Gingerbread Men in Ireland

American paratroopers prepare to load onto their planes, "somewhere in
England" or in Northern Ireland?  Dated 7 Oct 42.

One of the frustrations for those with an affinity for the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion and researching their service during WWII is the scarcity of official documentation. Since the unit had no immediate higher headquarters and was disbanded in the midst of combat, not many records made their way into the National Archives or other repositories. A great deal of the history of this unit has to be pieced together by a combination of veteran narratives and some work by a few "history detectives."

One of these dedicated individuals is Clive Moore from Belfast, Northern Ireland. Clive contacted me recently about some WWII photographs he has come across that depict American paratroopers loading onto planes. On the photos are written the usual Signal Corps description of "somewhere in England" and a date of 7 Oct 42. But several of the photos also have a label stuck on them that says "US Paratroopers in Northern Ireland."

Officers conferring over a map, L-R, RAF Air Vice Marshall J. Cole Hamilton,
U.S. Lieutenant Colonel "Roff" (who I believe is Edson Raff), and
RAF Group Captain S. Gray. Lough Neagh is visible on the map they are
holding. This photo is also dated 7 Oct 42.

Because of terrain features visible in some of the photos (particularly Lough Neagh, visible on a map in one of the photos), Clive is convinced that these pictures were taken at an airfield at St. Angelo, in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. In another photo, two RAF officers flank an American identified as a Lieutenant Colonel "Roff." I've included the photo in this post. If you have seen the pictures in "The Boldest Plan is the Best," you'll probably agree with me that "Roff" is a typo, and this is a picture of Edson Raff. Clive has identified the RAF officers as Air Vice Marshall J. Cole Hamilton, who was Air Officer Commanding (AOC) for Northern Ireland until November 1942, and a Group Captain S. Gray.

We know from veterans narratives that the Geronimos took part in an exercise in Ireland in September. Clive has also informed me that a training exercise, code named PUNCH, was held in Northern Ireland from September 21 to 29, 1942. The exercise involved the U.S. 1st Armored and 34th Infantry Divisions, along with the British 59th and 61st Infantry Divisions and the British 72nd Infantry Brigade. Signal Corps photos were often dated several days after they were taken as often the people developing them were not the ones who took them. These photos dated 7 Oct 42 could very well have been taken the last week of September. Although we don't have documentation, I think it's a safe bet that the 509th PIB is the airborne contingent that participated in this exercise.

WWII, From Different Perspectives

May 8, 2013 was the 68th anniversary of V-E Day or "Victory in Europe" day (commemorated on May 7th in the Commonwealth countries). Of course it was mentioned on radio, television, and on the Internet in more locations than I could keep track of. But usually it came across as just an aside, like some small factoid of trivia, and just as quickly left behind for the next news item. However, a couple of articles I ran across made me think of how the Second World War continues to have an effect on many people around the world. Quite a few of them view those years quite differently than we Americans do.

Even before the era of the "Band of Brothers" our collective memory was shaped by our media. I grew up with movies like "The Longest Day" and the Vic Morrow in "Combat" reruns on television. I reveled in the war stories of my several relatives who were veterans of World War II (all of them survived the war and have since passed away). When the Army sent me to Germany in the mid-80s, I was no different than many Americans are now: with a detached and almost romanticized view of the war. None of the tragedy of war was handed down to me. It became a bit more real when I was exposed to some of the tangible effects. Trips to historic sites like Bastogne, Arnhem, and Dachau helped to make it real. More so the people I met who were affected by the war. My landlords father, Willie (I called him "ompa"), told me how he deserted from the Eastern Front in order to surrender to American forces near his home. Probably a good thing he did, as I dated a German girl whose father was held as a prisoner of war by the Russians for eleven years and did not make it back home until 1954! Her landlady was a 19-year old bride, married for only three weeks when her husband went to war, never to return and with no word of what happened to him. She never remarried.

I ran across a curious article from a Prague newspaper while surfing around about how Czechs remember the war. Basically, according to the article, they don't talk much about it. There are a few publishers in Czechoslovakia who print books on German Aces, but basically the war is forgotten in the collective memory of young Czechoslovakians. I had to give that some thought. From my perspective, Germany invaded Czechoslovakia and they country suffered as much as other Eastern European countries. But there are many ethnic Germans in the country and although over 140,000 Soviets died taking it back, the Czechs had to suffer through decades of communist rule as a Soviet satellite. So the Red Army can't possibly be the good guys. Rather than explain it, maybe they feel it's better not to talk about it?

What really tweaked my beak was the news release about Ireland passing a law that pardons those members of their military who left to join the military forces of Great Britain during WWII. Wait, what?! Still hard to wrap my brain around this. Ireland maintained neutrality during World War II. However, many of her citizens had ties to Great Britain, saw the threat to both England and Ireland, and chose to fight. "Around 60,000 citizens of the Republic of Ireland" fought in Allied armed forces, most of them for Great Britain. Almost 5,000 of them were members of the Irish military. Upon their return they were branded as deserters and placed on a formal blacklist, created by a law passed by their legislature, that prevented them from receiving their retirement, or any kind of government funded job. The law made them social pariahs and virtually condemned the veterans and their families to poverty. The people called the law the "starvation order." Now that enough time has passed, clearer thinking realized that the government of Ireland owed these individuals and their families an apology. Unfortunately, there are only about 100 of these veterans still living.

I have no conclusion to give you other than to state that I wanted to bring these stories to your attention. I hope that as we lose our WWII era veterans and their contemporaries who served on the home front, we will view that tragic time in American history for what it really was. That as a result of the sacrifice and tragedy of people around the world and here in the U.S., the war was followed by a time of great economic prosperity for America, the United States was positioned as a dominant world power, and a 45-year Cold War was initiated. I hope that the war will not be remembered only as a background setting for movies and television. I do trust that we will teach future generations its lessons learned through real events that were experienced by real people.