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

Limavady was operational for a month (December 1940) before Castle Archdale came onstream (Feb 41)

Limavady - Airfields of Britain Conservation Trust

@Francis McM

Every single claim you make has to be checked and they frequently fail that test.

This;

It (*Limavady) was established in the late 1930s.

failed the test.
Did you acknowledge that? NO you just pivot and carry on.

@Francis McM
Complete bluff and fudge as usual

It was surveyed as an ATS in '38 and was only in operation as an airfield a month ahead of Castle Archdale.
Completely contrary to the slant you tried to give it.

People are not idiots. Everything you claim goes down in flames because you cannot, for whatever reason, lie straight in your bed.

I’d say much of the world would have preferred neutrality if given the chance. At the time, many of those nations toiled under the yoke of freedom-loving European empires (!) and thus had no choice in the matter.

Of course most of the world prefers, ideally, not standing up to Bullys than standing up to Bullys.

Blood, Sweat and tears is not easy, especially when countries were trying to deal with their own poverty, the depression etc.

As I said " However if the neutral countries in the world had united and opposed Hitler the aggressor in 1939, the war might not have been as bad / last so long / cost 70 million lives or whatever.

By 1990 the world had learnt its lesson, and countries knew they should not be selfish and cowardly. After Iraq invaded little Kuwait and looted it, an international coalition was assembled under the mandate of the U. N. to liberate Kuwait following its invasion by Iraqi forces. The coalition consisting of 35 different countries. That was Gulf War 1, and Kuwait was liberated."

As Flinty997 correctly said, "On paper the French army was vastly superior to the German army. No one was expecting what happened or planned for it."

And other countries did not want to go to war either ( relatively soon after all the pain of WW1) , or were un-prepared for it. As I said earlier "In 1939 the US army was woefully small : it only had around 189,000 active-duty soldiers, placing it behind smaller European nations like Romania, Yugoslavia, and Poland. I took a year or two to build it up, to design and build arms, aircraft and ships it would need etc."

It was established as an airfield before that. Everything I said was true. To put it in context, I was replying to someone else's false claim, who claimed there were only 3 air bases in N. Ireland before Castle Archdale. I wrote

"Totally wrong. There were other airbases in NI before Castle Archdale in 1941 apart from Aldergrove ( beside Lough Neagh), Sydenham and Newtownards. For example RAF Limavady in Co. Derry : flights had to take off from there in 1940 and head up around the top of Donegal before turning left to try to patrol parts of the Atlantic. It was established in the late 1930s.

That is all true.

Hindsight is wonderful, but in reality Germany did re-arm through secret violations and, later, open defiance.

Initially, the Weimar Republic secretly developed forbidden weapons by disguising them as civilian projects. For example, tanks were labelled as "tractors," and military aircraft were developed under the guise of civilian "flying clubs". It is a bit like Iran in recent years trying to develop their nuclear programme. To evade Allied inspectors, Germany signed agreements with the Soviet Union to secretly test tanks and airplanes on Russian soil. We all know Chamberlin was extremely weak ; him giving the Treaty ports to Ireland in 1938 was a signal that he ( Chamberlin) was not interested in fighting a war in the Atlantic, and of course Hitler took advantage of that.

There was a massive difference between ASW patrols in the early years of the war and the later years. The development of high power radar was only starting in the early years and it took a while for reliable and effective airborne radar equipment to be developed. The later radar equipment had a greater detection range due to the higher powered transmitters. The U-boats had also adapted the Dutch snorkel idea so that they spent less time on the surface. The shorter wavelengths used by the more advanced radar also made it somewhat easier to detect the periscope/snorkel of U-boats near the surface. I think that the escort ships were also equipped with improved radar and sonar. War tends to accelerate the development of technology and some assumptions made before the war about the strategic value of positions may be overtaken by some of these developments.

It was their job 'to know', to listen to warnings and act.

So excuses for yer hero's but none for Dev and Ireland.


QED, thread is a bust. Pages and pages of Francis's hate fuelled spin, mistruths and inventions.

Soon as somebody wants to look at the reason war broke out in the first place, we get wishy washy excuses.

They didn't have to go to war to curtail Germany rearming, hard sanctions early enough would have stopped them.

Hate? You are the one who is always blaming Britain for everything, even for causing WW2. No surprise I suppose when you defended Sean Russell on another thread for trying to collaborate with the Nazis, shure the IRA were just good guys trying to take opportunity out of Britain's difficulties in WW2. You would'nt even condemn the 200 explosions / acts of sabotage the IRA carried out in Britain in 1939 / 1040.

I think that for a while, Germany was being treated as some kind of economic miracle. There was a a lack of concerted leadership in Europe and Hitler and Germany certainly took advantage.

Neither France or the UK seemed to be willing to fight to contain Germany. In some respects, the ToV laid the groundwork for another war. France didn't really want another war which would be fought on its territory.

The British Empire was in the process of being replaced by America as the dominant global power. The 1930s were economically difficult for most countries. A resurgent Germany was always going to make a move to recover the territories that it had lost. The reluctance by the signatories of the Treaty of Versailles was interpreted as a sign of weakness. It is easy, in hindsight, to see where things went wrong.

And even in 1938 Chamberlin would appease Hitler, and signal to Hitler that he ( Chamberlain) had no interest in fighting a war or defending its supply routes in the Atlantic by giving the Treaty ports to Ireland.

This thread is about Irish neutrality in WW2. If you want to set up another thread on the treaty of V. in 2019, and the great depression (1929–1939) which was the worst economic downturn in modern history, sure, go ahead.

Harping back to the T of V is just whataboutery in this thread. Nothing to do with Irish neutrality in WW2.