Military Internees, Prisoners of War and the Irish State during the Second World War PDF
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Military Internees, Prisoners of War and the Irish State during the Second World War DOI: 10.1057/9781137446039.0001 Other Palgrave Pivot titles Michael Byron: Submission and Subjection in Leviathan: Good Subjects in the Hobbesian Commonwealth Andrew Szanajda: The Allies and the German Problem, 1941–1949: From Cooperation to Alternative Settlement Joseph E. Stiglitz and Refet S. 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No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978-1-137-44603-9 PDF ISBN: 978-1-349-49591-7 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. www.palgrave.com/pivot doi: 10.1057/9781137446039 Contents Acknowledgements vi Introduction 1 1 Locking Them Up: Internment, Prisoners of War and International Law 11 2 Keeping One Eye Abroad: Belligerent Internment and Diplomacy 27 3 Settling in and Earning Their Keep: Life in K-Lines 54 4 Breaking Out and Breaking In: Escape 85 Conclusion: ‘Not Breaking but Making International Law’? 108 References 116 Index 122 DOI: 10.1057/9781137446039.0001 Acknowledgements A number of people have helped enormously in the writing of this book. Dwight Meares at the US Military Academy at West Point and John Reynolds of the Garda College deserve special mention for kindly sending on both documents and the results of their research. Thanks also to Michael Kennedy of the Royal Irish Academy for his assistance in deciphering Department of Foreign Affairs files. I wish to acknowledge the assistance of the Director and staff of the National Archives of Ireland, the Irish Military Archives, the University College Dublin Archives, the Columban Archives and the National Library. I am indebted to Tomás Kenny for his constant supply of books and his perceptive insights on Irish history. Finally, none of my work would ever be possible without the patience, forbearance and support of my wife Monica and daughter Sophia, to whom I owe everything. vi DOI: 10.1057/9781137446039.0002 Introduction Kelly, Bernard. Military Internees, Prisoners of War and the Irish State during the Second World War. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. doi: 10.1057/9781137446039.0003. DOI: 10.1057/9781137446039.0003 Military Internees, Prisoners of War and the Irish State During the Second World War, neutral Ireland (then also known as Eire) interacted with military internees and prisoners of war both inside and outside the island of Ireland: members of the belligerent forces incarcerated in Eire, prisoners of war (including Irish) held abroad in Europe and Asia, and German prisoners of war detained in Northern Ireland, which was still a part of the United Kingdom. As a neutral, Eire was required by international law to arrest and intern members of the belligerent forces who made landfall in the 26 counties and as a result, between 1940 and 1945 a total of 45 Allied aircrew and 269 Axis airmen and sailors were held at the Curragh military camp. The Allied personnel consisted of 31 British, eight Canadians, three Poles, one Frenchman, one New Zealander and an American, described on the official internee list as ‘Yanks (USA)’.1 The lone American was a member of the RAF; no US military personnel were ever interned. Situated in county Kildare, around 30 miles from Dublin, the Curragh camp was (and remains) the largest military complex in Ireland. First constructed in 1855, it served as a military base and police depot until it passed into the hands of the Dublin government after the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922. The belligerent internees in the Curragh were initially classed as prisoners of war, in order for the government to extend the 1907 Hague and 1929 Geneva Conventions to them, and also to establish a basis for their treatment: what food, clothes and medical treatment they were entitled to, where and how they were to be detained, whether they had to work or not and what privileges the government could offer them. Apart from a brief period between August and October 1940, they were not actually treated as prisoners of war and were granted an extensive range of concessions, such as permission to leave the camp on parole. From 1942 onwards, when Dublin altered the legislative basis of its belligerent interment regime, they were categorised as ‘military internees’ and all references to them as ‘prisoners of war’ were dropped. There were, in fact, two internment camps at the Curragh during the war. No.1 internment camp, known amongst its inmates as ‘Tintown’, was reserved for IRA members and other republican detainees, interned under emergency law for the duration of the war. The second, No.2 internment camp – also known as ‘K-Lines’ – was where the belligerent personnel were held. K-Lines was divided into two sections: ‘B’ camp for Allied prisoners and ‘G’ camp for the Axis.2 The identifiers ‘B’ and ‘G’ were originally applied when there were just British and German DOI: 10.1057/9781137446039.0003 Introduction personnel interned, but they remained even after different nationalities began to enter the Allied compound. A further issue for the de Valera government to grapple with were the thousands of German prisoners of war who were held in camps in Northern Ireland during 1944–45, and whose presence had the potential to cause serious difficulties for Dublin. As part of the UK, Northern Ireland took part in the conflict, but because of the complicated politi- cal and security situation there, prisoners of war were not held in Ulster until late in the war when the British government had no choice owing of the lack of accommodation in Britain. When considering the internee/ prisoner of war issue, the Dublin government devoted the bulk of its time to K-Lines and the belligerent internees held there; as a neutral, it could do little to intervene on behalf of Irish prisoners of war abroad, and Germans arrived in Northern Ireland only at the very end of the war. This book reflects this reality. While it explores the attitude of the de Valera government towards prisoners of war both on the island of Ireland and outside, it concentrates mainly on the belligerent internment policy and the military internees within K-Lines and subsequent camps. Running through the internment and prisoner of war issues like a thread was the emphasis placed by Dublin on their international importance. The fact that Ireland was detaining members of the armed forces of the warring powers carried obvious diplomatic consequences. Representatives of the belligerents were frequent visitors to the camp, and the detainees had regular and unsupervised access to their consular officials. Any allegations of mistreatment or dissatisfaction with life in the camp could quickly escalate into an international incident. Accordingly, the de Valera government took great care to ensure that K-Lines (and other subsequent belligerent camps) did not become a point of conten- tion between Ireland and the warring powers. The wide range of liberties given to the internees, both Allied and German, was partly driven by the need to avoid friction with the belligerent nations. Although the Department of Defence and the Irish military had primary responsibility for guarding the camp, it was the Department of External Affairs which had the final say on issues such as parole, living conditions and punish- ments. De Valera – who was both Taoiseach and Minister for External Affairs throughout the war – and top-rank officials within External Affairs such as secretary Joseph Walshe, assistant secretary Frederick Boland and legal advisor Michael Rynne were all closely involved in the running of K-Lines, as were the German and Allied ministers in Dublin. DOI: 10.1057/9781137446039.0003
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