大象传媒

During WW2 I was a young boy living in Dublin first in the centre then on the outskirts, which was considered safer. My father, Jemmy Wynne, had served with the RHA and RFA in WW1 so he knew all about war. He attended the Remembrance Day ceremony every year in our National War Memorial Park near Island Bridge, Dublin. My half brother James left home and enlisted with REME about 1942 aged eighteen so as an Irish family we were both neutral and at war. My parents worried about him constantly and my mother lit candles for him in our local church. Like the UK we were affected by rationing and severe shortages with some goods like coal, unobtainable. There was no white bread and the brown bread which replaced it was not liked and gave me diarrhoea for several weeks. A system of exchange developed whereby people could swap their surplus goods such as sugar or ration coupons. We had to help my Father make soap, on the kitchen table, which he traded or sold and it was in demand. There was an active black-market which I didn鈥檛 really understand at the time. My father told us that a man who had been taken out by the police from a house nearby had been selling stolen tea. There was a fear that we would be attacked because air raid wardens and civil defence was organised. Tank obstacles and defence points were located on all main roads into the city so it was certain the Irish Army was going to resist any invasion. Bomb shelters were built and gas masks issued. I fought against the mask being fitted over my head and panicked because I could not breathe and looking back I realise how awful it was for British children. Many of the people had lost relatives in WW1 and memories of other troubles were still fresh in their minds. There were mixed feelings among some towards the British in the beginning but only a few extremists would have considered causing injury to Britain. My parents were pro-Britain. Later my father told me that according to an American survey there were 150,000 Eire volunteers in the British fighting forces and at least as many more men and women enrolled in the general war effort. That at the beginning of 1942 thousands more went to work in Britain.

As the war progressed Irish cargo ships were torpedoed and German aircraft dropped bombs on North Dublin, Wicklow and other isolated spots and public support for the British increased. When the Dublin bombs were dropped my father was awake and knew the sound of the German planes. He got up to look out the window and when he heard the explosions he called everyone at the top of the house up and gathered us together on the ground floor. I remember neighbours with war maps on the wall so they could plot the course of victories and defeats with tiny union flags and swastikas. There were lots of rumours about German spies and downed RAF men being sent back to the UK in civvies. A police officer told my father that if an RAF plane had to make a forced landing on Irish soil they were advised by ground staff to jettison their armament so they could be treated as non- combatants. Neighbours and friends had children and other relatives in the British Army so on D-Day 1944 they were glued to their radios. Eire imposed strict censorship on its own news reports to avoid any suggestions of taking sides so most people listened to 大象传媒 Radio. My mother and father never left the house they were so stressed on the 6th of June and my father stayed up all night. Shortly after D-Day news came that James had been wounded but was a survivor. Later several of James mates on leave stayed overnight before travelling on. One man, Sapper Bailey, stayed a few days. One very quiet day the house was empty except for the soldier, who was reading, and me sitting on the floor behind him. I cannot remember what I had been playing at but I had a paper bag, which I thoughtlessly blew up and burst with my hands. I can remember the table crashing over and a man on the floor gripping my shirt and shaking me like a rat. Shellshock! He later apologised to my Father who gave me a thick ear! This was just a little of what I remember about the happenings of that time.

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