation to this island, north or south. Bases in Ireland would have been useless without long range bombers being made available to coastal command.

The Treaty ports is a misnomer, Lough Swilly and Berehaven were safe anchorages, not ports. Cobh, was really Spike Island, a naval fort but not a port as such.

Aircraft and technology were the key to allied victory in the Battle of the Atlantic, the Treaty "Ports" were a red herring.

Rubbish. Dimbleby in his book Battle of the Atlantic devotes a lot of space to Ireland's lack of co-operation in the Battle of the Atlantic, and "critiques the broader strategic cost of Ireland’s neutrality, as the absence of accessible Irish naval ports (such as Berehaven and Cobh) forced Allied supply lines further out into the Atlantic, stretching resources to the limit and increasing merchant vessel losses."

In the First World war there were over 100 naval ships based out of Cobh alone. Do not forget Lough Erne was just a lake but Seaplanes based there helped in no small way in the Battle of the Atlantic.

There is an expression, attributed to Rommel and others, that amateurs talk tactics while professionals talk logistics. Supply and resupply matter. One of the many things that Francis McM ignores in his wibbling about the Treaty Ports and his "Get de Valera" obsession is the range of U-boats. There were different types of U-boats and their operational ranges varied. That meant that they could only stay at sea for a limited time before needing to resupply with fuel and torpedoes. This made the northern convoy routes more difficult targets. The Germans tried to solve the problem with "milk cow" U-boats that would resupply other U-boats at sea. However, these resupply operations had to take place on the surface and made the two U-boats vulnerable. Sinking a milk cow U-boat would cause problems for the U-boats that depended on it for supplies.

There is something about the Treaty Ports, specifically Berehaven and Cobh that the British Admiralty may have understood even if Churchill did not and it comes down to one word: range.

The northern convoy routes pushed the U-boats in terms of range and supplies. Even resupplying them in the North Atlantic was difficult. Having the Berehaven and Cobh ports might have allowed for some more Allied escorts and a greater use of southerly convoy routes. They would also have shortened the range for U-boats operating from France. Hypothetically, they could rearm, refuel and resupply quicker than U-boats operating against Allied shipping on the northern convoy routes. Shorter U-boat resupply lines would have been a consequence of having the two southerly Treaty Ports. Perhaps the British and Americans understood, even if Churchill did not, the importance of making it difficult for the Germans to maintain their supply lines. The Americans certainly understood the importance of destroying the enemy's supply chains as they did so in the Pacific against the Japanese.

The Germans did develop longer range U-boats during WW2. The northern convoy routes pushed the earlier designs to their limits. With the southerly Treaty Ports, there would have been the temptation fo the Allies to rely more on southerly convoy routes that even with increased escort protection would have put this shipping within closer range of U-boats from France. More ships and more U-boats would have had an obvious outcome even with increased escort protection. By forcing U-boats to operate farther into the Atlantic, it put a strain on how they were resupplied and they could only carry a limited number of torpedoes and a limited supply of fuel and food. Those factors limited the effectiveness of U-boat operations and there was a lot of research that went into the development of convoys in WW2 that took these factors into consideration. As that map shows, even having protection from Iceland did not stop Allied ships being sunk by U-boats. Similarly, having the Treaty Ports would not have stopped Allied ships being sunk by U-boats. The vulnerability of the milk cow U-boat resupply operations may not have existed if more U-boats could have operated effectively from France and resupplied quickly. Forcing the Germans to operate farther into the Atlantic and almost overextend their supply lines was an effective strategy that might not have been immediately obvious to Francis McM and revisionists.

Interesting that although your bitterness towards Churchill leaves you implying you, jmcc, is more of an expert on the Battle of the Atlantic than Churchill was, and you think he did not even consider u boat range, the result is that the British Admiralty ( and they knew a bit about the Battle of the Atlantic) concluded our neutrality cost them 5070 British sailors lives. Of course the lives of sailors from America, Canada etc can be added to that, plus the lives of people indirectly lost because of all the the war materials etc sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic on the thousands of ships and not reaching their destinalion.

One of the many things you ignore of course in your quick google search is the range of u boats versus the airplanes sent to find them. The flying boats operating out of Lough Ernne could only do so from 1941 onwards, and were supposed to be used for air sea rescue only. The previous year, in 1940 a thousand Allied ships were sunk in the Atlantic. when flying boats were eventually operationaled out of Lough Erne and allowed to use the Donegal corridor, the range of the Short Sunderland for example was only around 1,780 to 2,840 miles depending on the payload. So their time anywhere near mid Atlantic was extremely limited. The Supermarine Stranraer had only a range of about 1000 miles, and even the Consolidated Catalinas used later on had only a range of 2500 miles.

By contrast , the range of U boats - without being resupplied - was up to 15,500 miles, with the most common class, the Type VII, having a typical surface range of 6,500 to 8,500 nautical miles.

Being supplied mid ocean of course expanded their range. This was done by either supply ships or the milk cow submarines. During the early years of the war, German auxiliary cruisers and surface tankers lingered in remote areas, mid Atlantic or further west, to service submarines before Allied naval patrols expanded.

End result of course was nearly 3000 Allied ships sunk in the Atlantic, a massive amount of supplies and valuable war materials lost, etc. And as the Admiraly said, 5070 British sailors lives lost as the result of our neutrality ( plus olther allied lives), out of a total loss of over 72,000 Allied naval and merchant mariners.

Plus D day and the consequences perhaps delayed from when it otherwise may have happened were there not such heavy losses in the Atlantic, and materials losts in the preceding years.

.

It's almost like the Admiralty needed someone to blame for their mistakes.

More Google searches, AI slop and magical thinking from Francis McM. The reality is that even with the Treaty Ports, the Allies would have lost ships to U-boats.

Allied aircraft typically relied upon detecting U-boats on the surface visually or by radar. Radar was not a 100% solution due to the range of the equipment and the conditions in which it had to operate.

Once a U-boat expended its torpedoes, the alternative was a far more dangerous surface attack with deck guns. The RN used to employ Q-ships that looked like ordinary merchantman ships but had guns which would be revealed in the event of a U-boat attack. A surface attack also put the U-boat in danger of an attack from the convoy's escorts.

One of the main reasons that the Allies won the Battle of The Atlantic was because the Enigma encryption used by the U-boats was compromised. When the U-boats switched to a four rotor Enigma, the Allied shipping losses increased and it was a ten month lockout before the Allies were able to break the U-boat messages again. The tactics and technology of both sides evolved during the war. Some of the technology such as radar and sonar was only in the early stages of development during the early years of the war. The adoption of large convoy tactics only happened after a lot of ships were lost. Churchill's frame of reference was WW1 and he championed the Gallipoli disaster. The Battle Of The Atlantic was a complex battle fought over many years and with many technological and strategic developments. In some respects, these developments were as different as a musket to a machine gun.What changed the dynamics of the Battle Of The Atlantic was the entry of the US into WW2. That meant that the Germans were fighting the UK (and others) and the US. The US had the economic power to outproduce Germany and replace losses quicker than Germany could replace its U-boat losses. This, more than any argument about Irish Treaty Ports, changed the dynamics of the battle.

It highly simplistic to ignore this factor and simply waffle about Irish Treaty Ports and de Valera as Francis McM has done repeatedly. Arguably, the Allies breaking of the Enigma encryption used by the U-boats had more of an effect on the battle than the Allies having had access to the Irish Treaty Ports. Given the choice between a compromised Enigma and the Irish Treaty Ports, Churchill would have chosen the former. He realised the value of Enigma decrypts and their role in the outcome of WW2.

The knowledge of Francis McM is evidently, from his posting history, as shallow a Google search.

You say "The reality is that even with the Treaty Ports, the Allies would have lost ships to U-boats."

Yes, of course. Nobody ever denied that.

5070 British sailors lives lost as the result of our neutrality ( plus other allied lives), out of a total loss of over 72,000 Allied naval and merchant mariners…..so that means that even with the Treaty Ports or bases in Ireland, the Allies would have lost ships - and tens of thousands of lives - to U-boats."

Breaking the enigma code had nothing to do with Irish neutrality. It happened anyway. Stop diverting. Of course the Allies made technological advances during the war to reduce the U boat threat. But it did not eliminate it.

Yes of course the entry of the US in to the war helped the Allies war effort. Nobody denied that. But even before America entered the war, Roosevelt wanted us to patrol out to 50 miles for German intruders. Of course Aiken refused. Even though the Americans were at the time, alhough neutral, patrolling out to 300 miles to help the Allies.

By the way, from your typical opening remark of "More Google searches, AI slop and magical thinking from Francis McM." to your closing remark "The knowledge of Francis McM is evidently, from his posting history, as shallow a Google search." is quite amusing, coming from you, but it does get very tiresome after a while. Did not the mod warn you before about not being civil?