Irishmen fell during the fall of France 1940 - (Myers article)

Morlar

This is an interesting article I saw today about the Irishmen who died during the fall of France 1940. I was out in St Nazaire a few weeks ago but had no Idea about the level of Irish loss of life there.

Kevin Myers:

Let us not forget Irish deaths in calamitous events of 1940


Wednesday June 09 2010

History -- the tale that a country tells of itself -- is never about all the events that befall the people of that country, but, more usually, about the events that conform with the prevailing narrative.

Any number of books have dealt with Ireland during that winsomely named thing, "The Emergency". But they have usually dealt with the major world events -- in which Irishmen were certainly participants, but which do not also form part of the national narrative -- with an austere factual economy.

The recent Irish and British media coverage of the events of 70 years ago tell us something about the ways two different narratives have been shaped. There has, so far as I have noticed, been no reflection at all in the Irish media on the calamities of 1940. British newspapers, on the other hand, have been obsessing about them.

It is as if the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland were in two different hemispheres, rather than sharing the same archipelago and having land frontiers with no other polities but one another.

The neglect of this period within the Irish collective psyche is of course natural for a country whose independence had so recently been won; but it is nonetheless a considerable achievement. Because the total Irish death toll for the Fall of France and Norway was about 500 men, and probably more.

This exceeds the losses for Irish republican forces from 1916 to the truce in 1921, yet it is entirely absent from the national narrative. (Hence this column: for if I don't write about Irish involvement in one of the most seismic events in the 20th century -- the continental defeats of France and Britain in May-June 1940 -- who, pray, will?)

The largest single Irish loss of life that summer came with the sinking of the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious, and her two escorts, in the flight from Norway. Sixty-five Irishmen died in the complement of 1,200.

This was a catastrophe that was almost entirely of Churchill's making, from the appointment of a submariner (and a favourite of Churchill's) to be skipper of the aircraft carrier, to the impetuous despatch of the taskforce home to Britain.

Twenty-two of the dead came from Cork, including the brothers James and Joseph Regan, of Leap. One of the seven Dublin dead was surgeon Dermot Duggan, an only child, whose father had been killed in Flanders in 1917. That left just his mother, Dorothy, alone in her home in Foxrock.

And as for motivation, I say nothing, but merely draw your attention to one 19-year-old Cork-born sailor lost with the Glorious: Patrick Pearse Murphy.

Irish censors, who had earlier allowed Irish deaths to be published in newspapers, now stopped this. And who can blame de Valera's government for putting some prudent distance between what seemed like a doomed Britain, and a defenceless Ireland?

We now know that Hitler was not really interested in defeating the British: he wanted to see if he could force the British to the table without a full-scale invasion. But no one was aware back then that his mind was already shifting to the east, where within a year he would launch Operation Barbarossa. Instead, that summer of 1940, it seemed the world was about to come to an end.

It certainly was for hundreds of Irishmen serving in the British army. Nearly 400 were to lose their lives in the retreats to Dunkirk, St Valery and St Nazaire. It was off this last port that the greatest single loss of Irish life occurred, when the RMS Lancastria -- with thousands of troops aboard -- was sunk by dive-bombers as it headed to Britain.

Some 23 Irishmen are known to have been killed here. Just one was an officer: Lt Reginald Markey, a working-class Catholic from Dublin who had been commissioned from the ranks.

The deaths of at least 18 other Irishmen in the Fall of France are clouded in mystery. Joseph Fahy, of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, was possibly captured and murdered by the SS in one of a series of massacres of British POWs which served as a foretaste of things to come.

Others still were taken prisoner and died unseen and forgotten in POW camps: thus the fate of Patrick O'Connell (25), of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, son of Timothy and Mary O'Connell of Youghal, who died in April 1941 and is buried in Berlin War Cemetery.

Interred in that same necropolis is Frederick Fellner, from Aughrim Street, Dublin. He died within months of freedom, on December 16, 1944. His father was Leopold Kellner, a railway waiter (probably at the nearby Broadstone Station): his young brother was named Rudolf.

I do not know how this young Catholic Irishman, of clearly German ancestry, came to be serving with the Royal Artillery in 1940 against Germany, or how he died in Germany in 1944. He just did.

Seventy years ago this summer the Battle of Britain lay ahead. Some 33 Irishmen serving with the RAF were killed in that great conflict -- 21 from the South and 12 from the North.

You groan: why do I tell you, yet again, of these things? Good question. Here's another one. Why have you read this far?

Irish Independent

R.Dub.Fusilier

my mothers uncle was lucky enough to have escaped from Dunkirk. he died some years later as a result of standing in the water for so long waiting to be rescued . he lived in Scotland so i can only asume he was in a Scottish regiment.

franklyon

Excuse the stupid question, but how can you die from standing in the water too long? Fair enough if he got hypothermia and died after a week or so, but a few years later?

Morlar

franklyon wrote: »

Excuse the stupid question, but how can you die from standing in the water too long? Fair enough if he got hypothermia and died after a week or so, but a few years later?

They queued up on the beaches for transport back to england. Some of them were up to their waist/shoulders for (open to correction on this !) over 24 hours.

Anyone skipping the queue was told they would be shot - so the men stood in place so as to keep a place towards the top of the queue in order to escape an unknown fate.

I am not a doctor but I can well believe that standing waist or chest deep in freezing water for 24 + hours will damage your health.

Considering also their supplies were in chaos and the men were in fear for their lives, combat stress, secondary injuries, manlutrition lack of sleep - add all that into the mix I have no problem believing it would damage your health.

R.Dub.Fusilier

franklyon wrote: »

Excuse the stupid question, but how can you die from standing in the water too long? Fair enough if he got hypothermia and died after a week or so, but a few years later?

from what i was told he was standing up to his chest in water for hours on end and it damaged his health. molar made some good points on the issue and put it better than i did and i'm relaying what i was told so you can believe it or not.

Fratton Fred

I watched the film Atonement the other day and they mentioned the Lancastria in that. http://www.lancastria.org.uk/home.html

arnhem44

My Grand Uncle was shot by another British soldiers during the evacuation but survived,reading Morlars post about skipping the queue is making me wonder was this maybe the cause.There's a lad buried locally(well commerated) here that died in the battle of Narvik.

Snickers Man

We must never forget the Irishmen (the rather miniscule number of Irishmen) who died while serving with the British forces in 1940!!!

Why?

Why should what they did be so central to our nation's narrative, as Myers seems to suggest?

Because it isn't. They formed a tiny minority of the armed forces of a country which has overstated its role in the overall conflict that was WWII.

Ask the average English person (or Scottish or Welsh) what WWII was about and they will say that Britain went to war when Germany invaded Poland and after the defeat of France, fought on alone against the might of the German Empire until the Americans joined in with some typically belated assistance to help them finish the job.

That's pretty much THEIR version of a national narrative and it's complete bollox, as even Myers admits in his article. Why should we be party to the maintenance of such a fantasy?

As it happens, my grandfather was one of those Irishmen who died while serving in the British forces in 1940.His brother in law, my great uncle, had died just before the preceding Christmas while serving with the Irish Guards. Neither were killed in action. Illness and exhaustion got them before the Germans did.

I've always known about these men, especially my grandfather. I don't need some twerp like Kevin Myers to admonish me for amnesia.

There were any number of reasons, some of them complex, why Irishmen found themselves in the British armed forces in WWII. But we as a country were not involved in it for our own, perfectly fair and justifiable reasons.

Fast forward 70 years. Right now there are Irish people volunteering to assist in a struggle that has nothing to do with us. They may have many and varied reasons for so doing. They are putting themselves in harm's way and trying to defy one of the best equipped, most highly motivated and most ruthless military machines seen in the world since Hitler launched his Blitzkrieg.

I am talking of course of the Irish people involved in the delivery of humanitarian supplies to Gaza. Naturally they are getting support and sympathy from many Irish people but not from the likes of Myers and his ilk in Independent Newspapers who support the "war on terror" and the general Anglo-American adventure in the Middle East.

To them, such people are "dupes", "leftist fantasists", "supporters of terror" or in the cheapest moments "anti-Semites" who are inheritors of the virus of race hatred that helped earlier generations rationalise the Holocaust.

In years to come will this be viewed as "Ireland" or "The Irish people" coming to the aid of the Palestinians? Depending on the prevailing mood decades from now: possibly, or they may be considered an embarassing aberration to the generally apathetic behaviour of the rest of us.

The few Irishmen who served in the British Army in WWII were a tiny part of our "historical narrative". Those who are interested in the history of the time are perfectly entitled to study their stories and learn what they might. But we have no right to admonish later generations for not crafting some fantasy about their role in our country's history.

It's just not true.

And it's rather pathetic of a journalist to decry the truth as "austere factual economy". Even though all he's really saying is the old journalistic maxim "Never let the truth stand in the way of a good story."

Morlar

This thread has absolutely sweet FA to do with the gaza blockade. There are threads in politics and ah on that.

Manic Moran

This thread has absolutely sweet FA to do with the gaza blockade. There are threads in politics and ah on that.

In fairness, it is a viable example of "Irish people volunteering to assist in a struggle that has nothing to do with us."

NTM

drakshug

Manic Moran wrote: »

In fairness, it is a viable example of "Irish people volunteering to assist in a struggle that has nothing to do with us."

NTM

If we are talking about the BEF the we aren't talking volunteers of that ilk. We are talking professional army and the TA.

Morlar

Manic Moran wrote: »

In fairness, it is a viable example of "Irish people volunteering to assist in a struggle that has nothing to do with us."

NTM

We can agree to disagree on the 'fairness' of your assumption or not.

I could personally link any thread currently in page 1 of the WWII forum with the current or historic israel /palestine conflict in any manner, either supporting an israeli/jewish agenda or supporting a palestinian one, or in an attempt to highlight human rights abuses in a non paritsan manner. If I stretched it I could probably do it on the MOTORS forum or the LADIES LOUNGE too. It would be equally as irrelevant to them as this thread derailment is to us. If you were to say Grenada or Panama or the Falklands I could probably do the same with those issues too - as could most people.

Supporting either agenda or side in a contemporary conflict in this thread would still be trollish and out of place.

'Viable' covers a lot of **** & there is a question of basic respect behind this.

The original article is from a journalist, one I disagree with on a lot of topics, not least his coverage of . . for example 1916 I find to be offensive & unforgivable.

All of which is as irrelevant as whether or not I agree with his choice of automobile or his preferred brand of digital hd tv. This thread is about THAT article not other ones or past ones or possible future ones. It is about an neglected aspect of Irish WWII period history - that of the extent to which Irishmen served during WWII . Whether you agree with the various motivations behind those men or not - this is a neglected field, it is also a part of 'our collective national narrative' which has been suppressed. No retard one is talking about how 'we won the war' or 'england won the war' - such drivel is irrelevant.

The article should be assessed on it's standalone merits - regardless of other articles that particular journalist has written on other topics & equally regardless of his stance on other contemporary issues. imo. If we only read and absorb articles or books from authors we 100% align with politically we are doomed, the premise of the post above (the one taking issue with the authors politics or other articles & linking this WWII issue with the current gaza blockade) is beyond retarded in my view.

Manic Moran

drakshug wrote: »

If we are talking about the BEF the we aren't talking volunteers of that ilk. We are talking professional army and the TA.

I don't believe anyone forced them to join. If they chose of their own free will, I'll call that a volunteer for these purposes.

NTM

Japer

Snickers Man wrote: »

They formed a tiny minority of the armed forces of a country which has overstated its role in the overall conflict that was WWII.


The few Irishmen who served in the British Army in WWII were a tiny part of our "historical narrative".

100,000 Irishmen fought in the British forces in WW2, so you cannot say they were a tiny minority. Many more Irish people worked in civilian ways which helped the war effort. But for those who did stand up to Nazism, Europe and the world would be a much poorer place to be. I for one feel very grateful and proud to those who volunteered ( and many paid the ultimate price ) so that we may live in peace and health ( unlike 6 million civilians such as Jews, gypsies, handicapped who were not so lucky ).
Maybe , snickers man, if you were to visit one of the remaining concentration camps on the continent, you may learn something and appreciate something of what WW2 was about.

Fratton Fred

arnhem44 wrote: »

My Grand Uncle was shot by another British soldiers during the evacuation but survived,reading Morlars post about skipping the queue is making me wonder was this maybe the cause.There's a lad buried locally(well commerated) here that died in the battle of Narvik.

The popular story is that there were well disciplined men queueing up for boats. i bet the reality was a lot different. 500,000 beaten, nervous and shell shocked men, a lot of whom had seen their mates killed and probably hadn't slept or eaten for two or three days, it must have been absolute chaos.

FiSe

There were a few documentaries on the 'UK' channels over the last couple of weeks.
It must have been terrible, standing in the cold water for days /3 days in some cases they've said high tides just under your chin/, being bombed and machine gunned from the air, dead bodies all around you. That in the case that you've made it to the beaches.
Rather than chaos of disorder I'd say it was image of pure chaos of desperation.
Apparently Navy dropped their men to the shore to keep things organized for evacuation and there was a certain plan for the surviving BE units to be collected from certain spots, one of them had to march 8 miles along the coast to get to their area.
I can imagine that some people were shot for various reasons, to stop panic, to keep order during the queuing.
Wouldn't fancy to be there.

Fuinseog

if the Fuehrer had not procrastinated they would never have gotten out.

Fuinseog

apparently they refused to take thousands of french soldiers with them and left them behind

Fuinseog

drakshug wrote: »

If we are talking about the BEF the we aren't talking volunteers of that ilk. We are talking professional army and the TA.

weren't TA volunteers?

Fuinseog

Japer wrote: »

100,000 Irishmen fought in the British forces in WW2, so you cannot say they were a tiny minority. Many more Irish people worked in civilian ways which helped the war effort. But for those who did stand up to Nazism, Europe and the world would be a much poorer place to be. I for one feel very grateful and proud to those who volunteered ( and many paid the ultimate price ) so that we may live in peace and health ( unlike 6 million civilians such as Jews, gypsies, handicapped who were not so lucky ).
Maybe , snickers man, if you were to visit one of the remaining concentration camps on the continent, you may learn something and appreciate something of what WW2 was about.

they fought for Britain, because they sought adventure, this isle being somewhat dreary at the time.
they also sought a job, this isle having massive unemployment at the time.
this notion of fighting fascism is laughable. the germans and Brits could have worked together. Britain fought for teh glory of its empire and could have had peace with germany were it not for the war monger churchill.
the brits betrayed the Poles to the Russians and subujated Asians. hardly a noble cause to fight for.

drakshug

Fuinseog wrote: »

they fought for Britain, because they sought adventure, this isle being somewhat dreary at the time.
they also sought a job, this isle having massive unemployment at the time.
this notion of fighting fascism is laughable. the germans and Brits could have worked together. Britain fought for teh glory of its empire and could have had peace with germany were it not for the war monger churchill.
the brits betrayed the Poles to the Russians and subujated Asians. hardly a noble cause to fight for.

Ah ,the History of WWII as put forward by my kid's SF primary school teacher or how to subject non-Irish kids to ridicule and political rants in the classroom.


1. The TAVR. Volunteer reserves. Not the type of volunteer who rushes to the colours when war breaks out. Instead a voluntary reserve of men trained like a militia to support the regulars. Staffed by reservists and most with several years part time soldiering behind them. In effest, as much volunteers as a regular is a volunteer. If you are in Britain, you'd know that a terrie is not a volunteer in the way originally posted.


2. The Fuhrer order. In 1940 the Wehrmacht weren't a highly mechanised army. Behind the panzer's steel tip was an army that marched and artillery that was pulled by horses. The BEF was more mechanised at the outset.
Various theories have been put forward for the panzer halt but the most plausibele is that the terrain was not suited to panzers and refitting was needed.

3. Poland. Britain went to war over Poland. It wasn't Churchill who declared war, it was Chamberlain. If you go to the UK you'll find memorials to the Poles who fought in all the services to protect the UK. Churchill wanted to send troops across Poland to cut off the Russians but it was Vetoed by the Americans. It was America who sidelined Churchill at Yalta to get the Russian manpower behind them. Churchill was frozen out.
Interestingly, the Baltics and AK parts of Poland kept up resistance against the Soviets until the fifties. Britain ran ex-German E- boats up the Baltic to supply these representatives of the legit Governments. The Americans found out and put pressure on Britain to desist. Uncle Joe Stalin would've got upset. The forest brother movement is the forgotten war in Europe. The last partisan died trying to escape the KGB in the seventies in Estonia.
Finally, the idea of peace with Germany. What sort of peace would that have been? I've seen the camps and the forests where the massacres took place. I've seen the memorials where villages stood but were liquidated by Nazi troops. Go anywhere North of Germany and you'll see it.
Britain, having declared war, was fighting for survival, not for the glory of it's empire. If you are interested in History you'd see that.
How would Ireland have survived if the who;e of Europe had been occupied? Do you think the German's would have occupied the North and let you be? A strategic island like Ireland? Come on.

Don't let your politics blinker you.

Edit. 100000 French troops were evacuated, a third of allied troops and amazingly enough out of the other two thirds were actually some Polish troops.

FiSe

Fuinseog wrote: »

if the Fuehrer had not procrastinated they would never have gotten out.

Dunkirk isn't the ideal place for the Blitzkrieg. lots of water channels, small and narrow bridges, lots of buildings and factories. Hard to get through the defences there.
No wonder that Allies never got there before final surrender of the Reich in 1945. Although they were trying to break the defences.
But hey, it sounds good about the Fuhrer who didn't know whether wipe the BA out or let 'em go

Fuinseog wrote: »

apparently they refused to take thousands of french soldiers with them and left them behind

They've actually returned especially for French soldiers. But, there was only as much as they coud do.

Edit...am only aminute or two behind

Fratton Fred

Fuinseog wrote: »

they fought for Britain, because they sought adventure, this isle being somewhat dreary at the time.
they also sought a job, this isle having massive unemployment at the time.
this notion of fighting fascism is laughable. the germans and Brits could have worked together. Britain fought for teh glory of its empire and could have had peace with germany were it not for the war monger churchill.
the brits betrayed the Poles to the Russians and subujated Asians. hardly a noble cause to fight for.

You don't really have anything constructive to add here do you?

Fuinseog

drakshug wrote: »

Ah ,the History of WWII as put forward by my kid's SF primary school teacher or how to subject non-Irish kids to ridicule and political rants in the classroom.


1. The TAVR. Volunteer reserves. Not the type of volunteer who rushes to the colours when war breaks out. Instead a voluntary reserve of men trained like a militia to support the regulars. Staffed by reservists and most with several years part time soldiering behind them. In effest, as much volunteers as a regular is a volunteer. If you are in Britain, you'd know that a terrie is not a volunteer in the way originally posted.


2. The Fuhrer order. In 1940 the Wehrmacht weren't a highly mechanised army. Behind the panzer's steel tip was an army that marched and artillery that was pulled by horses. The BEF was more mechanised at the outset.
Various theories have been put forward for the panzer halt but the most plausibele is that the terrain was not suited to panzers and refitting was needed.

3. Poland. Britain went to war over Poland. It wasn't Churchill who declared war, it was Chamberlain. If you go to the UK you'll find memorials to the Poles who fought in all the services to protect the UK. Churchill wanted to send troops across Poland to cut off the Russians but it was Vetoed by the Americans. It was America who sidelined Churchill at Yalta to get the Russian manpower behind them. Churchill was frozen out.
Interestingly, the Baltics and AK parts of Poland kept up resistance against the Soviets until the fifties. Britain ran ex-German E- boats up the Baltic to supply these representatives of the legit Governments. The Americans found out and put pressure on Britain to desist. Uncle Joe Stalin would've got upset. The forest brother movement is the forgotten war in Europe. The last partisan died trying to escape the KGB in the seventies in Estonia.
Finally, the idea of peace with Germany. What sort of peace would that have been? I've seen the camps and the forests where the massacres took place. I've seen the memorials where villages stood but were liquidated by Nazi troops. Go anywhere North of Germany and you'll see it.
Britain, having declared war, was fighting for survival, not for the glory of it's empire. If you are interested in History you'd see that.
How would Ireland have survived if the who;e of Europe had been occupied? Do you think the German's would have occupied the North and let you be? A strategic island like Ireland? Come on.

Don't let your politics blinker you.

Edit. 100000 French troops were evacuated, a third of allied troops and amazingly enough out of the other two thirds were actually some Polish troops.

you can surely make your point without childish name calling. If I disagree with you I am automatically SF? Do I go around calling you Jaffas, seoinins and west Brits? I would expect should childishness on youtube. You will find its not just SF that are critical of the British.

Fuinseog

Fratton Fred wrote: »

You don't really have anything constructive to add here do you?

I think the real motives these people had should be investigated. I also dislike the glorification of war that the British go on with.

drakshug

Fuinseog wrote: »

you can make surely point without childish name calling. If I disagree with you I am automatically SF?
Do I go around calling you Jaffas, seoinins and west Brits?

Did I call you SF?

I merely pointed out that the comments put forward by yourself mirror the aforesaid person. I didn't even mention you.
However you have responded with phrases that don't refer to me either. You can refer to me as Albannaich

Fratton Fred

Fuinseog wrote: »

I think the real motives these people had should be investigated. I also dislike the glorification of war that the British go on with.

What motives who had, The Irishmen? a lot would have been sons of the British tha hung around after 1922, a lot would have joined up for the same reasons they always have, to be a professional soldier and some would have been after money.

The British don't glorify war. they glorify the part Britain played in WWII, which is understandable, Britain had a lot to be proud of. you will not find anyone who glorifies WWI, because there is nothing there to be proud of.

If you are referring to the British passion for wearing poppies then that is understandable. Britian had conscription in both wars. A lot that went and died had no choice. Despite the reason for either war, the dead should be remembered.

Fuinseog

FiSe wrote: »

Dunkirk isn't the ideal place for the Blitzkrieg. lots of water channels, small and narrow bridges, lots of buildings and factories. Hard to get through the defences there.
No wonder that Allies never got there before final surrender of the Reich in 1945. Although they were trying to break the defences.
But hey, it sounds good about the Fuhrer who didn't know whether wipe the BA out or let 'em go



They've actually returned especially for French soldiers. But, there was only as much as they coud do.

Edit...am only aminute or two behind

there are those who argue that he did not wish to destroy the English as he had too much respect for them. after all the Germans and the British both saw themselves as the master race. The Reich modelled itself on the Empire. perceived inferior races had to toil for both. Russian slave labour and Indian slave labour.

drakshug

Fratton Fred wrote: »

You don't really have anything constructive to add here do you?

I agree, I thought this was about History. No comments on my reply except about name calling. Nothing about the points I made which were all on topic.

drakshug

Fuinseog wrote: »

there are those who argue that he did not wish to destroy the English as he had too much respect for them. after all the Germans and the British both saw themselves as the master race. The Reich modelled itself on the Empire. perceived inferior races had to toil for both. Russian slave labour and Indian slave labour.

If you have read anything in the last 40 years you'd have seen that theory well and truly debunked.

Fuinseog

Fratton Fred wrote: »

What motives who had, The Irishmen? a lot would have been sons of the British tha hung around after 1922, a lot would have joined up for the same reasons they always have, to be a professional soldier and some would have been after money.

The British don't glorify war. they glorify the part Britain played in WWII, which is understandable, Britain had a lot to be proud of. you will not find anyone who glorifies WWI, because there is nothing there to be proud of.

If you are referring to the British passion for wearing poppies then that is understandable. Britian had conscription in both wars. A lot that went and died had no choice. Despite the reason for either war, the dead should be remembered.

THe brits helped create the Iron Curtain. thirteen years of Opression was replaced by forty years. if tehy declared war over Poland they should have declared war on russia as well.

many believe that the Brits find war a moment of glory (WWI excepted).
I would hardly call the bombing of Dresden something to be proud of.

the poppy debate was already adequately covered some months previously.

people like Cathal Shannon fought in the Far East so places could free of The Japansese to be returned to the British. its hardly fight for freedom to exhange one enslavng empire for another.