The annual Irish Defence Forces Veterans’ Day took place today in Collins Barracks, Dublin. The event was attended by the Minister of State with Responsibility for Defence, Paul Kehoe TD, and the General Staff. Veterans of the Irish Defence Forces attended from the Organisation of National Ex-Servicemen and Women (ONE), the Irish United Nations Veterans Association (IUNVA), the Association of Retired Officers (ARCO), and the battalion and regimental associations.
A wreath was laid in memory of those who had lost their lives in service to their country.
Celebrations in Collins Barracks for 90 Years of the Reserve
Photos by Michael Coyne and Wesley Bourke
Celebrations took place today in the National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks, to mark the 90 anniversary of the formation of Reserve Defence Forces.
Although reserve elements had been experimented with by the fledgling Irish Defence Forces the first formal reserve component opened up to the general public for part time military training was in 1929 with the formation of the Volunteer Reserve Force. This was followed shortly by the Officer Training Corps with units established in several universities around the country. With Fianna Fáil taking power in 1932 a new force was established in 1934 – The Volunteer Force. Members and supporters of Fianna Fáil were encouraged to join; many had fought in the Civil War on the anti-treaty side. The Volunteer Force was an all-arms undertaking with a high level of training for officers and NCO’s. it peaked at a strength of 10,578 in April 1935. On 1 September 1939 its strength was 257 officers and 6,986 other ranks. Interestingly the force was territorially organised in regiments such as The Regiment of Oriel; The Regiment of Leinster; and the The Regiment of Dublin. The Regiment of Pearse was added in 1935.
With the outbreak of World War II and Emergency was declared and the permanent and reserve elements of the Defence Forces were expanded quickly. The Local Security Force (LSF) amd the Local Defence Force (LDF) were established to help with the war effort. This expansion resulted in numbers never seen before or since in the establishment of the Irish Army. In 31 March, 1941, the regular force peaked at 41,463, while in June 1943 the LDF reached its highest enlistment number of 103,530. Many photographs of the period show pre-war officers and soldiers, Volunteer reservists, and Emergency enlistment soldiers wearing and carrying their respective equipment. During this period a reserve element for the Marine Service was established called The Maritime Inscription.
Members of Local Defence Force marching through Dublin.
Special reserve edition of An Cosantóir
Following the end of hostilities in 1945, the Emergency Defence Forces were demobilised. In 1946and 47 all pre-existing reserve forces were disestablished. The reserve element was reconstituted into the First Line Reserve (former permanent personnel) and the Second Line Reserve – An Fórsa Cosanta Áitiúil (FCÁ) (Local Defence Force) which was made up of part time volunteers. An Slua Muirí became the maritime reserve component of the Naval Service. The period 1959 – 1979 was known as ‘integration’ whereby the Defence Forces was structured in six brigades regular and FCÁ. This of course was during the Cold War and the structure allowed the Defence Forces to mobilise quickly if needed. Throughout this period the reserve played a prominent role in supporting their regular counterparts who were increasingly called upon during the Troubles.
In 2005 An Fórsa Cosanta Áitiúil and An Slua Muirí were stood down and reconstituted into the Reserve Defence Force (na hÓglaigh Cúltaca) consisting of the Army and Naval Reserve. Initially the reserve was organised in their own units with parent regular units to which they would train with and support. In 2013 the ‘Single Force Concept’ was introduced whereby RDF sub-units would now be attached to PDF Army units. Throughout its history the reserve has always relying upon volunteers who give up their free time to support the Permanent Defence Forces and conduct duties around the country when called upon.
Image of the parade marking the 90th anniversary of the formation of the Reserve Defence Forces in Collins Barracks. The parade was inspected by the Minister of State with Responsibility for Defence Paul Keogh.
The RDF are currently recruiting. If you fancy a part time carrier in the Army or Navy check out a unit near you.
Renmore Barracks, Galway, had a very special guest on Friday: Lieutenant Colonel Ned Cusack who turned 100 on 1 March. A veteran turning 100 is not a daily occurrence; especially a former member of 1st Infantry Battalion. There to meet Ned ware Lt Col Frank Flannery, O/C 1st Infantry Battalion (1 Cn Cois), veterans and members of his family. To mark the occasion members of 1 Cn Cois paid tribute to the guest of honour with a Guard of Honor and a tour of the the barrack’s museum where Ned reminisced over photographs dating back to the Emergency period. He was then invited to the Officer’s Mess for a birthday celebration.
Birthday celebrations in Renmore Barracks.
Ned Cusack was born on 1 March, 1919. Growing up in Mitchelstown, Co. Cork, he joined the Defence Forces after completing his Leaving Certificate. Ned began his military career with the 12th Cadet Class. The following year with war clouds gathering, the cadets were put through intensive training. On commissioning Ned was posted to 1st Infantry Battalion in Galway, where he would spend a large part of his career. The battalion and Galway became his home. For the duration of the Emergency period the Ned and his unit were on a ‘war footing’. In 1940 he met Eileen, who he married in 1944. Following the intense years of the Emergency Ned went on to serve with the 5th Infantry Battalion in Collins Barracks, OC 20th Infantry Battalion FCÁ and OC Griffith Barracks, Eastern Command HQ, and with the United Nations in Cyprus. He retired from Army service in November 1977 and took up the appointment of Manager of Galway Fishery. Retiring in 1986, Ned lives today with Eileen in Moycullen, Co. Galway. Ned and Eileen have seven children, ten grandchildren and nine greatgrandchildren.
Ned wrote about his experiences in the Emergency in three issues of Ireland’s Military Story in 2016 and 2017.
The Ivy Patch Gun Possible ‘Four Courts’ Irish Field Gun Returns Home
By Kenneth L. Smith-Christmas, Lar Joye, and Commandant Stephen MacEoin
The ‘Ivy Patch’ gun, loaded for shipment back to Ireland, under the supervision of Lieutenant Colonel Paul Carey.
A potentially very significant 18-pounder Mark II field gun arrived home in Ireland last year, after having been gone for more than fifty years. This gun was made in Scotland during World War I for the British Army, and it could very well have later played a significant role in Irish history, before being sold as surplus scrap metal to an American international arms dealer in 1959, and then finally ending up in a patch of English ivy at a now-shuttered dinner theater in northern Virginia, not far from Washington D.C. The story of its discovery and return is a tale of coincidence and chance, as well as energetic efforts on both sides of the Atlantic.
The Irish 18-pounders
At 4am on 28 June 1922, two 18-pounder field guns (serial numbers as yet unknown) opened fire on the Four Courts in Dublin, Ireland, in an action that signalled the beginning of one of the most heartbreaking episodes in Ireland’s long and turbulent history—The Irish Civil War. Six 18-pounder guns (two Mark I’s and four Mark II’s) had been ‘loaned’ by the British Army to the fledgling National Army of the Provisional Irish Government, in order to quell the growing rebellion against the newly established Irish government. A visceral and implacable division had erupted between the Irish nationalists who had spent years fighting the ‘Forces of the Crown’ to bring independence to Ireland. One side, the ‘Free Staters’, supported the 1921 Anglo Irish Treaty with the British government that gave Ireland the same status as other Dominions, like Canada and Australia, but not a complete break from the British Empire. The opposing faction, soon to be dubbed the ‘Irregulars’ or ‘anti-treaty’, would not be satisfied with anything but full independence, and a group of them had holed up in Dublin’s Four Courts building, an imposing Georgian edifice alongside the River Liffey. The Provisional Government demanded their surrender, but when it was refused, they opened fire.
After three days of shelling with light ‘wire-cutting’ shrapnel rounds from these two guns, the defenders surrendered when their munitions magazine exploded, and the building caught fire. Recent historical research indicates that the explosion was more likely caused by the rebel forces mining the building, rather than from the bombardment. Sadly, the building also contained the Public Records Office, as well as the Four Courts, and it, too, was destroyed. The end result was not only the destruction of a beautiful building, but also the loss of 700 years of archives. Although the building was later rebuilt and re-opened as a judicial court, its loss is still felt today. However, the end of this siege just marked the beginning of a sad, and brutal, conflict that tore close long-time friendships and families asunder, until it ended some eighteen months later. Indeed, except among academics and historical enthusiasts, the subject is still avoided by many people in Ireland today, as the memories are too searing. The Irish Free State came into effect on 6 December 1922.
Between 1926 and 1941, the Irish Department of Defence acquired additional Mark I and Mark II, as well as more modern Mark IV, 18-pounder guns from Britain. During World War II, the British government also supplied Ireland (on 29 December 1937, under the new constitution, the Irish Free State was renamed Ireland) with other military gear and weapons. Concurrently, this ‘Ivy Patch’ Mark II cannon, like all of Ireland’s artillery, was modernised with pneumatic tyres, as well as with a braking system for towing behind motor vehicles. It then continued to serve in the Irish Army, until 1958, when it was sold for scrap metal as part of a shipload of artillery and machine guns to the relatively new firm of International Armament Corporation (Interarmco) of Alexandria, Virginia, (a small city, just down the Potomac River from Washington D.C.). Interarmco ‘Interarmco’, also later known as ‘Interarms’, was founded in the mid-1950’s. Its organiser and president, Sam Cummings, was a savvy and resourceful weapons purchaser who found ‘untraceable’ arms for certain governmental agencies during the 1950’s, and also acquired surplus military arms abroad for civilian sales in the United States. His travels and dealings took him all over the globe, and while in Argentina, he approached the government there and offered to empty its warehouses of obsolete military weapons at ‘bargain basement’ prices. Accordingly, he proposed an offer that the Argentines accepted, and old brick warehouses along the waterfront streets of what is now upscale ‘Old Towne’ Alexandria, Virginia, were soon packed to the ceilings with thousands of M1891 and M1909 Argentine Mauser rifles, hundreds of machine guns, swords, and even 7,000 steel cavalry lances, as well as 542 assorted cannons of all types. The Argentine cannons, mostly of German manufacture, but also from other countries, eventually were dispersed in the local area, across the United States, and around the world. As was the case with the rifles, they were sold at very low prices. Coincidentally, this huge purchase took place in 1959, a few months after the ‘Ivy Patch’ 18 pounder gun arrived in Alexandria on a Finnish cargo ship, the SS Finnmerchant, from Dublin, as part of a shipload of other obsolete surplus Irish cannons (among which were Mark I and Mark II 18-pounders, 4.5” howitzers, and anti-artillery guns, as well as some 60-pounders) and more than 850 machineguns.
This 4.5 inch howitzer, sitting on the waterfront of Alexandria, Virginia, was one of the cannon in the same 1959 shipment of war material from Ireland that contained the “Ivy Patch” 18-pdr gun.
The ‘Ivy Patch’ Gun
The owner of a then recently-opened dinner theatre and restaurant, overlooking the banks of the Occoquan River a few miles to the south of Alexandria, purchased this 18-pounder gun from Interarmco and set it up among his outdoor gallery of other antiques—old fire engines, farm machinery, and curiosities. Among the other curiosities on the premises was a US-made World War II searchlight, also painted battleship gray like the 18-pounder gun, as well as other similarly painted cannons. There the gun sat in an ivy patch for the next forty-plus years, until the ivy had nearly covered it, and the once-thriving dinner theater declined.
In February 2006, Ken Smith-Christmas, one of the staff curators at the planning office for the forthcoming National Museum of the U.S. Army, was sent to England, in order to, among other tasks, inspect the restoration work that was being done to an original World War II LCVP (landing craft, vehicle, personnel) wooden landing craft from the Normandy Invasion of 1944. A private firm near Portsmouth, England, was doing the restoration. After checking out the work that had been done to the landing craft, Ken accompanied the owner on a tour of his facility. When Ken noticed a British 18-pounder gun under restoration, he casually asked about it, since he had a life-long interest in World War I. The owner replied that it was being restored for the military exhibition at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin, and that it was one of the guns that had fired on the Four Courts in 1922.
Concurrently, this ‘Ivy Patch’ Mark II cannon, like all of Ireland’s artillery, was modernised with pneumatic tyres, as well as with a braking system for towing behind motor vehicles. It then continued to serve in the Irish Army, until 1958
Ken was very impressed to hear that, as Irish military history had also been a favourite topic of his for many years, and he then asked the owner where the gun had been found. Ken heard the owner’s reply of ‘Argentina’, and that really piqued his interest, since he had grown up in the Alexandria area, and remembered the many fenced lots on the Alexandria waterfront that held all sorts of cannons from Argentina. In fact, when Ken was still in high school, he had tried to buy one of these cannons—a 1903-dated Krupp 77mm field gun— from a man who had acquired it from one of these lots, and had it sitting in front of his house in a neighbouring subdivision. At any rate, Ken also knew of the plans to establish a military museum in Dublin, as he had met its director, Lar Joye, the previous summer at a conference of the International Committee of Museums of Arms and Military History (ICOMAM) that was held in Canada, and he had eagerly listened to Lar’s presentation about the new ‘Soldiers and Chiefs’ exhibition that was coming soon to Dublin’s former Collins Barracks. However, Ken didn’t give the gun in the restoration yard much further thought, and simply looked forward to seeing it in the new museum whenever he could get an opportunity to visit Dublin again.
A few years later, Ken was stuck in one of the inevitable evening rush hour traffic jams while driving home from his museum planning office in Fort Belvoir, Virginia. While waiting for the line of cars ahead of him to finally move, Ken noticed that he was across the highway from the Lazy Susan Dinner Theater, and recalled that this locale had played a part in a book that he had been reading about Confederate guerillas during the American Civil War. There had been a firefight between Colonel John Mosby’s partisan rangers and a troop of New York cavalry near the Occoquan River, and it had centered around an old house on the hill where the dinner theater now stood. Ken had only visited the dinner theater once, and at night, many, many years before, so, out of curiosity, and in frustration at the barely-moving traffic, he drove up the winding access road to see if the old house was still there. While killing time, and walking around the premises, he stumbled across the Irish Free State-marked 18-pounder gun in the ivy patch. The rubber tyres were rotting away and only the barrel, breech, and shield were still visible above the ivy.
The ‘Ivy Patch’ Irish Free State 18-pounder gun, as it was discovered on the grounds of a declining dinner theater in Virginia, about English ivy had grown up and around the gun over the years, nearly obscuring it from view.
Recalling the ‘Argentina’ statement by the restorer in England, and knowing that Interarms was the only logical source of the gun, Ken surmised that this gun, too, must have come from Argentina, as a part of the 1959 Argentine shipment. The two people manning the office at the dinner theater informed Ken that the present owner would never part with the gun, as it was one that his grandfather had acquired, and, as such, it had become a proud family heirloom. Ken left a business card with the staff members and asked them to let him know if there was ever any intention to dispose of the gun. He contacted Lar Joye sometime later about it, but since Lar was very busy with his newly opened museum, and Ken understood that Lar already had what had been described to him as a real ‘Four Courts’ gun, neither of them were too concerned about it. According to the dinner theater staff, the present owner didn’t want to let it go, and even if he did, getting it back across the Atlantic would be a quite a feat.
When Ken was finally able to visit Lar at his museum in Dublin’s Collins Barracks in June 2013, he saw the same restored 18-pounder gun on exhibit that he had last seen seven years before in England. During a tour of the galleries, Lar told Ken that this gun on display was a Mark IV, and had later been updated, but then had been restored back to its original World War I configuration. Although the artifact label addressed the use of 18 pounders by Irish gunners in World War I and at the Four Courts, this gun, contrary to what Ken had been told earlier in England, had not actually fired on the Four Courts. Lar pointed out that he had been searching for a Mark I or Mark II gun from 2003 to 2006, but could not find one in Ireland. Apparently, no one knew what had happened to the Irish Army’s Mark I’s and Mark II’s, but it was rumored that they had been sold to Argentina or Bolivia. This was most likely the reason for the restoration company’s confusion about the gun’s history and its origins. At this point, Ken reminded Lar about the gun in the ivy patch back at the dinner theater in Virginia, and, although Ken couldn’t recall any of the markings on it—other than the ‘FF’ (Irish Defence Forces emblem) on the breech— or its model designation, Lar said that it might be of interest to the museum, after all.
A former Irish Army 18-pounder in the National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks, Dublin. This example has been restored to a horse drawn Mark II variant.
In December 2014, Lar contacted Ken about the gun in the ivy patch, and asked him if he would photograph it. At that time, Ken, now retired, was en route to his winter home in Key Largo, Florida, but promised that he would photograph it when he returned from Florida the next spring. However, Ken suffered a near-fatal abdominal aortic aneurysm the following February, so he had to put that project on the back burner when he finally got back to Virginia. Lar reminded him about it the following August, and, while on an errand in northern Virginia a few weeks later, Ken happened to pull off the road by the entrance to the dinner theater. Although he didn’t have his camera with him, he went up to check on the gun. Ken found the gun still lying in the patch of ivy and, while he was looking at it, he happened to meet the current owner. The owner didn’t reveal his last name, but he and Ken soon discovered that they shared a mutual interest in historical firearms, and the owner verified that his grandfather had, indeed, acquired the gun from Interarms in the early 1960s. Ken noted down the serial number and the markings on the gun, and pointed out the interesting potential provenance of the gun to the owner.
When asked if he would be willing to part with it, the owner said that, since his wife was of Irish ancestry, he might consider it. Ken reported to Lar that the gun was, indeed, a Mark II, and returned a few weeks later to photograph the gun. When he arrived, he saw that the dinner theatre was now closed for good, padlocked gates had been erected at the entrance and exit, and the offices looked deserted. He called the telephone number on the door, and tried to email the owner for days afterwards—all to no avail. Finally, he suggested to Lar that he ask the military attaché at the Irish embassy in Washington to send a letter to the address listed on the dinner theatre’s now-defunct website, in hopes that the owner would be curious about the return address on the envelope, open it, and contact Lar at the museum. While Ken was down in Key Largo again for the winter, his close friend in Alexandria, Bob McDonough (also a student of Irish history), kept a watch on the gun to ensure that it didn’t stray, and stayed in communication with Lar.
Lar sent several letters to the owner, Glenn Graves, and thankfully, Glenn responded. Since the Republic of Ireland does not have a military attaché in Washington, Lar contacted Colonel Conor FitzSimons, the Irish Defense Forces official representative at the United Nations in New York (and a fellow artillery officer), and arranged a meeting in Virginia for February 2016. Colonel FitzSimons, Commandant Stephen MacEoin (the then director of the Irish Military Archives), and Lar met with Glenn, and found that he was very keen to have the gun returned to Ireland. Glenn was the perfect host to the three Irishmen, and they all spent a delightful winter’s day in a Virginia field, talking about the Civil War— the Irish one, and not the American one!
After Stephen MacEoin worked out the finer details of the agreement with Glenn, he and Lar recommended the acquisition of the gun to the Chief of Staff of the Irish Defence Forces. The Chief of Staff, in turn, dispatched Lieutenant Colonel Paul Carey, Executive Officer of the J4 Branch, Defence Forces Headquarters, to pick up the gun and transport it back to Ireland. Paul Carey journeyed to the former dinner theater in July 2016, and the gun arrived back in Dublin by the first week of August 2016. This certainly was a remarkably quick turnaround from the initial visit to the arrival of the gun. The ivy patch gun is currently being restored. Research is ongoing, both at the British National Archives in London, and at Military Archives in Dublin to learn exactly which Mark I and Mark II guns were acquired by the Irish Free State prior to July 1922, and hopefully, which ones actually fired on the Four Courts.
Finally, the entire operation is emblematic of the benefits that the museum community receives from membership in ICOMAM. Had it not been for Ken and Lar’s fortuitous meeting over dinner at the ICOMAM Canada conference in 2005— when they not only became professional colleagues, but good friends—this potentially significant gun would still be sitting in an ivy patch, and unknown to the world, or even worse, possibly melted down for scrap metal.
Where Are These Cannons Now?
When the SS Finnmerchant was unloaded on the Alexandria, Virginia, waterfront, in February 1959, there were not only dozens of pieces of artillery and limber/caissons, in crates and on the deck, but also 843 crates of machine guns, on board the ship. On 22 July 1958, the Irish government had disposed of all of it as scrap metal, since there was not a market in Ireland, or in Europe, for these items at the time, as anything but scrap steel. In fact, the cost of shipping the guns to America was more than Sam Cummings had paid for the entire shipment. The artillery consisted of seventeen 18-pounder field guns and trailers (limber/caissons), twenty-two 4.5” howitzers and trailers, and six 60-pounder guns and trailers, along with twenty-three crates containing five 12 pounder guns, four 3-inch anti-artillery guns and mounts, tons of spare parts, and inert ammunition. The serial numbers for the four AA guns were: 1449; 1675; 1677, and, 1711. The five 12-pounder ‘Land Type’ quick firing guns were: 1070 (Drill Purpose); 1544; 1654; 1703, and, 1803. The serial numbers of the five Mark I 18-pounder guns were: 6460; 7209; 7470, and, 10392. The serial numbers of the twelve Mark II 18-pounder guns were: 2819; 2908; 3484; 4254; 4770; 5605; 7554; 7765; 8577; 8976; 9168, and 10756. Number “9168” is the repatriated “Ivy Patch” gun. The ten Mark I 4.5” howitzers were numbered: 20; 135; 861; 1405; 1653; 1686; 1770; 1814; 2132, and, 3109. The twelve Mk II 4.5” howitzers bore the serial numbers: 2209; 2763; 2839; 2871; 3340; 3350; 3376; 3455; 3559; 3588; 3617, and, 4032. Finally, the six massive 60-pounder guns were numbered as: 1603; 1618; 1634; 1637; 1667, and 1688. These artillery pieces were sold in the local area, across the United States and Canada, and perhaps elsewhere, but aside from the ‘Ivy Patch Gun’, a Mark II 4.5” howitzer (Serial Number 2839) in a private collection in Virginia, and two more 4.5” howitzers at the Pennsylvania State Museum in Boalsburg (near State College in Pennsylvania), the whereabouts of the rest of them is, at present, unknown to the authors.
The authors thank Michael J. Parker, Esq., formerly of Interarms, for his kind assistance in the preparation of this article, and, of course, Glenn Graves, for his very generous donation of the gun to the National Museum of Ireland. Glenn E. Hyatt, Stefan Rohal, Paul Smith, and Robert McDonough provided information on extant machineguns and cannon from the 1959 ‘Irish Shipment’. The greater part of this article was published previously in the online ICOMAM Magazine in the winter of 2016, and was intended for an international, not a specifically Irish, audience.
A life-long student of military history and artefacts, Ken Smith- Christmas retired from a 37-year career in military museums— primarily the U.S. Marine Corps, and the U.S. Army. In retirement, he pursues his deep interest in Irish military history, and assists the international museum community in firearms legislation.
An aerial view in which you can clearly see the remains of one of the Fort Shannon gun emplacements, with the open gun chamber, overhead beam, gun mounting, parapet, and the entrance to the magazine passage at the rear. (Photo by Ken Mooney
During the Second World War a vast range of forts and military defence installations were constructed across the European war zone. These included, for example, the German Atlantic Wall that stretched from Spain to Norway, which was laid out to guard the coast against an Allied invasion, or the British defence system built to defend the country against a possible German attack. Here an equally extensive range of gun emplacements, anti-invasion obstacles, and forts were constructed in coastal, estuarial and inland positions. During the same war time period, the Irish government built only a single large-scale military installation: Fort Shannon on the County Kerry side of the Shannon Estuary. The Irish government was concerned that an invasion force could strike up the Shannon to Limerick and quickly reach the interior of the country.
Coast Defence Artillery
As Ireland took a neutral position in the war, it was felt that
such an attack could originate from Germany or Britain. The government established
a number of coastal defence forts around the coastline around the same time,
but these were essentially the nineteenth century structures that the British
authorities had kept under the Anglo/Irish Treaty. The forts were handed over
to the Irish government in 1938. When World War II broke out the coastal defence
installations became vital to the defence of Ireland’s deep-water ports. There
were five Coast Defence Artillery installations in the Southern Command and two
installations in the Western Command. Manned by the Artillery Corps, Coast
Defence Artillery Detachments were deployed as follows:
Southern Command
Forts Westmoreland, Carlisle and Templebreedy in Cork Harbour, Co.
Cork. Fort Berehaven in Bantry Bay, Co. Cork. Fort Shannon on the Shannon
estuary, Co. Kerry, from 1942.
Western Command
Forts Dunree and Lenan in Lough Swilly, Co. Donegal. Armaments
varied between installations. They included some 26 coastal artillery pieces:
9.2”, 6”, 4.7”, 60-pounders with a number of naval 12-pounders and Hotchkiss
3-pounders. The forts and their guns were manned 24/7 all year round. They had
a primary role of the defence of the respective harbour. Furthermore, these
harbours were deemed ‘controlled ports’. This gave Coast Defence Artillery a
secondary role of ‘Control of Examination Anchorage’. This meant that all ships
entering the harbours had to be searched and deemed ‘Safe’ by the Examination
Service. The Coast Defence Artillery installations were supported by the Corps
of Engineers Coast Defence Company. Headquartered at Fort Camden in Cork
Harbour, the unit consisted of 232 all ranks. Its main task was the engineering
support of the coastal defence installations and the provision of seventeen searchlights.
The engineers were deployed to all coastal installations except Fort Lenan
which had no searchlights. The installations were further augmented by
detachments of the regular Army, Local Defence Force and the Marine Service/Marine
Inscription Service.
A five-acre site near Tarbert in Kerry was chosen for the new Coast Defence Artillery installation to be named Fort Shannon
Fort Shannon
In 1941, it was decided that the Examination Service for the Shannon estuary, based at the port of Cappa on the Clare side, would need artillery support. A five-acre site near Tarbert in Kerry was chosen for the new Coast Defence Artillery installation to be named Fort Shannon. It was to be armed with a battery of 6” guns, a machine gun platoon and a searchlight detachment. Commandant Mick Sugrue came from Fort Carlisle (now Fort David) to assume command and oversee the construction. Gunners were dispatched from Kildare Barracks and the Cork Harbour Forts. Land was bought and leased. Communication by day and night across the estuary was assured by the building of Look Out Posts (LOPs), and augmenting these with wireless and telephone. Thus, Loop Head, Kilcraudaun Head and the Examination Service on the north shore were linked with Doon Head, Scattery Island and Fort Shannon. Close liaison was maintained with the Harbour Master at Limerick, who held a naval rank of Lieutenant Commander. He was responsible for movement of all shipping in and out of the estuary. Fort Shannon was not a fort in the strict military sense, but a pair of coastal defence guns positioned at Ardmore Point, overlooking the Shannon estuary, a short distance down river from Tarbert. The site is roughly oval in plan, set on a broad ledge high above the estuary, with the largely undefined boundaries swinging along the southern inland boundary. The terrain rises sharply from the water to an approximately level position – although it could easily be scaled in an assault – and rises slightly again a little further inland; with a farm-style gateway on both the east and west sides.
Original map of Fort Shannon. (Courtesy of Military Archives)
The site for the fort was, however, carefully chosen. Ardmore Point projects into the estuary and faces downstream to cover a point where the width of the navigable channel is limited between Scattery Island on the north bank and Carrig Island on the opposite side. Consequently, an enemy vessel seeking to pass between the islands is forced to present its bow, or front, directly to the fort so that it can engage only its forward armament in an attack. Today Fort Shannon is very overgrown with trees and shrubs. Nevertheless, it is possible to identify the main military elements. The two-gun emplacements can be seen overlooking the estuary: one near the east side of the oval, the other in a more central position. West of these is a pair of searchlight enclosures near the river edge, with the Power House and Communications Building on the higher level behind, while three machine gun pillboxes can be seen stretching along the curved southern boundary. The Power House and Communications Centre is a single story domestic looking stone built building with a galvanised steel hipped roof and four large rectangular windows facing the estuary. The doorway to the interior is on the landward side.
Gun Emplacements
The two-gun emplacements in the centre of the site are the most obvious features of the fort. Each consists of a gun chamber, behind which an underground passageway provides a link to the magazine. The gun emplacements in both cases were built with mass concrete sides and roof, inside which the gun chamber was open to the estuary, except for a low parapet behind which the gun was positioned. Overhead a heavy metal beam remains built into the underside of the roof, which allowed the gun to be manoeuvred into position on its mounting that still remains. There are two stores at the rear of the gun chamber with the entrance to the magazine access passage between. The dogleg route of the access passage leads to the magazine. This was also provided with an external concrete stair leading to ground level near, the doorway to the magazine chamber. The inclusion of the dogleg was presumably to minimise the force of a blast from an artillery or air strike, on either the gun chamber or the magazine. Both magazines were of mass concrete construction and were completely underground. They were given no windows, but each had small roof apertures to provide some degree of ventilation. During the construction period it seems as if the top soil of the site was stripped away and once the concrete structures were completed the soil was returned to partially cover the sides and roofs of the emplacement and magazine for camouflage purposes.
A 6-inch Mk VII coastal defence gun, similar to those that existed in Fort Shannon, being test fired in Grey Point Fort Museum, Helen’s Bay, County Down in 2014.
A restored Ordnance QF (Quick Firing) 4.7-inch coastal defence gun. These guns were used on Bere island and Fort Dunree. This gun is on display in Fort Mitchell Museum, Spike Island.
The Guns
Both guns were 6” Breach Loading (BL), Mk VII, coastal defence
guns, manufactured by Vickers between 1902 and 1903. Although the manufacture
of these guns’ dates from the early twentieth century, they were the standard
British coastal defence weapon of the period and remained so for the duration
of the war. Initially each of the Shannon guns was supplied with 120 rounds and
it took a ten-man crew to load, operate and fire each gun with a capacity of
eight rounds per minute. Today the Shannon Fort guns are no longer present, but
seem to have been transferred to Fort Dunree Museum in Co. Donegal where they
have been partially restored and are on display.
Searchlights
The two anti-aircraft searchlights were housed in a pair of flat
roofed concrete structure, each with a wide aperture that allowed the searchlight
to be directed across and down the estuary. The positioning of the lights would have
provided sufficient scope to illuminate any would-be attacker attempting to
sail up the estuary, under the cover of darkness. Today the concrete structure,
the rusted metal drum of the lamp, and the parts of the concrete housing is all
that survives.
Pillboxes
The three flat roofed mass concrete pillboxes placed on the raised ground around the landward perimeter overlook the site. Each of the boxes is set into the ground with a square plan a small entrance doorway and narrow vertical slot on each of the four faces. The purpose of the pillboxes was presumably to provide machine gun cover against a direct assault from either the river or the landward side. In the case of an attack, the defence capabilities of Fort Shannon would have been restricted, not least by the limited stock of ammunition held. Furthermore, the rate of fire of the two guns would have been slow and the concrete structures would not have been sufficient to withstand a concentrated bombardment.
A view from one of the pillboxes. Across the Shannon Estuary you can see Money point Power Station Co, Clare.
Called into action
Throughout the Emergency years the gunners and engineers of Fort Shannon guarded their posts. The only shots fired were during practise. Its personnel were called out on one occasion however. According to an article on Coastal Defence Artillery in An Cosantóir, November 1973, by Commandant J. E. Dawson and Lieutenant C. Lawler, the men of Fort Shannon went to the rescue of the Merchant Vessel E.D.J. after it went aground near Cappa during a gale. Thankfully no lives were lost.
The fort closes
The fort experienced only a limited lifespan. It was abandoned at the end of the Emergency in 1946, when Commandant Mick Sugrue evacuated the fort on 31 May, 1946. Only a small skeleton crew remained behind for a short period after. Today the fort lies abandoned and derelict. Whatever wooden support buildings that originally existed have now disappeared. Fortunately, a restored example of the Fort Shannon gun-types can be seen in Fort Mitchell (Fort Westmorland) Museum on Spike Island, while in Grey Point Fort Museum in Co. Down, a pair of similar guns is maintained in working order, one of which was successfully test fired as recently as 2014. Nevertheless, Fort Shannon remains an important feature of Irish military history and today the dilapidated and neglected state of the site reflects poorly on the authorities responsible for its upkeep. This is particularly so, when contrasted with other similar fortifications around the Irish coastline, such as the museums at Fort Dundee, Fort Mitchell and Gray Point Fort, where restored and heavy and light weaponry are clearly and attractively presented to visitors.
Today the remains of Fort Shannon still stands sentinel over the Shannon estuary.
Commandant Quinlan alongside a Thompson Ford Armoured Car at Jadotville. (image courtesy of An Cosantóir – the Defence Forces magazine)
The United Nations Operation in the Congo
(Opération des Nations Unies au Congo, or ONUC), was established in July 1960.
Ireland was one of the first countries to contribute peacekeepers to the
mission. In June 1961, the Irish Defence Forces’ 35th Infantry Battalion
deployed to the Congo.
The Situation in Congo Deteriorates
By early August 1961, with a functioning government and parliament established, it was time to end Katanga’s secession from the Congo. Operation Rumpunch was designed to take into custody and repatriate European Gendarmerie officers and mercenaries. It began with a raid on Gendarmerie headquarters in Élisabethville by Irish troops and simultaneous raids and arrests by other United Nations (UN) forces. At this time there was 400 foreign mercenaries and advisers still in Katanga, mostly in the south of the country, protecting the Union Minière du Haut Katanga (mining union of Katanga) operations.
On the morning of 28 August, UN forces began
apprehending European officers in Élisabethville and in the North Katangan
centres. At the same time the UN also occupied the premises of the post office and
radio and set a guard, comprising of Irish troops, around Katanga’s Minister of
the Interior, Godefroid Munongo Mwenda’s villa. UN representatives, including
Dr. Conor Cruise O’Brien, Ireland’s special representative to Dag Hammarskjöld,
Secretary General of the UN, met the Katangan government and received the answer
that President Moïse Tshombe was willing to give full co-operation, to dismiss
all the foreign officers. Tshombe then broadcasted a statement, free from complaint
or hostility, in which he said that he bowed to the UN decision and that ‘all foreign
officers were dismissed from service and must leave Katanga’.
By 8 September, 273 foreign mercenaries had
been repatriated, while another 65 were waiting to go. However, another 104
were unaccounted for. With their replacement in the Gendarmerie by African
officers a revolt by the Gendarmerie against the Tshombe regime was quite possible.
An African mutiny would possibly take an anti-European turn and UN troops were
requested to protect white populations in the Katanga mining belt. There were 32,000
Europeans in Katanga. Few of them owned land, or their own businesses’ and most
worked for one of the great companies of the Union Minière or for economically subsidiary
enterprises like the Simba Brewery.
Meanwhile, the Katangan Government began a
propaganda campaign against the UN. Katanga Radio accused UN troops of rape and
pillage in Élisabethville, while the Union Minière announced publicly that it was
ready to repatriate European women and children if that became necessary ‘as a result
of the activities of the UN’. President Tshombe announced a UN plot to arrest him,
disarm the Gendarmerie and send in the Congolese army. Demonstrations against the
UN began with troops being stoned, mainly by youths organised by the Gendarmerie.
A Company Deploys
Members of A Company. By the time A Company was cut off there were 157 personnel in the camp, including two Scandinavian pilots and an interpreter. (Image courtesy of Declan Power)
It was into this flashpoint that, on 11 September, the 155 strong A Company, 35th Battalion, arrived into the sprawling mining town of Jadotville. This number also included two Thompson Ford Mark VI armoured cars under the command of Lieutenant Kevin Knightly. The Irish were replacing a 300-strong Swedish force who had been openly informed by the European population that they were not wanted. The Swedish commander sensing his isolation and precarious position withdrew on ½ September. As the Swedes had ostensibly withdrew without orders ONUC needed to save face and a new force had to be assembled to protect the white population in the town from an allegedly growing threat from the local populace. The only unit available was A Company.
Initially, A Company were well received, but the situation changed when the Gendarmerie staged a mock attack and advance up to the Irish lines before being recalled. A Company commanding officer, Commandant Patrick Quinlan, ordered his men to hastily dig five-foot deep trenches around their encampment on the outskirts of the town. Soon A Company found itself surrounded by hundreds of Katangese, their Belgian advisers and a contingent of French mercenaries who drove around the camp in jeeps pointing their mounted machine guns at them.
Commandant Pat Quinlan ID Card. (Image courtesy of Military Archives)
Jadotville veteran Pat Dunleavey (Then a
Private), from Mullingar, said: ‘We were billeted in disused galvanised houses
and tents around an abandoned disused garage with pumps and a forecourt.
Commandant Quinlan visited Jadotville to meet the mayor and quickly saw the hostility
towards the UN. On return he called his platoon officers together and briefed
them on the situation. He patrolled the area and ordered us to dig trenches in
strategic areas. The ground here was as hard as concrete. Commandant Quinlan
was called in again to Jadotville and threatened that if we did not move out
and back to Élisabethville hostilities would erupt. He called a conference that
night and told the men of the company’s situation’.
More trenches were dug 20-30 yards apart. The
two armoured cars were placed in an enfilade position from where they could cut
off infiltrating enemy attacks and provide full support to the criss-cross of
trenches. Radio communications were established and ammunition and water supplies
checked. The troops then settled down to await the first attacks, which were
not long in coming. These were small probing actions and then to the surprise
of everyone the Gendarmerie commanders called a cease-fire and offered to allow
a message to be sent through the lines to Battalion HQ and explain the
company’s situation.
Captain Liam Donnelly, accompanied by an NCO
and a driver drove back through enemy lines to Élisabethville only to be left waiting
five hours while the battalion staff entertained Conor Cruise O’Brien, head of
the UN mission in Katanga. Neither the staff officers, nor O’Brien, appeared to
understand the seriousness of the situation. Captain Donnelly returned to
Jadotville to find the situation grimmer than ever.
The First Attack
The first serious attack took place on Sunday morning while most of the company were attending Mass. Gendarmeries in jeeps and on foot swarmed into the Irish positions. Corporal John Monahan, from Athlone, was returning from the wash house and spotted them. He jumped behind a Vickers machine gun and opened fire on the enemy, taking them completely by surprise. The Katangese had been led to believe that the Irish would be a pushover. The heavy machine guns of the armoured cars opened-up and the Katangese retreated in confusion.
From a safe distance the Katangese kept up a
continuous hail of rifle and mortar fire on the Irish position, keeping the
defenders pinned down and making movement during daylight hours practically impossible.
While the enemy mortar crews were very professional, being mainly Belgian and
French ex-soldiers, they caused few casualties as the Irish trenches were built
up rather than down. The looseness of the Congo soil made it impossible to dig down,
instead the loose soil was thrown up and packed high all around the trench to give
protection from shrapnel.
Not all the locals were against the Irish. An
Irishman working with Union Minière estimated that there were between four and
five thousand troops around the Irish unit, although Irish evaluations put them
at 2,000. A Belgian woman also helped the besieged troops. Pat Dunleavey
witnessed the devastating effect of the Irish firepower: ‘Paddy McManus, from Athlone,
was in a trench facing a road about three-quarters of a mile long, a straight
road heading in towards Jadotville, when all of a sudden a Belgian officer
crossed the road about two hundred yards away, got down on his hunkers and beckoned
his troops to come across. As the troops came across McManus engaged with his
machine gun on the first two and then about six or seven immediately ran across
the road straight into the line of fire and were killed. They were left
sprawling all over the road’.
Another veteran, Noel Stanley (then a Private),
from Clara, Co. Offaly, broke up several Katangese attacks with his Bren gun: ‘I
used up about 100 mags’ (thirty rounds in each) and wore out a few spare
barrels’. Stanley had served a previous tour in the Congo with the 32nd Infantry
Battalion. ‘When the fighting started, we never left the trenches. The only
time I left them was when we moved in from the outer trenches into the houses.
Father Fagan gave us general absolution while we were in the trenches. I
thought he was a very brave man’.
Siege
For the next five days and nights Katangese attacks made life difficult for the beleaguered defenders. On 15 September alone, at least ten separate attacks, up to sixty strong, were beaten off. Occasionally during lulls in the fighting, the defenders could see bodies being dragged away by the Katangese. Exploding mortar shells from the Irish 60mm mortars destroyed a nearby garage and damaged some surrounding buildings, causing a ferocious blaze, which lit up the night sky. Irish mortar fire also hit an enemy assembly area and an ammunition dump, which sent shells whizzing in all directions to the accompaniment of hearty cheers from the defenders. The dump, which contained most of the shells for a French-made 75mm gun, blazed furiously all night long and into the next day. The 75mm could have knocked out the armoured cars and devastated the Irish positions. In its haste to deploy, A Company had left its 81mm mortars and extra rations behind. ‘Sergeant Tom Kelly was in charge of the mortars,’ Noel Stanley recalled. ‘We only had 60mm mortars. Tommy Kelly could drop a mortar round on a plate a mile away, he was that good’.
In one attack the Katangese took a house about
150 yards from Company HQ from where they completely pinned down troops manning
the forward trenches. It was essential that this enemy position was
neutralised. Under covering fire an anti-tank section commanded by Corporal John
Monahan raced into open ground to engage the enemy position with a 84mmm recoilless
rifle. The house was completely destroyed and several Katangese killed. When
the Katangese took another nearby house Private John Mannion, from Mohill, Co.
Leitrim, crept down to it under cover of darkness and lobbed in a hand grenade,
driving the Katangese out. Commandant Quinlan was in constant contact with the
mayor of Jadotville, named Amisi, who threatened the Irish with a mob of
locals. ‘They will eat you up,’ he threatened over the phone. ‘You can send them
out,’ Commandant Quinlan retorted in his best Kerry accent. ‘We would probably give
them indigestion.’ Commandant Quinlan regularly went out among his troops to
make sure their defences were solid enough. ‘He was tough, but good,’ Noel
Stanley recalled, ‘And that’s what we needed out there’.
The company radio sets were virtually useless
as most of them failed to operate accurately at such long range, but Commandant
Quinlan managed to contact HQ in Élisabethville and stated that unless reinforcements
arrived soon, the defenders were in grave danger of being wiped out. He was
told that a relief force was on its way. This news greatly encouraged the men
and raised their flagging morale.
The Irish were not the only ones listening to
the radios. The mercenaries were able to intercept the messages on their more powerful
radios. There was only one point where a crossing was possible and this was at
Lufira Bridge. When the Irish reinforcements, codenamed Force Kane, arrived at
Lufira Bridge, on 13 September, they were met by a strong enemy force. A
decision was taken to abandon the attempt to cross the bridge until the next
day and Force Kane retired to bed down for the night and prepare for a dawn
attack the next day. The attack did not kick off until 08.30, which lost them
the element of surprise. During the night the Katangese had been busy and had moved
up more troops which ensured that any attempt to force a crossing would result in
heavy casualties. The rescue attempt was abandoned and Force Kane returned to Élisabethville.
Two days later another attempt was made by
the same Irish company, reinforced by a company of Gurkhas. The column arrived
late due to transport problems and strafing by a Belgian piloted Fouga jet from
Kolwezi, which killed three Gurkhas and wounded five. Attempts to approach the bridge
were met by withering enemy fire from the reinforced Katangese, who had been informed
of the UN advance by a BBC World Service report. It became apparent that a
daylight attack without air support was impossible without heavy losses.
Again, the decision was taken to abandon the
rescue attempt and they reluctantly returned to Élisabethville. The Fouga jet bombed
and strafed the retreating UN force, killing two and injuring ten Gurkhas. Four
Irish soldiers were also wounded. With the failure of the second rescue attempt
the Katangese moved up more reinforcements to Jadotville, where the situation was
now becoming desperate. Water was running out and the defenders sent urgent
radio messages to HQ requesting that supplies be air-dropped in.
Around the same time a helicopter piloted by
Bjørn Hovden, a Norwegian, crash-landed in the Irish position with a limited
supply of food and water. It suffered severe damage and was unable to take off.
The water on board was in jerry cans that had previously carried oil and was of
little use to the defenders. The Fouga jet now began bombing and strafing the
Irish position and urgent requests to Britain to allow UN planes to use Manono airport
to relieve the beleaguered garrison were refused.
As the fifth day of the siege dawned the situation was evidently desperate. The men had no proper sleep for five days and nights. Food and water were very scarce and the tropical heat was also taking its toll. The radio sets were beginning to fail, with only an occasional garbled message getting through. The enemy was growing extremely confident, despite suffering heavy casualties. Further low-flying attacks by the Fouga were thwarted when it was damaged by concentrated and accurate ground fire, ensuring that its bombing attacks from then on were carried out at a greater height. Pat Dunleavy recollected: ‘This jet used to come from Kolwezi airport and fly over first of all and then fly up into the sun and do a turn and start firing as it came down. He would start firing his cannons at us and he would let off two bombs every time. His whole object was to hit the filling station. Fortunately, he didn’t succeed. He would do four or five raids a day on this caper’.
From a safe distance the Katangese kept up a continuous hail of rifle and mortar fire on the Irish position, keeping the defenders pinned down and making movement during daylight hours practically impossible
As the Irishmen prepared for what everyone
thought would be the final battle the mercenary leaders appealed to them to surrender.
This offer was immediately rejected and another offer was then put forward. He stated
that, ‘if the Irish would agree to a ceasefire, the Katangese would withdraw
from around their positions, water supplies would be reconnected, and joint patrols
from both sides would operate to maintain order in the town. If this offer was
refused the Irish could expect to be overwhelmed and their safety would not be
guaranteed’. Commandant Quinlan consulted with his senior commanders the
options available. They now had no further communication with the outside world,
and had little hope of escape or rescue; ammunition supplies were low; supplies
of food and water were practically gone and the men were exhausted.
Ceasefire and Surrender
On 16 September, Commandant Quinlan reluctantly agreed to the Katangese cease-fire terms. After destroying all documentation and rendering their heavy weapons unserviceable A Company moved to a hotel in Jadotville, housing their weapons elsewhere. The attitude of the Belgian paratroopers and French mercenaries was surprisingly friendly. Many of them complimented the Irish on their bravery and the tenacity of their defence. However, the native Katangese, who had suffered heavy casualties, were far more hostile. The arrival of Minister Munongo and more Katangese troops from Élisabethville changed the situation. Only small quantities of food and water were delivered to the Irish and it came as no surprise when several days later the Katangese broke their agreement.
A large force of Katangese, who confiscated all
of A Company’s arms, surrounded the compound. Effectively the Irish were now prisoners
of war. The mercenaries firmly believed that the Irish had suffered heavy
casualties and they asked Quinlan how they had disposed of the bodies. They
flatly refused to believe that no Irish soldiers had been killed and only four had
been wounded. Enemy casualties had been heavy. One estimate revealed that 30
European mercenaries had died as that number of coffins had been buried and only
whites justified coffins, and that 150- 300 Katangese had been killed and several
hundred more injured. Pat Dunleavy said: ‘We were taken into the town of
Élisabethville under guard and compounded in a hotel there. We were very well
treated in the hotel regards food and accommodation, but we were subjected to a
lot of searches and if any parts of ammunition or weaponry, was found on us we
were harshly dealt with. I remember three or four of our people who had still ammunition
on them were severely beaten. Arrangements were made for a swap of prisoners. We
were brought to a camp between Élisabethville and Jadotville, on a lake, in
buses with a heavy escort. When we arrived in this camp it was deplorable. The hostility
that we received from the soldiers’ wives was very, very frightening. They threatened
us with signs of cutting our heads off, cutting parts of our bodies off,
stuffing them in our mouths, etc… Needless, to say this surrender did not take
place and we were brought back to the hotel again. This went on three times in
succession. We agreed a plan that on the third and final attempt ― if it failed
― we were to disarm the troops in the bus, shoot the troops in the bus in front
of us and make a breakthrough back to Élisabethville. Fortunately, this did not
have to happen as we were brought to a disused airport on the outskirts of
Élisabethville where the official hand-over took place’.
As negotiated the radio station and the Post
Office seized by the UN would be handed back in exchange for 185 prisoners held
by the Katangese. A Company returned to Ireland on 22 December, and received a
huge and enthusiastic reception in Athlone. Commandant Quinlan’s men have the highest
regard for him and his reputation. According to Pat Dunleavey, ‘Pat was really
great and we owe a lot of gratitude to him. Unfortunately, he was not given the
recognition for what he did in overwhelming odds. We put up such a fight’.
Forty-four years after the event the veterans of Jadotville were honoured at a ceremony at Custume Barracks in Athlone.
James Durney is Co. Kildare Historian in Residence and author of many books including the bestselling The 100 Kilo Case. The true story of an Irish ex-NYPD detective protected by the Mafia, and one of the most infamous drug busts in New York City.
Read more on James Durney at: www.jamesdurney.com
Letter to the Editor Spring 2017
Dear Sir I want to bring to your attention an error in the caption on page 14, article: In Defence Of Peace, Winter 2016. The caption states that the photo was taken at Jadotville. I think this photograph was not taken in Jadotville for the following reasons:
The building in the background was Headquarters for the 35th Infantry Battalion, and later the 36th Infantry Battalion, at Leopold Farm, Élisabethville.
In this photograph, the armoured cars are painted green. This did not happen until after the ceasefire in September 1961, to make them less conspicuous, which was when the Jadotville action took place. When the cars arrived in the Congo with the 34th Infantry Battalion, they were painted white. I was on a detachment that travelled by air from Élisabethville to Kamina, to bring a couple of cars just arrived in the Congo, to Élisabethville by train. They were painted. This journey of 500 miles took 3 days and nights through mostly jungle. Therefore, the two cars at Jadotville were still white at the time of the engagement.
The officer in the photograph may or may not be Quinlan, it is very hard to tell.
The helmet the gunner in the armoured car is wearing was worn by the 36th Infantry Battalion members and was not available to members of the 35th.
Yours sincerely John O’Mahony, Former Trooper, Armoured Car Group, 35th Infantry Battalion
By Michael J. Whelan – Curator: Irish
Air Corps Museum (Images courtesy of Irish Air Corps Photographic Section)
Published Winter 2015
It is impossible to
invest in an article of this size the magnitude of the career James Fitzmaurice
who, during an adventurous lifetime; had survived the trenches of the Great
War, was one of Ireland’s first military flying officers and had become a world
famous aviator and an early pioneer of aviation’s potential in Ireland and
abroad. But his eventful and courageous life during the dawning of the aviation
story in the first half of the 20th Century has all but been neglected.
James M.C. Fitzmaurice D.F.C.
Early Life
James was born on 6 January
1898, when the family – Michael Fitzmaurice and Mary Agnes O’Riordan – were
living on the North Circular in Dublin City. When he was aged four, in 1902,
the family moved to a house on the Dublin Road in Portlaoise, Co. Laois, where
James attended St. Mary’s Christian Brothers School until shortly before his
sixteenth birthday. But James had a hankering for adventure and the life of a
soldier was a good place to find it.
Ireland at this time
was still part of the British Empire and much of the politics of the day
centred around the possibilities or otherwise of Irish autonomy. James seems to
have paid particular attention to the political scene and the seismic events
happening around the world and their impact at home. By 1913 Irish society was
fracturing over the divisive issue of Home Rule with the Ulster Volunteer Force
being formed to oppose its introduction and the Irish Volunteers to defend
it. Both movements had started in earnest
to covertly procure weapons and train thousands of volunteers for the
possibility of civil war.
The Great War
In early 1914, James
was said to have joined the Irish Volunteers and may have taken part in the
landing of weapons at Howth Harbour. In August of that same year the Great War
broke out and he immediately enlisted in a cadet company of the 7th Battalion Leinster
Fusiliers, he was sixteen years of age. His father, discovering this, managed
to pull him out. The required age for enlistment in the army was a minimum of
nineteen years but many boys had lied about their age in the rush to take part
in the war. James, however, was adamant and by 1915 he had re-enlisted in the
17th Lancers – the Death or Glory Boys – famed for their part in the actions at
Balaclava during the Crimean War. He was still very much underage when he
reported to the Curragh Camp in Co. Kildare for training, where he would learn
the skills of the mounted soldier. James must have made an impression as he was
soon promoted to Lance Corporal. But he soon discovered that the skills of a well-trained
mounted trooper would not lend themselves to the warfare being conducted in the
trenches of the Western Front.
News of the ever-worsening
conditions at the Front must have been received with anxious trepidations when
James arrived at the vast infantry training camp at Etampes in France in May
1916. James, now seventeen years old, was given the news that they would be
going into the trenches as ordinary infantry soldier. The opposing front lines
of the two warring armies were separated in many cases only by mere yards of
No-Man’s Land. The arriving drafts of Lancers were split up and sent to various
infantry units. The urgent need for replacements in formations due to the
attrition of the fighting meant that Irishmen didn’t always end up in Irish
Regiments and after handing in his Lance, sword and kit he was posted to the
7th Battalion the Queen’s Royal (West Surrey) Regiment, the Second Regiment of
Foot, which at the time formed part of the 55th Brigade of the British 18th
Division who had been in almost continuous action since arriving in theatre ten
months earlier. The regiment’s survivors were by now very seasoned soldiers and
after a crash course on how to be an infantryman James felt he would benefit
from their experiences.
By this time plans were well advanced for the greatest assault of the war, which would turn out to be one of the bloodiest battles in the history of warfare. James’ first exposure to actual warfare involved transporting food, equipment and other essentials up to the front lines over the broken ground of earlier battles, the detritus marking the routes with dead bodies, his first experience of seeing death. But he would go on to fight in many actions including the long Battle of the Somme, the first day of which saw over 60,000 casualties alone and in September his battalion took part in the successful but costly assault on the infamous and well defended German enclave known as the Schwaben Redoubt. In this and later actions James was noted for his daring and courage, often volunteering for night patrols and trench raids but he himself put these down to: ‘only going on those nerve-wracking expeditions because I dreaded staying in the trenches’.
Royal Flying Corps
and Royal Air Force
He was injured twice
during his active service on the Western Front. By the last months of the war
James had received a commission and was successful in applying for pilot
training with the Royal Flying Corps. By November 1918, he was eager to return
to the Front but when his orders for sailing came through on the 11th, it was
too late. Armistice meant James’ war was over but he did however serve in the
Army of Occupation in 1919 with the Army Air Corps and it was during this
period that he was selected to undertake the First Night Mail Flight (Folkstone
to Bologne) and later for the Cape to Cairo Flight, the latter never getting
off the ground. The experimental Air Mail Service ended soon after and between
September and November 1919 James commanded the 6th Wing Working Party of the
Royal Air Force assigned to the selling off of surplus useful materials and
paying and demobilising of staff at six de-activated aerodromes in England. In
December his orders came through and James was a civilian once more, spending
the best part of the next two years selling insurance for North British and
Mercantile Insurance Company. He was recalled to the newly formed Royal Air
Force on a short-term commission of four to six years in May of 1921 with No. 5
Fighter Squadron but resigned again in August of that year.
The Fledgling Irish
Air Corps and the Crossing of the Atlantic
The all metal Junkers W.33 aircraft ‘Bremen’ prior to take off in Baldonnel Aerodrome. (Image courtesy of Irish Air Corps Photographic Section)
In 1922 James joined
the fledgling Irish Army Air Service in Dublin following the end of the War of
Independence and the formation of the Irish Free State. The first dozen pilots
were all Great War veterans. He served for the duration of the Irish Civil War
and by October 1925 he was second in command in of the now named Irish Air
Corps based at Baldonnel Aerodrome. On 16 September 1927, his first physical
attempt at crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by air with Captain R.H. MacIntosh
‘All Weather Mac’ in their single engine Fokker F.VII called, Princess Xenia,
G-EBTS aircraft was beaten back by weather after 500 miles. However on 12 April
1928, he once again took off from Baldonnel as co-pilot on the first successful
East-West non-stop transatlantic flight with Herman Koehl, a German Great War
veteran, and Baron Gunther Von Hunefeld as navigator in an all metal Junkers
W.33 aircraft registered D-1167 named the Bremen. On route to New York and
roughly half way across the Atlantic, the Bremen encountered severe weather
conditions and mechanical problems and as a result the crew found themselves somewhat
off course and worried about the success of their mission. Changing course the
crew landed on a frozen reservoir on Greenly Island in Newfoundland 39 and a
1/2 hours after departing Baldonnel placing themselves and Ireland on the
romantic mantle of world aviation history. They would be given many accolades
beginning with United States President, Calvin Coolidge, presenting the crew
with the Distinguished Flying Cross, the first to be awarded to non-American
Citizens. On returning to Dublin they were given the Freedom of the City before
briefly meeting the abdicated Kaiser in Holland.
Captain James Fitzmaurice with Herman Koehl and Baron Gunther Von Hunefeld after their successful Trans-Atlantic Flight. (Image courtesy of Irish Air Corp Photographic Section)
Later Years
Captain Fitzmaurice
was promoted to Major and in August to Colonel, his new rank backdated one year
with pay. In February, the following year he resigned from the Irish Air Corps
and spent some years in the United States and Europe, while involved in trying
unsuccessfully to get a number of aviation related ventures off the ground.
During the Second World War he operated a club for servicemen in London and in
the late 1940s returned to Ireland in pursuit of work. Although celebrated in
Europe at various times for his courageous feat over the Atlantic in 1928,
James felt that he was forgotten at home in Ireland. He had always felt that
the Irish authorities neglected his achievements and pursuits. Fitzmaurice,
possibly because of post-independence Irish nationalistic conditioning towards
anything English, was to a certain extent the victim of his own successes and
what was said to be his invented English accent and persona.
Remarking on his
earlier application to the Irish authorities to back an all Irish transatlantic
bid using the Martinsyde type A, MkII aircraft – the ‘Big Fella’ (famed for
being purchased and kept on standby to retrieve Michael Collins from London
during the possible failure of the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations in 1921 and
being the first airframe owned by the Provisional Irish People and subsequently
the Irish Air Service in 1922), he was quoted:
On Sunday, 27 September 2015, Brigadier General Paul Fry – General Officer Commanding the Irish Air Corps, during a ceremony in Portlaoise town, laid a wreath on behalf of the Air Corps at the Fitzmaurice Memorial to remember the life and career of Colonel James Fitzmaurice on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of his death. (Photo by Airwoman Laura McHale, Irish Air Corps Photographic Section)
‘If you have the
misfortune to do anything useful for Ireland, they (the Irish) do everything
possible to destroy you. Then when you are dead, they dig you up and laud your
praises as a bolster to their own mediocrity’.
By the early 1960’s
James had become frail and was living in Dublin at lodgings of various
standards. The Irish Air Corps Museum collection holds a handwritten letter
from James dated 1962, in which he thanks the officers for not forgetting him
in his infirmities and for sending a £10 Hamper sent to tide him over the
Christmas after they had discovered his rough circumstances. Soon afterwards he
visited his old command at Baldonnel (by this time renamed Casement Aerodrome)
and met some old comrades from the Bremen days. James died in Baggot St.
Hospital on Sunday 26 September 1965, age 67. He was given a State Funeral, his
coffin covered by the Irish Tricolour, and buried in Glasnevin Cemetery in
Dublin.
The Irish Air Corps
are home to several artefacts and paraphernalia related to Fitzmaurice’s
military career as well as the marked site of the Bremen departure in 1928.
South Dublin County Council has also marked a number of sites using Fitzmaurice
as a place-name in the county. In 1998 Portlaoise County Council erected a
monument in the shape of the Bremen wing to their adopted aviator. The memorial
has been recently refurbished and is cared for at Fitzmaurice Place by members
of the Irish United Nations Veterans Association.
Interview with Congo Veteran CQMS Jimmy Clarke (Retd)
First published in Spring issue 2015.
(Archive images and photos courtesy of Irish Defence Forces Military Archives and A Company Association.)
Anyone familiar with the Irish Defence Forces United Nations (UN) service in the Congo during the 1960’s will be familiar with A Company, 36th Infantry Battalion and the Battle of the Tunnel. For ten days in December 1961, the 166 soldiers of A Company were thrown into a war none of them would ever forget. The battle would cost the unit 4 killed and 15 wounded. For their actions that day 14 Distinguished Service Medals (DSM) would be awarded, making A Company the highest decorated company in the Irish Defence Forces. A veteran of the battle, Company Sergeant Quartermaster Jimmy Clarke (CQMS) gives us this eyewitness account.
After nearly 100 years under Belgian rule the Republic of Congo gained its independence on 30 June 1960. Almost immediately the country fell into chaos. With Belgian support, two states, the mineral rich Katanga and South Kasai, seceded. Moïse Tshombé was declared prime minister of Katanga. The UN established Opération des Nations unies au Congo (ONUC) under UN Security Council Resolution 143 on 14 July, and soon after a peacekeeping force was deployed. One of the countries to volunteer peacekeepers was Ireland. Irish Defence Forces’ Lieutenant General Seán MacEoin DSM, was appointed Force Commander of ONUC on 1 January 1961, serving in that appointment until 29 March 1962.
CQMS Jimmy Clarke proudly wearing his medals. Jimmy is a member of the Sergeant Paddy Mulcahy, DSM, Branch Organisation of National Ex-Servicemen and Women. (Photo by Billy Galligan)
Jimmy joined the Irish Defence Forces in 1959. After initial training with the 7th Infantry Battalion in Collins Barracks, Dublin, he went on to serve with 2nd Garrison Supply and Transport Company in Mckee Barracks. ‘When I volunteered for UN service in 1961 Ireland had already deployed four infantry battalions to the Congo; starting with the 32nd Infantry Battalion. The newspapers were full of stories about the Irish peacekeepers. Soldiers coming home filled the barracks with tales of Africa and what it was like out there. The Niemba Ambush, which cost the lives of nine Irish soldiers, and the Siege of Jadotville, where a whole company had held out for a week before surrendering, was in all our minds. I volunteered’.
A map showing the Congo in the heart of Africa.
“It was pitch black and pouring rain. You didn’t know where you where. The rains had filled the trenches with mud and water. It wasn’t long before we heard the ping of small arms over our heads.”
In November 1961 the 36th Infantry Battalion formed up for deployment to the Congo. After tactical training in the Glen of Imaal the battalion was reviewed by the then Taoiseach, Seán Lemass, TD, in McKee Barracks on 4 December. Transported by United States Air Force Globemasters, the Irish found themselves in the heart of Africa two days later. Little did they know what lay ahead.
‘Most of us had never been outside of Dublin, let alone on a plane. No in-flight movies back then. The Globemaster was a big plane. Two tiers of soldiers with cargo in the middle. For the flight we were given a carton of milk, a sandwich, an apple and an orange’
The first stop for the peacekeepers came after being ten hours airborne. Landing at Wheelus Air Force Base in Tripoli, Libya where they were provided with a welcome meal and a stretch. Then back in the air, flying across the Sahara Desert to Kano, Nigeria and then onto the Congolese capital Léopoldville (today known as Kinshasa). After being transported to the infamous Martini Transit Camp the peacekeepers were introduced to the common enemy – the dreaded mosquitoes. ‘We were eaten alive’. The 36th Infantry Battalion was originally meant to be deployed to area of Albertville and Nyunzu in the North East.
‘We were not long after arriving in the transit camp when a full muster parade was called. No exceptions. We were informed our destination had been changed to Élisabethville. The situation there had dramatically changed. We were told to expect warlike conditions. Still taking this in, our Chaplains came out on parade. Reverend Fathers Cyril Crean, (Head Chaplin to the Forces), and Colm Matthews. They imparted Absolution on the entire battalion. You can only imagine what most of us thought to ourselves’.
In an instant their mission had changed from peacekeeping to peace-enforcement.
Élisabethville was another long flight. Some 1,200 miles away. Waiting in the city was the 35th Infantry Battalion whose tour of duty had run over and they were eager to return home. Approaching Élisabethville in darkness and torrential rain the planes came under fire. ‘The plane ahead of us had two engines knocked out and two fuel tanks punctured. By some miracle no one on that plane was injured. Thankfully my plane was not hit at all. When we landed the crowd crews were frantic. There was fuel everywhere from the punctured fuel tanks on the first plane. We were wearing hobnailed boots and there was a fear our boots would spark and ignite the fuel. Fearing an inferno we double quick timed out of there’.
There was no rest for the peacekeepers at the airfield. They were loaded onto trucks and transported to the 35th Infantry Battalion positions. ‘It was pitch black and pouring rain. You didn’t know where you where. The rains had filled the trenches with mud and water. It wasn’t long before we heard the ping of small arms over our heads’.
A view from the Tunnel.
Facing the UN force around Élisabethville were well equipped and trained mercenaries and Katanganese Gendarmes. Holding key strategic positions the Katanga forces gave the peacekeepers no rest and rained small arms and mortar fire on the UN positions around the clock. For the next ten days it never stopped.
‘I was part of the company Transport Section. Along with Dan McGivern and Pat ‘Chalkie’ White. We operated behind the front lines conveying food and supplies to the forward positions and casualties to the Medical Aid Centre at Leopold Farm. We carried out these duties under great danger. At times under heavy mortar and sniper fire’
The Irishmen were only in their positions two days when they lost their first comrade. 18 year old Corporal Mick Fallon was killed by a mortar on 8 December. Over the next few days the Irish pushed out their lines and consolidated their positions taking objectives such as Liege Crossroads. At Liege the Irish came under heavy fire for four days solid. ‘I can recall some close encounters during this prolonged bombardment. I was in my trench one night when I got a call from Company Sergeant Mick Harte to help the cooks deliver food. As I jumped out of the trench Captain Harry Agnew jumped in. A split second later a mortar landed. Captain Agnew was hit. He lost a finger’.
In the middle of the constant sniping and mortar fire the cooks kept the men fed. Every veteran of A Company remembers Sergeant Tom ’Nobby’ Clarke, and Privates Danny Bradley and Jim Murray, DSM. The menu consisted of powdered eggs, powdered milk, powdered potatoes, bullied beef, and dog biscuits. As Jimmy recalls, ‘You had two choices: take it or leave it’.
It was during one of these attacks that Sergeant Paddy Mulcahy, DSM, was wounded for the first time. On 14 December, he was hit again, this time badly. ‘Paddy was one of those casualties I brought back to the Medical Centre. The Company Sergeant there said “who have you got this time”. “It’s me again”, Paddy said before I could answer. He was still conscious even though his leg was ripped apart. He died of his wounds on the 16th’.
On 16 December, the UN around Élisabethville was given orders to push the Katanganese Gendarmes and mercenaries from the city. Known as Operation Sarsfield, the coming battle would be the first time an Irish Defence Forces peacekeeping unit would be ordered into offensive operations.
A Company machine gun post.
In a torrential downpour the battle began at 04:00. A Company’s task was to attack and hold the ‘Tunnel’. This was a strategic railway bridge over a major road into the city. The Katanganese were well positioned. They had fortified the railway carriages, erected concrete emplacements, and had well dug-in heavy machine guns and anti-tank positions. The Irish announced the battle by opening up with a mortar barrage. A Company moved forward with B Company in support. Other UN forces also took part in the operation, including the Ethiopians and Indians.
Coming under continuous heavy fire the UN were made fight for every inch of ground. Over a 12-hour period A Company advanced, took a position, consolidated, re-supplied and advanced again. During the final assault on the ‘Tunnel’, No. 1 Platoon’s Lieutenant Paddy Riordan and his radio operator Private Andy Wickham were killed. ‘Seeing his two comrades fall, Sergeant Jim Sexton immediately ran forward and took over the platoon. The attack did not falter’.
Both sides took casualties. The engagement broke the back of the Katanganese and they withdrew from the city. By the end of the month the UN forces had full control of the city and things began to return to normal for the local people.
The Christmas Menu for the Irish peacekeepers.
For their action that day, 14 members of A Company were awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, including Paddy Riordan. ‘Many of us believe there should have been two more, including Jim Sexton for taking over the attack and Andy Wickham for staying beside his platoon commander under fire’.
Irish Defence Forces personnel bring their fallen comrades home.
With some of their casualties being repatriated home due to their wounds, the remaining men of A Company, 36th Infantry Battalion settled down to routine peacekeeping for the next five months. ‘After those first ten days. Everything was quiet in comparison. There were a few more skirmishes but nothing as serious. We helped the locals as best we could. We learned languages such as French, Kongo, Swahili, and Tshiluba. Sadly, Corporal John Power died in March of natural causes. For £1 I bought myself a box camera and brought back some photographs for everyone at home to see’.
Jimmy Clarke retired from the Irish Defence Forces after 43 years service with the rank of Company Quartermaster Sergeant. After his tour of duty with 36th Infantry Battalion he served again with the UN in the ONUC Headquarters, Cyprus and Lebanon. Today Jimmy is one of the main organisers of the A Company Association. Every year on the closest Sunday to 16 December, veterans of A Company and their families hold a commemoration at the Irish Defence Forces plot at Glasnevin Cemetery, to honour their fallen comrades.
‘Some went out as boys and came back as men. Some went out as men and came back better men. Today more than half a century later, many are Grandfathers, some are even Great Grandfathers.’
Sadly CQMS Jimmy ‘Nobby’ Clarke passed away in November 2016.
Major General Vincent F. Savino (Retd) talks about his time along the Suez Canal as a UN Military Observer
Cover image: A view of Observation Post Red, April 22, 1973, located East Side of the Suez Canal in Israeli-occupied Sinai. The U.N. vehicle in the foreground was destroyed during the 1969 shelling. (UN Photo/Yutaka Nagata)
First published in Winter 2014 issue.
Following the Israeli victory in the Six-Day War in June 1967 – the entire Egyptian Sinai Peninsula up to the eastern bank of the Suez Canal was left in Israeli hands. Egypt was determined to regain its lost territory. Rebuilding its military Egyptian President, Gama Abdel Nasser, launched the War of Attrition along the Bar Lev Line (a chain of fortified Israeli positions on the Eastern bank of the Suez Canal) on 8 March 1970. Back in Ireland, then Captain Vincent Savino was stationed in Defence Forces Headquarters and dealing with the emerging Troubles in Northern Ireland.
President of IUNVA, Major General Vincent F. Savino (Retd) (Photo by Pat Nolan)
“1969 saw the Defence Forces mobilising due to the situation in the North. I was located in the Quartermaster General’s office and believe me when I tell you it was mayhem. In the middle of all this, officers were being sought for a one-year tour of duty with the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO). I’d been in the Middle East before while serving in Cyprus some years previously and it caught my attention. We had had people wounded in the region and people were reluctant to go. Along with two others I volunteered in December of that year”.
UNTSO is the UN’s oldest mission. It was founded on 29 May 1948, to monitor the ceasefire agreements following the Arab-Israeli War. Since then, UNTSO has expanded to supervise the General Armistice Agreements of 1949 and the observation of the ceasefire in the Suez Canal area and the Golan Heights following the Six-Day War of June 1967. To carry out its mission UNTSO deploys unarmed Military Observers. Following the Six-Day War, 90 such observers were deployed in the Suez Canal Sector.
Selling his car and packing up his wife and six children Captain Savino headed off to Israel.
“In those days there weren’t the allowances that there are now. Hence why I had to sell my car. We were given a $1½ extra a day. I settled my family just outside Jerusalem in the Jordanian administered sector.” In Jerusalem, the observers were given a week to acclimatise at UNTSO HQ. They met up with other new observers and were briefed on the mission. The other new observers came from all over the world including Argentina, Austria, Chile, Finland, France and Sweden. “We met UNTSO Chief of Staff Lt Gen Odd Bull from Norway who went through the current situation. “I often think back to that week. Nothing could have prepared us for what we were about to go through.”
At the end of the week the new observers left Jerusalem for duty along the Canal at 5am driving south to the UNTSO Control Centre at Kantara, which was some 40km from the line of Observation Posts (OPs). This leg of the journey took four hours. The Control Centre was responsible for all OP’s along the East Suez; of which there were seven at the time. Each OP was designated by a colour; Blue, Copper, Pink, Green, Silver, Orange, and Violet, On the West Suez in Egypt UNTSO OP’s were designated by the phonetic alphabet such as OP Echo and OP Foxtrot. In theory, observers were meant to rotate between the OPs and the Control Centre every five days. They would soon learn this was not always to be the case. “We received a briefing ‘you are going to OP Pink’. Myself and an Austrian officer were paired up. An armed Israeli Lieutenant was assigned to us as our liaison. Grabbing our kit bags and rations we were off again. Our convoy consisted of four jeeps. It was another two-hour drive to OP Pink. We were coming up close to our destination when over the radio, ‘Patrol Pink stop your vehicles firing ahead’. Stopping our vehicles we got out, put on our flak jackets and got in behind a sand wall. From the other side all we could hear was sounds of mortar fire and machine gun fire. I thought what the…. there’s a war going on. What am I doing here?”
The Suez Canal links the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea. It is 193.30km (120.11miles) long, 24m (79ft) deep and 205m (673ft) wide. Its length and width have proven formidable obstacles during the conflicts between Israel and Egypt. “In parts you actually look up at the Canal. Because of the war the Canal was closed and several ships were trapped. In the desert you were looking up at a ship. It was bizarre.”
With the Egyptians poised on the West Bank and the Israelis poised on the East Bank both militaries positioned themselves near to UN OPs in the hope that the opposing side wouldn’t fire on an area where the UN were located.
A view of Observation Post PINK, 1973, located on the Eastern shore of Little Bitter Lake in Israeli-Occupied Sinai. (Photo: UN Photo/Yutaka Nagata)
OP Pink was only a few hundred yards from the edge of the Canal located on the Eastern shore of Little Bitter Lake. It consisted of no more than a rundown caravan with a radio mast and a sandbagged bomb shelter. This was home for Captain Savino’s first week along the Suez. “There we were in the middle of a war radioing back to Kantara reporting on the shelling and airstrikes. Our first tour of duty lasted only seven days due to the constant shelling. We spent most of our time in the shelter which was an iron beehive construction with sandbags all around it. Crouched inside with the Austrian and the Israeli officer you had to sit there and listen to the shells landing all around. During long periods of shelling you were left with only army rations to eat. It was stressful at times”.
OP Pink was eventually relieved after seven days and the observers rotated back to Kantara. Six days in Kantara and then back to the Canal. Daily routine in the OP’s began at 07:00. At this time Kantara transmitted the music of Lillibullero across the airwaves to wake everyone up. The OP’s responded by sending in their situation reports which gave the number of observed air attacks, tank and artillery shellings and small arms fire. “While on OP Copper I concluded my report by saying, ‘this is the 100th air attack reported by this OP.’ That was just over a six-day period.” To constitute an air attack the attack had to last 15 minutes, otherwise it was just a bombing.
Officers at work in the Operations Room of Kantara Control Centre, originally located in Kantara East and now resited at Rabah in Israeli-Occupied Sinai. They are (foreground to background) Capt. Bjorn Dahlman of Sweden, Lt. Col. E. Lehtovirta of Finland, Officer-in-Charge, Kantara Control Centre, Capt. Fraz Foidl of Austria, and Capt. Yrjo Helanen of Finland. (Photo: UN Photo/Yutaka Nagata)
The Egyptians primarily used Soviet made equipment, while the Israelis primarily used Western made equipment. In the air the observers witnessed Egyptian flown Russian made Mig’s and Sukoi’s up against Israeli flown Fouga Magisters, Mirages and Skyhawk’s. “We would watch as the Egyptians tried to build surface to air missile emplacements. The Israelis would fly in and take them out. One time we were sent to a crash site of an Israeli spy plane which had been shot down. When we got there parts of the plane and bodies were all over the place. We found parts of a Russian made missile with Cyrillic writing which had clearly shot down the plane”.
“We saw it all. Heavy artillery fire, raids across the canal, aircraft coming in and dropping napalm, tank and artillery duels. All we could do was report each incident. When the firing started hitting close to us we would radio our fellow UNTSO observers on the Egyptian side and try and get them to tell the Egyptians to stop firing at us. I was lucky I never got hit bar a few scratches. During my time there we suffered five casualties. A Swedish officer and Argentinean officer were killed and three others badly wounded. We had several other minor injuries.”
With the Israeli positioning themselves close to UN positions damage from Egyptian aircraft, artillery and tanks was inevitable. Kantara was so badly damaged that it had to be abandoned and a new Control Centre was established at an old railway station in Raba. At Raba, the observers had to work under canvass. Across from them was a Bedouin village. Two OPs were also withdrawn leaving five in operation.
A relief party unloading food and petrol supplies at Observation Post PINK located on the East Side of the Suez Canal in Israeli-Occupied Sinai. Each Observation Post (OP) is manned by two UN Military Observers, generaly of different nationalities. The tour of duty at OPs is normally 6 days at the Kantara Control Centre area (KCC) and 4 days in the other areas. The longer tour of duty at the KCC OPs is due to the road distance between UNTSO Headquarters and the OPs. After each tour of duty at OPs, UNMOS return to the residence area for a few days of rest. (Photo: UN Photo/Yutaka Nagata)
“The Israeli tank commanders would roll up on ramps behind the sand wall along the Canal. The minute their turret cleared the wall they’d fire and roll back down. This would go on and on. Once I saw this young tank commander in his turret with his head up. His tank rolled up the sandwall; he took out a can of coke, drank it and fired. They were doing this to provoke the Egyptians to return fire and give away their positions. During my time the Israelis were losing at least one soldier killed every day.”
In the middle of rotating from OP to OP Vincent was able to take leave to Jerusalem to visit his family. “Having the family there was wonderful and a great relief. Once we got accommodation and schools sorted, they all had a lifetime experience. When I got leave we used to travel all over Israel, up into Damascus, Lebanon and over to Cairo in Egypt. I am delighted to say that the travelling bug has not left any of my children since”.
The War of Attrition continued until August 1970 and ended with a ceasefire. The ceasefire lines remained the same as when the war began and with no real commitment to serious peace negotiations. With the end of the war the Suez became much calmer. Tensions however remained high between Israel and Egypt and sporadic firing across the Canal still took place. The UNTSO observers found themselves having to rebuild their bombed OPs and getting on with their mission. At the end of year one, now Commandant Savino was a Special Duties Officer responsible for looking after and improving the OP’s. “I was given the task of trying to improve the OPs. We were mixing cement, sometimes under fire, trying to make the shelters and living conditions that little bit better. This is all with a backdrop of the Canal, heat, sun and sand. Back then there was no internet or satellite TV. The people at home had no idea what was happening. It was some experience. One which I’ll never forget”.
Commandant Savino then volunteered for an extension of another year. During that time he became an Assistant Operations Officer in the Control Centre and in the last few months an Operations Officer in charge of the area. In 1973 the region was torn apart again during the Yom Kippur War. Today UNTSO observers are still carrying out their mission in the Middle East. Over the years 18 observers have lost their lives in the service of peace, two of whom were Irish. Commandant Thomas Wickham was shot dead in Syria in June 1967 and Commandant Michael Nestor was killed by a roadside mine in September 1982 in Lebanon.
Vincent Savino went on to serve until 1989 retiring at the rank of Major General. He is currently President of the Irish United Nations Veterans Association.
“Peacekeeping is not a job for soldiers, but only soldiers can do it.”
Kofi Annan, UN General Secretary 1997-2006
Timeline of Events
1859
Construction starts on canal
1922
Egypt gains independence from Great Britain
1948
State of Israel declared
First Arab/Israeli War
UNTSO established
1952
Military Coup in Egypt
1956
Britain gives up Suez Canal after 72 years of occupation
