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German Bombers refueling in Ireland during WW2

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Comments

  • #62
    tricky D
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,700 ✭✭✭tricky D


    A quick Google for 'sweeney blacksod DDay' gives plenty links


  • #63
    nuac
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 6,769 Mod ✭✭✭✭nuac


    thecommietommy wrote: »
    Sounds like BS to me, link/proof :)


    tct

    Most detailed histories of WW2 refer to the importance of the weather at the time of teh Normandy invasion.

    On the day planned weather was bad - up to F 7 winds which would make handling landing craft almost impossib le

    the Germans thought the weather too bad for landings. Many of their senior staff had gone off to a war games exercise in Rheims, Rommel had gone home on leave, for his wife's birthday.

    Eisenhower and his advisers had an agonising decision to make. Troops were already afloat at or just outside many ports, and parts of some convoys were on the way from more distant ports.

    The weather was deteriorating, with the added problem of seasickness.

    Successful landings depended on tides - these vary as to time and range.

    If teh invasion could not start within about 48 hours it would have to be postponed for tidal and other reasons

    In those days it was not possible to survey weather patterns out in the Atrlantic thru the various methods we have now.

    reports from Irish met stations were being sent to UK as a matter of routine.

    However Ted Sweeney at Blacksod station identified a lull in the bad weather coming in from the Atlantic ( I cannot remember the technical name ) This information was passed to the UK. The invasion had been postponed for one day, but then went ahead based largely on Mr Sweeney's call.

    This has been widely known in coastal areas of Mayo since WW2

    So............. may be you would withdraw the BS allegation?


  • #64
    chevyv8
    Registered Users Posts: 301 ✭✭chevyv8


    Judgement Day wrote: »
    More total tosh I'm afraid. I don't know where all this guff is coming from, it's not as if it has not all been in the public domain for years. There were no Allied or Axis air bases/U Boat pens in the Irish Free State during the war and all evidence points to Ireland being neutral on the side of the Allies. The story about an RAF man being returned to the Republic from NI is bar stool talk.
    thats where you are wrong, this did in fact happen, read the book the donegal spitfire.


  • #65
    Judgement Day
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,549 ✭✭✭✭Judgement Day


    chevyv8 wrote: »
    thats where you are wrong, this did in fact happen, read the book the donegal spitfire.

    If you read the thread you will see I acknowledged my mistake here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=73722818&postcount=25 almost a year ago. The main thrust of my post was that it is nonsense to suggest that there were U boats bases and German bombers refuelling in Ireland.


  • #66
    Qualitymark
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,824 ✭✭✭Qualitymark


    getz wrote: »
    because of irelands neutrality,they did not qualify for the martial plan,and also upset russia, on the ground ireland was very pro american/british

    According to Wikipedia, anyway, Ireland benefited from the Marshall Plan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan

    My mother told me that the Germans who crash-landed were always interned, but the British were generally interned. She said some British wanted to go back and keep fighting, and they were quietly facilitated in getting home. Others - known as "fly-boys" - were essentially deserting, and were glad to be interned.

    It's hard to envisage now, but remember that 1939, the start of World War II, was less than 20 years after the end of the savage occupation of Ireland by the Black-and-Tans and Auxiliaries during the War of Independence. Equivalent to the year 1995 to us now. So no one was too enthusiastic about inviting them back to have bases here, with the worry that they might simply refuse to go at the end of the war.

    But the British can be very bitter, and can misinterpret things. I was told in all seriousness by a former British officer that he had witnessed an Irish trawler shining its lights on men swimming away from a torpedoed British ship "so the Germans could see them and machine-gun them in the water". It never occurred to him that shining lights on men swimming in the water is a natural thing to do - if you want to pick them up, and to allow the enemy boat to pick them up, as would be normal practice.

    Crazy rotten war that it was. It should never have happened. Hitler should never have been facilitated in coming to power by the rest of Europe. Germany should never have been starved by the brutal reparations demanded after World War I. The shiploads of Jews seeking shelter from Hitler's Germany should have been taken in by Ireland and Switzerland and other European states.


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  • #67
    HavingCrack
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,847 ✭✭✭HavingCrack


    Qualitymark wrote: »
    The shiploads of Jews seeking shelter from Hitler's Germany should have been taken in by Ireland and Switzerland and other European states.

    This is one topic I really think needs to have a bit more light shed on it. The only states in the entire world who agreed to take in Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany at the Evian conference in 1938 when persecution of Jewish people was already know to have occurred were the Shanghai enclave under Japanese control and the Dominican Republic, nowhere else.

    Ireland refusing to take in Jewish refugees was shameful but it was by no means a unique event sadly.


  • #68
    getz
    Registered Users Posts: 5,255 ✭✭✭getz


    HavingCrack wrote: »
    This is one topic I really think needs to have a bit more light shed on it. The only states in the entire world who agreed to take in Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany at the Evian conference in 1938 when persecution of Jewish people was already know to have occurred were the Shanghai enclave under Japanese control and the Dominican Republic, nowhere else.

    Ireland refusing to take in Jewish refugees was shameful but it was by no means a unique event sadly.
    that is not correct,britain took in 15,000 jewish children in 1939,in fact there is a memorial called the kindertransport, that stands outside liverpool st station,i also worked in a paint factory in bury ,and the building was used for holding of jewish refugees before the war with germany,over the 20 years i worked there i often had to show round jewish historians,


  • #69
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,020 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    getz wrote: »
    that is not correct,britain took in 15,000 jewish children in 1939,in fact there is a memorial called the kindertransport, that stands outside liverpool st station,i also worked in a paint factory in bury ,and the building was used for holding of jewish refugees before the war with germany,over the 20 years i worked there i often had to show round jewish historians,
    The kindertransport is a (comparatively) high point in an otherwise fairly poor record, it has to be said. As Hitler’s persecution of the Jews got into full stride, the number of Jews seeking to emigrate from Germany shot up, and the British response was to introduce visa requirements. (Up to that point immigration from Germany and Austria had been unrestricted.) Jews enjoyed no preference in the visa system, but they weren’t discriminated against either. About 20,000 Jews did succeed in meeting the visa requirements (mostly by presenting themselves as domestic servants) and escaped to the UK before that avenue too was closed off in (I think) 1938. Most of the Jews who had escaped in this way were interned by the British government (as “enemy aliens”) when the war broke out in 1939.

    The kindertransport did permit slightly over 10,000 Jewish children to immigrate to the UK, but they had to be unaccompanied. They were required to travel without their parents, and in the great majority of cases their parents and wider family were subsequently murdered by the Nazis. The support of the British government for the programme was confined to waiving the visa requirements; the business of actually receiving the children, caring for them and finding foster homes for them was left to private charity. The programme came to an end when the charities involved ran out of money (though it would have ended very shortly afterwards anyway, when the war started.

    I don’t say this to damn the British; they did very little, but they did more than most other countries, including Ireland. De Valera, to his credit, did favour Ireland offering itself as a haven for a significant number of Jewish refugees from the Nazis, but he didn’t work hard enough to make this happen and he was stymied by conservative and, frankly, anti-Semitic views in the Departments of Justice and Industry & Commerce.


  • #70
    getz
    Registered Users Posts: 5,255 ✭✭✭getz


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    The kindertransport is a (comparatively) high point in an otherwise fairly poor record, it has to be said. As Hitler’s persecution of the Jews got into full stride, the number of Jews seeking to emigrate from Germany shot up, and the British response was to introduce visa requirements. (Up to that point immigration from Germany and Austria had been unrestricted.) Jews enjoyed no preference in the visa system, but they weren’t discriminated against either. About 20,000 Jews did succeed in meeting the visa requirements (mostly by presenting themselves as domestic servants) and escaped to the UK before that avenue too was closed off in (I think) 1938. Most of the Jews who had escaped in this way were interned by the British government (as “enemy aliens”) when the war broke out in 1939.

    The kindertransport did permit slightly over 10,000 Jewish children to immigrate to the UK, but they had to be unaccompanied. They were required to travel without their parents, and in the great majority of cases their parents and wider family were subsequently murdered by the Nazis. The support of the British government for the programme was confined to waiving the visa requirements; the business of actually receiving the children, caring for them and finding foster homes for them was left to private charity. The programme came to an end when the charities involved ran out of money (though it would have ended very shortly afterwards anyway, when the war started.

    I don’t say this to damn the British; they did very little, but they did more than most other countries, including Ireland. De Valera, to his credit, did favour Ireland offering itself as a haven for a significant number of Jewish refugees from the Nazis, but he didn’t work hard enough to make this happen and he was stymied by conservative and, frankly, anti-Semitic views in the Departments of Justice and Industry & Commerce.
    this says it all,in the period following hitler coming to power up to WW11,the doors of the state were kept firmly closed to german jewish families trying to flee from german persecution and death,the advice from then the irish ambassador in berlin,[charles brewly],that ireland should be protected from the contamination that would result from granting residential visas to jewish refugees ,resulted in practically all visa requests being refused,this position was maintained from 1939-1945.


  • #71
    Fratton Fred
    Closed Accounts Posts: 26,567 ✭✭✭✭Fratton Fred


    DOn't leave out Nicholas Winton http://www.powerofgood.net/story.php


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  • #72
    eire4
    Registered Users Posts: 6,622 ✭✭✭eire4


    FensterDJ wrote: »
    I was talking to a Swiss guy last night and he said the German bombers were allowed to refuel in Ireland during WW2, he was saying that it would have been impossible for planes to do bombing raids on liverpool without needing to refuel somewhere

    I found this very difficult to believe, I had a look around the internet, but can't find anything about it,

    has anyone heard this before?


    Your Swiss friend was talking complete and utter rubbish. He is obviously very ignorant when it comes to Ireland and Word War 2.


  • #73
    HavingCrack
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,847 ✭✭✭HavingCrack


    getz wrote: »
    this says it all,in the period following hitler coming to power up to WW11,the doors of the state were kept firmly closed to german jewish families trying to flee from german persecution and death,the advice from then the irish ambassador in berlin,[charles brewly],that ireland should be protected from the contamination that would result from granting residential visas to jewish refugees ,resulted in practically all visa requests being refused,this position was maintained from 1939-1945.

    To be fair I left out the Kindertransports which still wasn't very much. All credit to Britain this was more than Ireland but it was also much more than nearly every other country in the world as the Evian conference indicated.

    Ireland's position is a smear on its history but one it shares with nearly every other country in the world.


  • #74
    HavingCrack
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,847 ✭✭✭HavingCrack


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    I don’t say this to damn the British; they did very little, but they did more than most other countries, including Ireland. De Valera, to his credit, did favour Ireland offering itself as a haven for a significant number of Jewish refugees from the Nazis, but he didn’t work hard enough to make this happen and he was stymied by conservative and, frankly, anti-Semitic views in the Departments of Justice and Industry & Commerce.

    I always found Irish anti-Semitism to really be bizarre, I suspect Catholicism has something to do with it. Even at the high point of the Jewish population here Jews only numbered around 5,000 people, a tiny proportion of the population and they weren't known for being particularly wealthy or overly educated as some Jews were in Germany or France. In


  • #75
    El Inho
    Registered Users Posts: 3,647 ✭✭✭El Inho


    The Aerodrome
    By Seamus Heaney

    First it went back to grass, then after that
    To warehouses and brickfields (designated
    The Creagh Meadows Industrial Estate),
    Its wartime grey control tower blanched and glazed

    Into a hard-edged CEO style villa:
    Toome Aerodrome had turned to local history.
    Barn Loaning, name and laneway,
    Disappeared. And the meadows too

    Where no man need appear who couldn’t mow
    His acre between dawn and dailigone.
    Hangars, bomb stores, nissen huts, the line
    Of perimeter barbed wire, forgotten and gone.

    But not the smell of daisies and hot tar
    On a newly surfaced cart-road, Easter Monday,
    1944. And not, two miles away,
    The annual bright booths of the fair at Toome,

    All the brighter for having been denied.
    No catchpenny stalls for us, no
    Awnings, bonnets, or beribboned gauds:
    Wherever the world was, we were somewhere else,

    Had been and would be. Sparrows might fall,
    B-26 Marauders not return, but the sky above
    That land usurped by a compulsory order
    Watched and waited — like me and her that day

    Watching and waiting by the perimeter,
    Snapped in black and white, a torn print,
    As if the sky were riven, as if already
    The light itself could be no longer trusted.

    A fear crossed over then came like the fly-by-night
    And sun-repellent wing that flies by day
    Invisibly above: would she rise and go
    With the airman under his nose-up Thunderbolt

    Offering her a free seat in his cockpit?
    But for her part, in response, only the slightest
    Back-stiffening and standing of her ground
    As her hand reached down and tightened round my hand.

    If self is a location, so is love:
    Bearings taken, markings, cardinal points,
    Options, obstinacies, dug heels and distance,
    Here and there and now and then, a stance.

    Certainly hints at a lack of neutrality, however, the belief that Nazi's refueled in Ireland is ludicrous. Anything that had the range from German occupied europe, would have sufficient fuel to reach its destination.


  • #76
    Qualitymark
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,824 ✭✭✭Qualitymark


    El Spearo wrote: »
    The Aerodrome
    By Seamus Heaney

    First it went back to grass, then after that
    To warehouses and brickfields (designated
    The Creagh Meadows Industrial Estate),
    Its wartime grey control tower blanched and glazed

    Certainly hints at a lack of neutrality, however, the belief that Nazi's refueled in Ireland is ludicrous. Anything that had the range from German occupied europe, would have sufficient fuel to reach its destination.

    Isn't that, er, about *Northern* Ireland?


  • #77
    getz
    Registered Users Posts: 5,255 ✭✭✭getz


    according to a mr liddle archer german U boats landed in ireland twice a week in WW11, possibly for stores,as for refuelling i would very much doubt it ,as the only oil supplies ireland got in the war was by three british tankers,and i could not see any official goverment nod that could bring the economy to a standstill


  • #78
    nuac
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 6,769 Mod ✭✭✭✭nuac


    getz wrote: »
    according to a mr liddle archer german U boats landed in ireland twice a week in WW11, possibly for stores,as for refuelling i would very much doubt it ,as the only oil supplies ireland got in the war was by three british tankers,and i could not see any official goverment nod that could bring the economy to a standstill

    Don't know of Mr Archer, but this sounds like UK red-top stuff.

    Didn't happen. Claim already discussed here.


  • #79
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,020 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    I think by "Mr Liddle Archer" getz means Guy Liddell, a British intelligence officer who did indeed include something of this kind in his memoirs. But - I'm speaking from memory here - he presented it as something that was said to him, not as something he knew to be true. And I think the consensus of historians of the period is that it has no foundation in fact. It would not have been in the interests of the Fianna Fail government to allow anything of the kind; nor would it have served any of their political objectives.

    It's possible that U-boats did land to get some kind of co-operation or supplies from IRA units. Possible, but very unlikely. What could IRA units possibly have given a U-boat that would have been worth the trouble and risk of landing in the Free State?


  • #80
    getz
    Registered Users Posts: 5,255 ✭✭✭getz


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    I think by "Mr Liddle Archer" getz means Guy Liddell, a British intelligence officer who did indeed include something of this kind in his memoirs. But - I'm speaking from memory here - he presented it as something that was said to him, not as something he knew to be true. And I think the consensus of historians of the period is that it has no foundation in fact. It would not have been in the interests of the Fianna Fail government to allow anything of the kind; nor would it have served any of their political objectives.

    It's possible that U-boats did land to get some kind of co-operation or supplies from IRA units. Possible, but very unlikely. What could IRA units possibly have given a U-boat that would have been worth the trouble and risk of landing in the Free State?
    i have found a little more about it,a guy liddell was the director of war time british counter-espionage who wrote that he asked a colonal liam archer of irelands G2 millitary intelligence about U-boats landing, archer said that U-boats called in three times a week at a base at the mouth of the doonbeg river, archer also gave the british intelligence details of equipment,found on three captured german agents captured in skibberdeen.this is all according to guy liddell,


  • #81
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,020 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    getz wrote: »
    i have found a little more about it,a guy liddell was the director of war time british counter-espionage who wrote that he asked a colonal liam archer of irelands G2 millitary intelligence about U-boats landing, archer said that U-boats called in three times a week at a base at the mouth of the doonbeg river, archer also gave the british intelligence details of equipment,found on three captured german agents captured in skibberdeen.this is all according to guy liddell,
    I think Archer must have been taking the piss, Getz. Doonbeg is in West Clare, on the road from Kilrush to Miltown Malbay. There's a fishing pier there, but there's also a village of several hundred people. If U-boats had been calling there three times a week it would have been known to a great many people. Apart from the local population, the place would have been regularly overflown by air traffic for Foynes, a service used regularly by both British and US intelligence officials. Not a good place to try and conduct a ship's chandlers catering to U-boats.

    In fact Nigel West, the editor of Liddell's memoirs, points out that the British conducted air and sea surveillance in search of the supposed base at Doonbeg, but failed to find any evidence of it. Liddell himself was sceptical of the claim, and after the search concluded that it was groundless.


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  • #82
    getz
    Registered Users Posts: 5,255 ✭✭✭getz


    i thought the thing was a bit of a no story,it was in a belfast newspaper


  • #83
    Snickers Man
    Registered Users Posts: 5,301 ✭✭✭Snickers Man


    getz wrote: »
    this says it all,in the period following hitler coming to power up to WW11,the doors of the state were kept firmly closed to german jewish families trying to flee from german persecution and death,

    ....practically all visa requests ..[were]..refused,this position was maintained from 1939-1945.

    There is a slight anomaly in this regard. I noticed a while back in one of the periodic reports that our newspapers make (I think it was the Irish Times) into the state of the Irish Jewish community, that the biggest number of Jews recorded in an Irish census in the 20th century was the one carried out just after the Second World War. In 1946, I think.

    Which suggests that there were SOME Jewish immigrants allowed in at that time. Of course we could have done more but to say that the door was slammed tightly shut is not backed up by the facts.

    HavingCrack wrote:

    I always found Irish anti-Semitism to really be bizarre, I suspect Catholicism has something to do with it. Even at the high point of the Jewish population here Jews only numbered around 5,000 people, a tiny proportion of the population and they weren't known for being particularly wealthy or overly educated as some Jews were in Germany or France

    As mentioned above, that high point was recorded just after the war. Careful what you say about Irish anti semitism. It is more imagined than real. In fact, there were in many cases great parallels drawn by many Irish nationalists between the fates of the Irish and Jewish people.

    O'Connell was a great supporter of Jewish emancipation in Britain and claimed that Ireland was the only country in history not sullied by a single incidence of anti Jewish violence. That was probably wishful thinking on his part but he couldn't have said it if there were too many memories of Anti Semitic pogroms in the Ireland of his time. He was of course speaking before the unforrunate events in Limerick in the early 20th century.

    Michael Davitt was an ardent Zionist. De Valera was a close friend of the famous Chief Rabbi Yakov Herzog and was one of the first international statesmen to visit Israel after its independence. Several Jews were prominent in the Irish independence struggle, notably the Briscoes and the lawyer Michael Noyk who got a state military funeral when he died in the 1960s.

    As for your claim that the Jews in Ireland were lumpen proletariat....it is true that the Jews of Limerick were largely working class small time traders and market stall operators and the "pogrom" was as much the all-too-familiar reaction of an indigenous population to any immigrant community threatening its economic well being as it was a righteously indignant denouncement of "Christ killers" but look at what the tiny Irish Jewish community produced in the 20th century:

    Two Lord Mayors of Dublin
    One Lord Mayor of Cork
    Four members of the Irish parliament (including a deputy leader of the Labour Party and the current minister for Justice and Defence)
    At least one rugby international
    And a president of Israel (the son of the aforementioned Rabbi Herzog)

    Not bad for an under educated poverty stricken underclass.


  • #84
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,020 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    Well, I do have a Jewish friend whose career led him to live for a time in a large number of different countries and, for what it's worth, his report is that he never experienced less antisemitism than when he lived in Ireland. That was in the 1970s and 1980s. (He wasn't Irish, by the way.)

    Still, while there may not have been much antisemitism in Ireland, there was some, and there was probably more before 1945 than after. There is evidence that anitsemitism was a factor in at least some of the advice the Irish government got on the question of Jewish refugees from Naziism.

    It might not have made any difference. Even if there had been no antisemitism at work at all, Ireland in the 1930 was poor, depressed, and led by a government that believed in protectionism and autarchy as a means of building national identity and sovereignty. They were probably never going to look with favour on any significant amount of immigration, unless it was by Irish people or people of Irish descent.


  • #85
    pedroeibar1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    Snickers Man wrote: »
    ....................One Lord Mayor of Cork.........

    Lord Mayor of Cork - Gerald Goldberg , also became President of the Incorporated Law Society. My parents were friends of his and as a child I remember him talking about the reduction in numbers - I think there were less than 200 Jewish people in Cork at that time - being due to the young people emigrating primarily to find a Jewish partner. The boys went to school at CBC or Pres and there was no big deal made about it by their classmates, other than a certain jealousy as they were excused RK and could do their homework instead! After the Leaving most went to UK universities. I equally recall a Jewish family holding a sort of funeral ceremony at their home after their daughter married a Gentile – even as a small boy I considered that very sad.


  • #86
    nuac
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 6,769 Mod ✭✭✭✭nuac


    I knew Louis Goldberg his son while doing Law soc course in Dublin. Decent man and decent family.

    Also met Gerard. Sadly that community much thinned out.

    My late father did business with jews and always said he found them the most honourable and straight of all.


  • #87
    kabakuyu
    Registered Users Posts: 1,135 ✭✭✭kabakuyu


    good article here on uboats http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-german-captains-uboats-and-other-lies-about-ireland-2004816.html

    I like this line "Most of the submarines had been seen in pubs."


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