Ireland in WW2....

Ghost Buster wrote: »

Mostly agree

Beyond me how it's "really embarrassing" tbh though.

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Tyson Wonderful Forest wrote: »

I think Ireland did well by avoiding another European fratricide. There was little the newborn country could offer in the way of support either and there was virtually no way the Irish could bring the war over to Adolf to teach him a thing or two. I think the costs would hugely outweigh any possible benefits.

Btw one of the most awesome military commanders of all time was half Irish. His biography just defies belief.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Carton_de_Wiart

plus are people so naïve to think less than 20 years after the WOI and civil war which followed and less than 30 years from end of the bloodfest that was WW1 any irish Politian would really vote to row in with the british and send another generation off to fight wars in Europe...it was a very short timeframe from what was a particulary horrific life lost in WW1

se conman wrote: »

If we take a step back and look at look at it from a late 1930's Irish point of view, We would have been inviting our "enemy" to re occupy Ireland after less than 30 years. This could have split the people of the country and restarted a civil war. As much as I am not a fan of de Valera, it was a very fine balancing act. A lot of weather info did come from the Republic and Intel from DOD regarding the German Embsay. We were neutral on the side of the allies, as the saying goes.

That's a narrow view.

There was nothing to stop Dev et al coming on board with the Yanks when they became involved and offering billeting, basing and training. Or allowing aircraft to operate from here. Likewise the Canadians could have been facilitated.

It doesn't automatically follow that if we had joined the Allies that British forces would have been based here.

As for Divisions.......the Kiwis fielded two initially but reduced that to a single one. If we'd hopped on board say when the US became involved and negotiated for them to equip / re-equip a division or, more likely, a regimental combat team, they would have served under US command, like the French and Brazilians did.

As for actual combat, plenty of Micks and Paddies served with distinction in the Med - for a country with a distinct lack of mountains the men who served with 38th (Irish) Brigade (and the Irish Regiment of Canada) proved to be fairly formidable mountain fighters even when up against trained German and Austrian mountain / Alpine troops. There's reason to think a force raised here wouldn't have served with equal distinction.

Dev did the right thing keeping us out of ww2. well done him. we were on the receiving end of an unofficial economic war by the British for sticking to our guns and not letting them use "their" formal naval bases. but he was right to do so. and we did help the allies out in other ways. and had the Germans managed to defeat the Russians and somehow ended up invading sooner or later resistance would have ensued. it wasnt in our interests to enter world war 2. think it was Churchil himself who said eternal interests over eternal friendships. well said son. I concur. and when all the fighting was done and dusted some of the most evil and heinous nazi minds and thousands of other nazis were divided up among the victorious allies and put to work for them in their new found homes. the nazis were defeated. we remained in one piece. so whats the problem.

Ireland in the 1930's and 40's was a broken nation; a generation of the finest young men had died in Civil War and the country was scarred by the experiences of the 1916 Rising, the War of Independence and the Civil War. The last thing this country needed was another war.

But World War II was different from any war that Ireland would have experienced before. This was a war where every single man, woman and child in a belligerent nation were a legitimate target to the enemy. In previous wars, attacks on civilians were not the norm. They happened, but they were not the normal run of things.

World War II was a savage, inhuman war. Entire populations were mobilised for the war effort and civilians found themselves in the direct firing line thanks to aerial bombing. Millions upon millions of civilians perished in their homes thanks to indiscriminate bombing raids on cities and towns.

Ireland, had it entered World War II, would have saw itself become crushed. The country was already teetering on the brink economically anyway, and the raw wounds of the Civil War were still very open. Entering the War on either side would have ripped the country in half (at first), and then saw it brutally attacked and subjugated by one side or another (secondly).

Had Ireland entered the War on the side of the Allies (at the initial stages, the "Allies", for all intents and purposes, was Great Britain), half the country would have opposed siding with "the real enemy" and the old Civil War divisions would have raised their ugly heads again. Opposition to the war and supporters to entering the war would have ended up killing each other rather than Nazis.

Aside from the potential Civil War that would break out, the Nazis would have bombed the country into the ground. In fact, the South would have made for easy pickings for the Luftwaffe. A lack of defensive batteries would have seen the cities of Dublin, Cork, Waterford, Limerick and Galway bombed into rubble, along with other larger towns. There was also a possibility that the Germans could have attempted to occupy Ireland to use as a stepping stone to invade Britain (although if Sealion didn't fly, an invasion of Ireland was unlikely... but still).

The other side is, had Ireland joined the war on the side of the Nazis, that it would have ended even quicker. British troops would have flooded into the South from Northern Ireland, and landings would have been made by the British Expeditionary Force on the South and East coasts, as Britain invaded and re-occupied Ireland. And they would likely have exacted a terrible revenge upon the Irish people for this naked belligerence for supporting the Nazi regime. And Hitler and his generals are unlikely to have been able to do much to stop it, despite being "allied".

It is also worth noting this: what the hell could Ireland have offered to any war effort? Ireland had no military worth talking about. It would have offered a generation of young men to die on the killing fields of Europe, perhaps, but in terms of aircraft, ships, submarines, tanks, vehicles... nothing of note.

It made absolutely no sense for Ireland, a young and weak nation in the 1930's, to enter the fray when it was advisable to stay out. The course taken by Ireland during the Second World War was the absolutely correct one. It would have been a folly for Ireland to enter the war, on either side. Doing so simply would have opened the country up for attack, invasion, occupation and subjugation.

Mistakes were made (Dev signing the book of condolence for Hitler is a real example of WTF), but on the whole, Ireland did right by staying out (and aiding the Western Allies as much as they could).