Conference tallis::celt

    Re .0: You stated yourself in another note that many Germans were
    interned in Ireland during WWII. Some of them might have died there.
    Do the dates fit? Or could it be that some German prisonners were
    interned in Ireland during WWI? The dates should give a clue there
    too.
    			Denis.

    Denis,
    	
    I cannot remember the dates but I am pretty certain that it was
    during WWII. It is funny because it would seem from the numbers
    that are buried there that they came to Ireland together and died
    more or less around the same time. It is picular that it is in the
    Dublin mountains far away from nowhere, that why it is bugging me.
    
    	Rene

    Leaprechauns can shed some light maybe.
    
    I have heard of this graveyard and remember reading something in
    a newspaper about it once.
    
    During WWII Ireland was neutral (with a pro-allies slant).
    Many beligerants were captured here and interned. Most of the allied
    beligerants were allowed out for long walks in border areas and
    all of them (who had no sense at all) wandered over the border and
    back into the war. The axis prisoners were not so lucky as it was
    a long swim to France. Very few beligerant military personel or
    spys lasted any length in circulation in Ireland (they always failed
    to immerse themselves and were riducously easliy fingered).
        Some beligerants died here ( one german spy wasted himself rather
    than return to Germany in 1947!!!). However most of the dead in
    that particular cemetary are airmen and sailors who perished in
    crashes or at sea and were washed up on our shores. Some of those
    dead were picked up by an Irish merchant ship on its way from Portugal
    when it stopped to pick up bodies of seamen from the aftermath of
    the Bismark sea battle (I think).
       The allies lost many pilots (mostly ferrying aircraft) over Ireland
    in WWII. A British bomber crashed into the sea in Galway Bay during
    the war, but God knows how he got that far off course.
    
    Snake can't swim.
    
    

    
    
    
    	Some more WWII neutrality trivia.  For most of the war military
    personnel, spies and so on who landed, crashed or were washed up
    on Irish soil were interned in the Curragh.  Towards the end of
    the war Allied prisoners were allowed back to their own countries;
    this however, was strictly non-Kosher at the start.  However, the
    POWs were allowed out to Dublin on parole for the weekend for a
    bit of ol agus hol.
    
    	One American airman took advantage of this to "escape" on the
    mail-boat to Holyhead.  He presented himself at the War Office the
    next day to return to duty and got the bum's rush back to the Curragh
    on the next plane for breaking parole!  The British, of course,
    were anxious to keep de Valera neutral on their side and did not
    want to start an international incident which the Nazis might turn
    to their advantage.
    
    
    	Another peculiar incident occurred when the Germans were trying
    to subvert Ireland in conjunction with the IRA and the Blueshirts
    (!)  As if that wasn't strange enough they tried parachuting a very
    third-string set of spies into the country to further their aims.
    The low point was when they landed a man in Connemara who was caught
    within two hours:  the main reason for this was that secret agent
    X-9 was an Indian.  He didn't quite blend into the local popualtion
    quite as much as the high command would have liked, it seems.  Anyway,
    he spent the duration in the Curragh.
    
    	RTE did a good series on this called "Caught in a Free State";
    I don't know if it's available in the States.

    I saw some of it when I lived in Ireland. It was quite good
    
    Rene

    To throw some light on the situation of the ship returning from
    a trip to Portugal: This was the M.V. "Kerlogue" out of Cork. It
    made regular trips to Portugal . On one of its return trips, coming
    across the Bay of Biscay, it strayed through a small naval action
    involving German "E" boats and a flotilla of British destroyers.
    The destroyers, by virtue if their heavier armament, "destroyed"
    the E boats, the crews of which too to the water. By all accounts,
    the destroyers fired on the swimmers. The "Kerlogue" picked up about
    60 survivors and steamed on to Cork Harbor with a British detroyer
    following, demanding that the survivors be given up. The Irish captain
    refused and the badly wounded sailors were landed in Cork where
    they were put in the military hospital in Collins Barracks. Most
    survived, but several died from wounds. There was a curious sequel:
    weeks later the "Kerlogue," on a retrun trip from Portugal, was
    strafed by what the crew described as a R.A.F Coastal Command
    "Beaufighter." The ship, was quite badly damaged and the captain
    was killed. I saw the ship after the action when she docked at Penrose
    Quay in Cork.
    
    

    Just a comment on the "Beaufighter".
    The English are not usually so obviously stupid.  
    I suspect the place was either a German piloted captured plane
    or an ME110 made up withg Brit markings (the two planes resemble
    each other) particularly with multi-streams of tracers coming out
    the nose (both are twin engine, with main firepower in nose, which
    is unobstructed by prop) one might not look too carefully.
    A real strafing attack by the Brits might be a dire warning, but
    it also is an act of war.  I doubt if that would profit the Brits,
    and definitely profit the Axis.

    I wouldn't debate the real identity of the strafing aircraft.
    However, in the "technical view," I believe that if the aircraft
    were of the Luftwaffe, it more probably was a J.U. 88 which at that
    time was in more general use, especially for long-range inter-diction,
    than either the M.E. 210 or its successor, the 410. The 88 was a
    superb aircraft and was the scourge of the RAF night raids over
    Germany. The "Beau" also was a fine aircraft but difficult to 
    handle at low speeds. Neither aircraft, in my opinion, was the
    equal of the D.H. "Mosquito." (How did a discussion on aircraft
    enter into the "Celts" notes??!!!!)