THe Luftwaffe bombing of Dublin

[Gareth Collins]

No. It was a total mistake. Hitler himself forwarded an Official apology. Churchill did put pressure on Ireland, he even privately planned invasion, the story of the guns being pointed south is not a total myth. Fact is, de Valera would rather have sided with the Devil himnself then enter a war alongside Britain. There was never any danger of Ireland joining the Allied cause.

[mikerock]

Almost all Allied aircrew and aircraft were back in Northern ireland within 24 hours of landing....all Luftwaffe cxrews spent the war in Ireland.

I seem to remember a documentary about Ireland and captured fliers, and they treated both the Germans and the Allies the same way, they were kept captive until the end of the war.

--Mike

[harry palmer]

“By 1941 there were thirty three allied internees in the Curragh, including nine Canadians, a New Zealander, and an American. …. The British prisoners were separated from the Germans by only an iron fence and some barbed wire; when German victories in north Africa had been announced on the radio, Allied internees had to listen to a Luftwaffe rendering of “Duetschland Uber Alles” but after the victory at El Alamein ,the Allied airmen set off fireworks. It was, however, a congenial enough prison , more like a resort than an internment camp, and internees of both sides were allowed to play golf, visit the Curragh races and dine out in Dublin on parole. A Canadian married his Irish girlfriend and even the escape attempts caused little friction. When all but one of the thirty three internees tried a mass break-out in February 1942, Irish troops around the camp fired blank ammunition and used only wooden batons to forced the men back into the prison. A gentleman’s agreement with the British authorities meant that none of the Allied prisoners were permitted to break parole. When an American – Pilot Officer Wolfe from Nebraska – did use his parole to travel to Northern Ireland, he was promptly returned to Irish custody by the British. Until 1942 it was not even an offence to aid the escape of an internee and two Canadians reached Northern Ireland that year after being sheltered for eleven days by Irish friends. By October 1943, the Allied airmen had been moved away from the Germans and within a year all of them had been freed and allowed to return to Britain. The Germans remained at the Curragh.”

"IN TIME OF WAR" Robert Fisk

Pilot Officer Wolfe (a member of the RAF’s Eagle Squadron)was the only American to be interned in the Curragh - no member of the US armed forces was interned in Ireland

[harry palmer]

“ A policy developed in 1942 of releasing Allied air crews who crash landed in Eire. Instead of being released in the Curragh , they were sent straight to Northern Ireland – sometimes with their aircraft- in an operation about which the Irish and British authorities are both still very reticient.”

“In March 1943, an RAF aircraft made a forced landing near Clonmeny, County Donegal, and the British records noted that “the crew of seven were conveyed to Londonderry in an Irish Army vehicle. On the same day, an RAF pilot bailed out of his plane over County Cavan just south of the border, parachuted to the ground and crossed the frontier to Northern Ireland. In mid-April, a Flying Fortress was actually refuelled outside Dublin and permitted to continue it’s journey. Two months later, an American officer and the RUC Head Constable at Belleek were allowed to inspect the wreckage of a Fortress that made a forced landing on the sands at Bundoran, County Donegal. The crew of ten were “passed into Northern Ireland “ while the officer “stripped the machine of the principal parts and secret equipment”.Before the year ended, a Sunderland flying boat crashed on the side of Mount Brandon in County Kerry with several RAF men on board , one of them an Irishman from Limerick; The Irishman was allowed to visit his home before the crew were sent to Northern Ireland.”

“In all, 163 British , American and German aircraft crashed in Eire with 830 crew aboard; of these, 223 died.”

IN TIME OF WAR, Robert Fisk