ROI Ww2
During WW2 President Devalera played a pretty straight bat in that he had to be seen to be even handed between the opposing forces. Winston Churchill vilified him because of his independant attitude, and had Devalera been part of the British elite then he would probably have been sacked.
The Irish question has and still remaims complex but in this instance one has to remember that Sir Roger Casement had been landed at Tralee by German U boat to assist in the uprising during WW1 against British rule, so links with Germany preceded the events of WW2, along with empathy for the Germans by the some of the Irish population, depending on their political affiliations.
During WW2 many Irishmen flocked to Britain, some to join the colours and others to join the civil engineering companies that between them contributed so much to the war effort.
However, it has never been officially admitted or indeed properly researched regarding the small minority of camp followers of a certain political organiseation who embedded themselves with the volunteers and caried out acts of espionage and sabotage in the UK during WW2 on behalf of Germany.
Historically British Military Intelligence has always maintained that all German spies and saboteurs were captured, this being based on German documents seized after the war, however Hitler had many parallel operations running in competiton with each other and I beg the question was MI fully aware and have they told the full story?
It would take someone of the brilliance of John Ware who carried out such excellent investigative reporting in the 1980"s on the World In Action programme to unravel the cause and effect of this particular subject but over the years substantive clues have pockmarked history ever since on this rather interesting aspect of wartime history.
Last edited by midnight retired; 11th Nov 2008 at 08:04.
Reason: spelling