WWII deserters to get pardon from Irish Government

Despite Eire's neutrality about 60,000 men and women from Eire fought in the British armed forces.People like my father who joined the RAF in 1941 with a doctored birth certificate that showed him to be 18 rather than 15 suffered no consequences. But the four and a half thousand men who deserted the Irish army to join the struggle against Naziism faced a vindictive punishment.
 
In August 1945, the government summarily dismissed soldiers who had absented themselves during the war and disqualified them for seven years from holding employment or office remunerated from the state's central fund. This move created considerable hardship for many of those who in the scheme of things did the right thing.

Yesterday Irish justice minister Alan Shatter told the Irish parliament that the government apologises for the way the deserters were treated  after the second world war. Mr Shatter said that the government would introduce legislation "to grant a pardon and amnesty to those who absented themselves from the defence forces without leave or permission to fight on the allied side".

During the second world war, the Irish defence forces had approximately 42,000 serving personnel. Over the course of the war, it was estimated that more than 7,000 members deserted. Of these, about 2,500 personnel returned to their units or were apprehended and were tried by military tribunal.
More than 4,500 deserters were the subject of dismissal under the Emergency Powers Order. Individuals were not given a chance to explain their absence.

After the war, Eamon de Valera's government published a blacklist of all those who deserted. Anyone who was mentioned in the blacklist book was banned from getting a job in the Irish public services.

Tuesday's pardon is a great relief for the families of those who died, removing the stigma that they have carried for nearly 70 years. It is believed that around 100 of the deserters are still alive.

Once could dismiss this as a meaningless gesture given tht the vast majority of the deserters are now dead but in my view this is something that should have been done a long time ago. On the other hand better late than never.

A medal better late than never

Yesterday the Prime Minister presented medals to two men who saved Jews and other persecuted groups escape the Nazis during WWII

The Hero of the Holocaust medal, a silver medallion, inscribed with the words "In the Service of Humanity", was awarded to Sir Nicholas Winton, 100, and to Denis Avey, 91.

Denis Avey, 91, from Bradwell in Derbyshire, exchanged places with a Jewish inmate at Auschwitz to gather information about conditions and helped an inmate survive by sharing supplies. He told the BBC: "I've always poked my nose in… I've always done something, it gets you into a lot of trouble, but by Jove you sleep at nights, I tell you."

The Medal was awarded to 26 other persons posthumously.

During the ceremony at Downing Street, the prime minister paid tribute to the "selfless humanity" displayed by the recipients. Mr Brown said: "It was the extraordinary acts of ordinary people that sustained those suffering the greatest evil our generation has known. Those individual acts of bravery - undertaken knowing that, if discovered, the highest price would be paid - are not dimmed by the passing of the years”

This award is one of those that could have been awarded years ago but it wasn’t. The current government has redressed this and the snide comments from people on a number of newspapers, (especially the mouth breathers who comment on the Mail website) are utterly unjustified.

The Telegraph provides a full list of all of those honoured:

Denis Avey was imprisoned in the Auschwitz prisoner of war camp. He arranged to swap one night at a time with Jewish inmates from the nearby concentration camp. Exchanging his uniform for the filthy, striped garments of the Jewish prisoners, he took the opportunity to gather facts about the horrific conditions inside the camp while the other man had a chance to eat and rest well in the relative comfort of the military prison. The 91-year-old is currently under consideration for recognition by Yad Vashem – the Israeli Holocaust remembrance authority – as a Righteous Among the Nations.

Sir Nicholas Winton organised the rescue of 669 mostly Jewish children from German-occupied Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War in an operation that later became known as the Czech Kindertransport.

Sister Agnes Walsh, a Catholic nun from Hull, moved to France before the outbreak of war and became second in command at the St Vincent de Paul Convent in Cadouin, Dordogne. In December 1943, during manhunts for Jews in the area, a refugee named Pierre Cremieux begged her to shelter his wife, seven-year-old son and two four-month-old twins. Sister Agnes pleaded with her superior, Sister Granier, to offer them refuge, and her request was accepted. The nuns hid and cared for the family under the auspices of Sister Agnes until the liberation of France in 1945. The testimony of the led to her recognition in 1990 as a Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. She died three years later in Mill Hill, London at the age of 93.

Albert Bedane was a physiotherapist from Jersey, who hid escaped French prisoners of war, Russian slave labourers and a Dutch Jewish woman in his cellar while he treated invading Nazi soldiers in his clinic above. He died at the age of 87 in 1980 and was posthumously recognised as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 2000.

Ida and Louise Cook were two opera-loving sisters who smuggled British visas to Jews while attending recitals in Europe before the war, securing the escape of 29 refugees from Nazi Germany. Their efforts were funded by proceeds from Ida's career as a prolific writer of romance novels. In all, she penned 125 books for Mills & Boon and was president of the Romantic Novelist's Association for many years. The sisters were named Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 1965. Ida died in 1986 at the age of 82 and Mary died in 1991 at the age of 90.

Sergeant Charles Coward - As a prisoner of war in the Auschwitz labour camp, Sergeant Coward was appointed Red Cross Liaison for his 1400 fellow British prisoners. He used his position to smuggle foods and contraband to Jewish inmates and covertly visited and stayed overnight in the nearby concentration camp for Jews in order to confirm the horrific conditions there. Sergeant Coward was named Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem and had a tree planted in his honour in the Avenue of Righteous Gentiles in Israel in 1963.

Major Frank Foley while working as a passport control officer for the British embassy in Berlin, he helped up to 10,000 Jews escape Germany after Kristallnacht and before the outbreak of the Second World War by issuing fake visas at great personal risk. The role in the passports office was in fact a cover for Major Foley's true occupation as a spy. As head of the M16 station in Berlin. But he is primarily remembered as a "British Schindler" for risking his own life to rescue thousands of Jewish families by issuing fake documents in the run-up to the outbreak of war. He died at the age of 74 in 1958 and was recognised as Righteous Among the Nations by Israel's Yad Vashem in 1999.

Jane Haining spent years working as a school matron in a Jewish orphanage in Budapest; Miss Haining was holidaying in Cornwall when the Second World War was declared. She immediately returned to Budapest to help protect the 400 girls under her care and refused an official order to leave the country in 1940. The Church of Scotland Missionary from Dunscore again refused to leave following the Nazi invasion of Hungary in 1944. She was arrested by the Gestapo and taken to Auschwitz where she died in July the same year at the age of 47. She is recognised as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem and is commemorated by a number of monuments in her home town of Dunscore.

June Ravenhall was a British housewife who moved to Holland before the war; June Ravenhall risked her life by hiding a Jewish child, Louise Velleman, in her home during the Nazi occupation. She was recognised as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 2007.
Sofka Skipwith was a Russian aristocrat who grew up in Britain smuggled Red Cross parcels to Jewish prisoners at an Internment camp in Vittel, France, where she was incarcerated during the War. She also saved a newborn Jewish baby from execution by sedating it, putting it in a red cut box and passing it through a gap in the perimeter fence to members of the French Resistance in the middle of the night. Mrs Skipworth, who lived her last days in Cornwall, was recognised as Righteous Among the Nations by Israel's Yad Vashem in 1998.

Princess Alice of Greece was the mother of the Duke of Edinburgh who married into the Greek royal family organised shelters for orphans and hid three Jewish women in the palace during the occupation of Greece. She personally ensured the refugees had everything they needed and visited them regularly between 1943 and October 1945. In 1967, after the fall of King Constantine of Greece, she was invited to live with the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh at Buckingham Palace, where she died two years later. She was recognised as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 1994.

Bertha Bracey a Quaker from Birmingham who lobbied tirelessly about the plight of the Jews in Germany was instrumental in setting up the Kindertransport which brought 10,000 children to England. She also arranged for 300 orphans found alive in the Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia to be flown to a reception camp by Lake Windermere just before the end of the war in 1945. She received the OBE for her work for refugees in 1942, and was later recognised as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

Louisa Gould, Ivy Forester and Harold le Druillenec The two sisters from Jersey sheltered two Russian prisoners of war while their brother taught them English. All three were arrested after being betrayed by a neighbour and Mrs Gould was executed at the notorious Ravensbrueck women's concentration camp in northern Germany in 1945.
Mrs Forster survived after escaping deportation because a doctor at the Jersey General Hospital forged papers saying she was not well enough to leave the country, and Mr le Druillenec was the last surviving British citizen at Belsen.

Henk Huffener As a Dutch citizen during the war, Henk Heffner smuggled Jews out of Holland to Switzerland and Spain. He moved to England in 1950 and lived in Guildford after taking British citizenship.

Stan Wells, Alan Edwards, George Hammond, Roger Letchford, Tommy Noble, John Buckley, Bill Scruton, Bert Hambling, Bill Keeble and Willy Fisher as British prisoners of war they jointly saved the life of Hannah Sarah Rigler, a 15-year-old Jewish girl who escaped outside Danzig from the death march in which her mother and sister later perished.
Miss Rigler, who is still alive and lives in New York, slipped away from the line unnoticed and ran to a barn where she was discovered by the group of British prisoners who were performing farm labour in the area. They wrapped her in an old army coat, hid her in a hay loft and took it in turns to bring her food, bathe her and nurse her back to help.

The prisoners arranged for the teenager to be cared for by local women on the eve of their evacuation into Germany. They were recognised by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the
Nations in 1988.

Brave men and women all. End of story

Photo Hunt - Bayeux Cemetery

The theme for this week's Photo Hunt is veterans/military. These photos were taken in Bayeux in August. It is the the last resting place of several thousand mainly British soldiers who died during the D-Day landings and the bloody battles in the bocage in the summer of 1944.

Bayeux was the first French town to be liberated

The sewing needle is mightier than the sword

According to Friday’s Guardian British biological warfare scientists developed a poisoned dart to rain down on enemy troops during the second world war and used sewing machine needles to make prototypes.

A "most secret" War Office file, entitled "research into the use of anthrax and other poisons for biological warfare", shows that scientists at the Porton Down in Wiltshire were testing the use of poisoned darts to be dropped in cluster bombs.

Trials on goats and sheep demonstrated that even if the dart was removed, the victim was likely to collapse within five minutes. Where the dose was lethal, death followed within 30 minutes.

At first, scientists used a few needles bought at a branch of the Singer sewing machine company in nearby Salisbury, but soon realised that local stocks would not be sufficient.In January 1942 the man leading Britain's wartime chemical weapons programme, Dr Paul Fildes, made a direct approach to the sewing company. His letter opened with: "It is a little difficult to explain what I want sewing machine needles for ... "

The scientists admitted that, once used, people would quickly learn that light cover – such as trees, aircraft and lorries – would give almost complete protection against the darts. They were part of a programme that saw testing of anthrax and led to the creation of a hidden arsenal of anti-crop sprays, poison gas and germ weapons that experts say the government have been at pains to play down ever since.

Interestingly it was only in the 1990s that Gruinard Island in NW Scotland was made safe. It had been used for biological warfare tests during WWII

A roll of honour for Ireland’s WWII dead

A new study by the University of Edinburgh found more than 3,600 soldiers from the south of Ireland died on active service during WWII. Their names joined those of almost 3,900 fallen combatants from Northern Ireland on a roll of honour being unveiled at Trinity College Dublin on 12 June.

The study estimates that in the British army alone, as many as 100,000 people from the island of Ireland served in WWII, despite the Irish Free State's neutrality in the conflict. (Working out how many people did serve is harder than one might think, The best estimates I have seen would estimate 60-70,000 men and women from Eire served in the British armed forces during WWII)

Historian Yvonne McEwen said the ambitious project, which began in 2003, was inspired by stories of her grandfather's experience upon coming home after WWI where he fought as a Royal Irish Fusilier. "Society was not very kind to returning men who fought in the First World War, and I wanted to look at that in terms of WWII particularly with a partitioned country," she said. "I wanted to learn what happened to these men and women on both sides of the border - it turned out to be a staggering picture. suppose it was like becoming a detective - the more I uncovered, the more I wanted to know. I've learned a lot about the sacrifice made on the island of Ireland."


The roll of honour will be permanently housed in the Trinity College library, but Ms McEwen said some of the blanks in her research still needed to be filled.

It has taken a long time but the Republic has woken up to the contribution and the sacrifice made by those men and women who fought to defeat the Nazi monster. The IRA, on the other hand, got into bed with the Nazis.