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IS PARIS BURNING?
THE BOMBING OF DUBLIN
A NIGHT AT THE ACROPOLIS
No. 156
£4.25
NUMBER 156
© Copyright
After the Battle
2012
Editor: Karel Margry
Editor-in-Chief: Winston G. Ramsey
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Above and below:
Rescue workers, Local Defence Force wardens and members of the
St John’s Ambulance searching the ruins for survivors in North Strand Road after the
Whit Saturday raid.
CONTENTS
THE BOMBING OF DUBLIN
WAR FILM
Is Paris Burning?
PERSONALITY
Lyndon B. Johnson’s Silver Star
GREECE
A Night at the Acropolis
2
12
36
49
Front Cover:
The liberation of Paris in August
1944 recreated for the war movie
Is Paris
Burning?,
which was shot in the French capital
in 1965. This scene shows the attack by tanks
and soldiers of the 2ème Division Blindée,
helped by FFI resistance fighters, on the
German headquarters in the Hotel Meurice on
Rue de Rivoli — then and now. (Karel Margry)
Back Cover:
The Greek flag flying over the
Acropilis in Athens. It was here, on a
moonlit night in May 1941, that two young
Greeks — Manolis Glezos and Apostolos
Santas – tore down the swastika flag in a
famous act of defiance against the Nazi
occupier. Today, a bronze plaque at the foot
of the mast records their deed. (Sailko)
Acknowledgements:
For help with the Dublin
story, the Editor thanks Jos Liefkens and
William Lee, and for the feature on the film
Is
Paris Burning?,
he is indebted to Egbert
Barten, Thijs Ockerse, Adriaan Bijl and
particularly Gilles Primout, webmaster of
www.liberation-de-paris.gilles-primout.fr.
Photo Credits:
BA — Bundesarchiv; IWM —
Imperial War Museum, London; LBJ Library
— Lyndon B. Johnson Library and Museum,
Austin, Texas; NIOD — Nederlands Instituut
voor Oorlogsdocumentatie, Amsterdam.
2
On the night of May 30/31, 1941, four Luftwaffe bombers, on
their way to attack Liverpool, drifted off track and by mistake
bombed the city of Dublin, the capital of the neutral state of
Ireland. Their bombs hit a mostly working-class area of the city,
including the areas of North Richmond Street, Rutland Place,
Phoenix Park, and most especially hard hit, the North Strand.
The raid claimed the lives of over 40 people, injured more than
100, destroyed or damaged 300 houses, and left almost 2,000 per-
sons homeless. The calamity — which occurred during the Whit
bank holiday weekend — was a cataclysmic event in Dublin’s his-
tory and one that shocked all of Ireland. This is North Strand
Road, the site that suffered the greatest havoc and destruction.
THE BOMBING OF DUBLIN
The neutral state of Ireland was bombed
by the Luftwaffe a number of times during
the Second World War. By far the worst inci-
dent was the bombing of Dublin’s North
Strand area early on the morning of May 31,
1941. The Irish Department of Defence
described it as an ‘incident which had all the
features of a major air raid’; the
Evening
Herald
called it the city’s ‘Night of Horror’.
‘THE EMERGENCY’
Following the outbreak of hostilities in
Europe in September 1939, Ireland’s
Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Éamon de
Valera reaffirmed his country’s neutrality
amid what he termed ‘The Emergency’. Reit-
erating his position that ‘government policy
is to keep this country out of the war, and
nobody, either here or elsewhere, has any
right to assume anything else’, Germany’s
1940 invasion of the neutral Low Countries
came as a bitter blow. Addressing the largely
apathetic public about the dangers of com-
placency, a troubled de Valera reminded
them that for the first time in 700 years Ire-
land was on her own and no longer under
Britain’s protection. Hopelessly incapable of
repelling an invader, preparations were nev-
ertheless taken to protect the populace from
the dangers of aerial attack. A series of look-
out posts (LOPs) were established to provide
surveillance of airspace and seaward
approaches. Those clustered around Carn-
sore Point, the south-eastern tip of the
island, were particularly busy during the
Blitz when Luftwaffe bombers flew over the
Irish Sea on their way to targets in Wales, the
Clyde Valley and the Mersey towns, in par-
ticular Liverpool. Dublin’s defences included
LOPs, sound locators and 14 anti-aircraft
guns. A lack of ammunition, however,
severely curtailed practice shoots and it was
By David Mitchelhill-Green
only at the end of 1940 that British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill relaxed an arms
embargo to Éire.
The same view today, looking in a southerly direction from a point just south of the
Newcomen Bridge. The latter crosses the Royal Canal and divides North Strand Road
into a southern and northern part.
3
WILLIAM LEE
DUBLIN
LIVERPOOL
BRISTOL
SCILLY ISLES
The four German bombers belonged to a group of some 90 air-
craft from Luftflotte 3 detailed to attack Bristol and Liverpool,
but why they accidentally bombed Dublin has never been
established with certainty. Most likely it was just a case of a
few crews losing their way. By May 1941 the night defences
over mainland Britain had improved significantly and this
resulted in Luftflotte 3 aircraft bound for Liverpool, Birkenhead,
Glasgow and Belfast regularly routing via the Scillies and then
up the length of the St George’s Channel towards Anglesey. On
the night in question there was a strong easterly wind, much
stronger than forecast, with extensive cloud over the British
Isles and the aircraft responsible probably simply drifted off
Civil defence measures involved the distri-
bution of gas masks, the installation of air
raid sirens and the erection of (mostly
empty) concrete water tanks to aid fire-fight-
ing. Nine large trenches capable of sheltering
citizens were dug in public areas in addition
to a handful of shallow underground shelters
excavated in parks and public squares. As
well as 47 nominated basement shelters, 64
flimsy above-ground concrete air raid shel-
ters were hurriedly constructed throughout
the city. Derided by locals as ‘hen houses’ or
‘hat boxes’, the shelters, if open, quickly saw
public service as latrines or refuges for court-
ing couples. Pamphlets hurriedly issued by
the Department of Defence, such as
Protect
Your Home against Air Raids,
advised citi-
zens to tape their windows and to have buck-
ets of sand and water available to extinguish
fires. Even though Germany’s envoy in Ire-
land, Dr Eduard Hempel, assured de Valera
that Irish neutrality would be respected so
long as strict non-intervention was upheld,
German bombs fell on Éire at least five times
between August 1940 and February 1941.
THE BOMBING OF NEUTRAL IRELAND
The first ‘incident’ in which German air-
craft disregarded Irish neutrality took place
in broad daylight on the afternoon of August
26, 1940. Flying at low level, a Heinkel
He 111 bomber dropped several bombs on a
turnip field at Duncormack, County Wex-
ford, narrowly missing the nearby railway
station. The neighbouring village of Campile
was not so fortunate. Three women were
killed when a bomb from another Heinkel
struck a creamery, a tragic incident for which
Germany later paid £9,000 in compensation.
While some held that the British were
responsible, even having dropped captured
4
track to the west. Cloud would have prevented visual contact
with the ground or sea, and with No. 80 Wing radio counter-
measures in full operation, accurate DR navigation would have
been very difficult. The crews probably assumed they were over
Liverpool when the glow of fires was seen through the cloud.
But that glow was actually caused by the streetlights of Dublin,
and not by fires started in Liverpool by the Pathfinders or other
preceding aircraft. From a typical operating height of around
13,000 feet, the lights were probably seen as no more than a
faint glow through the dense cloud, and if that glow came into
sight roughly on the estimated time of arrival over the target,
as it most likely did, the bombing becomes understandable.
lives were lost. In a separate incident, nearly
40 incendiary and high-explosive bombs
were jettisoned over open countryside in
County Kildare and three in County Wex-
ford in separate incidents the following day.
Shortly before 4 a.m. on January 3, another
bomb fell with a ‘terrific thud’ in Dublin’s
South Circular Road area, destroying two
homes and causing significant damage to the
Donore Presbyterian Church and the South
Circular Road Synagogue, again without loss
of life.
Despite the fact that bombs had now fallen
on their city, Dubliners, on the whole, found
the incursions more a nuisance than a cause
for concern. The Minister for Supplies, Séan
Lemass, reprimanded those who acted as if
the ‘war was being fought on another planet’
and were supposedly ‘immune’ from it.
Across the Atlantic, news of the German
bombings provoked a far more impassioned
response.
Life
on January 13 reported that
‘German bombs [had] plucked shamrocks
from the Emerald Isle’ leaving ‘scores of
Irishmen’ dead or wounded. Speculating as
to the reason for the attacks, the magazine
surmised that the ‘bombs served to warn
Éire against opening its ports to British war-
ships or convoys bringing US aid to Britain.
Possibly too the Nazis had put Éire on guard
against invasion just to see what precautions
the Irish would or would not take’. Shocked,
the US Irish community lodged a formal
protest against the ‘unwarranted invasion of
Ireland’. Berlin retorted that the ‘bombs are
English or they are imaginary. Our fliers
have not been over Ireland, and have not
been sent there, so someone else will have to
explain these bombs’. Éire’s northerly neigh-
bour — Northern Ireland with its capital
Belfast — was however a legitimate target.
German bombs, the
Irish Independent
felt
that the ‘tragic occurrence was due to an
error on the part of German airmen’. Such
errors, however, were to be repeated. Errant
bombs fell on open countryside in County
Wicklow on October 25 and Carrickmacross,
County Monaghan, Sandycove Railway Sta-
tion and Dun Laoghaire on December 20.
While these first incursions were little more
than German aircraft jettisoning their payload
before returning home, on December 29, a
Junkers Ju 88 flew a reconnaissance mission
over Dublin, purportedly photographing Bal-
donnel airfield and approaches. Although
Hitler had postponed his cross-Channel inva-
sion — Fall Grün (Plan Green), which
included the invasion of Ireland — in Decem-
ber 1941 he had ordered a study into the feasi-
bility of occupying Ireland, but ‘only if Ireland
requests help’. On the pre-condition that de
Valera desired support, an optimistic assess-
ment that the occupation of Ireland ‘might
lead to the end of the war’ aroused only luke-
warm support at a senior level and quickly
became redundant after Germany invaded
Russia in June the following year.
The German ‘raids’ on Éire continued into
the New Year as an unfortunate consequence
of the ongoing Blitz against Britain. The
Meath villages of Duleek and Julianstown
were struck by eight small bombs on January
1, 1941, though fortunately without casual-
ties. That same day disaster struck the moun-
tainous district of Knockroe when eight more
bombs were dropped near a remote farm-
house, killing three female members of the
Shannon family.
Dublin was hit for the first time shortly
after 6 a.m. on the morning of January 2
when four bombs struck the Terenure area.
Several houses were destroyed though no
1
2
4
3
Ordnance Survey Ireland Permit No. 8819 © Ordnance Survey Ireland/Government of Ireland
In all, just four bombs were dropped. Three of them landed in
the North Strand area and one — the third one to be released
THE BOMBING OF BELFAST
The port of Belfast had been singled out
for attention by Adolf Hitler in his Directive
No. 9, dated November 29, 1939. Nearly 18
months later on the night of April 15/16,
1941, the city described as the ‘most unpro-
tected in the United Kingdom’, was attacked
by 180 aircraft from Luftflotten 2 and 3. As
well as the lowest number of air raid shelters
per head of any British city, Belfast also
lacked searchlights and night fighter protec-
tion. With only 24 heavy and 12 light anti-air-
craft guns available to defend the entire
province, the vulnerable city was rocked by
203 tonnes of high explosives and 20,091
incendiaries. Tragically, over 800 civilians
were killed, more than 1,500 injured and
20,000 made homeless; the city ablaze. To
help battle the raging conflagration, the
Belfast Commissioner of the Royal Ulster
Constabulary called upon the Irish War
Room to provide urgent assistance. An hour
after de Valera was notified, 71 firemen and
13 tenders were racing north. Within 24
hours, however, the exhausted men returned
back across the border as de Valera could ill
afford casualties should the Luftwaffe return
the following night.
News of the mercy dash — summed up by
the
Irish Times:
‘when all is said and done,
the people of the Six Counties are own folk;
and blood is stronger than the highest explo-
sive’ — made news not only in Ireland, but
across Britain and the continent. Even Ger-
man envoy Hempel stated afterwards that he
‘understood the emotional and political rea-
sons behind the act’. The attack was followed
by an influx of several thousand refugees
from the north in search of shelter and
asylum; a second compassionate act that
could well be viewed as a further violation of
neutrality. In response, the English voice of
— exploding in Phoenix Park near the Dublin Zoo some three
miles further west.
THE BOMBING OF NORTH STRAND
The weekend of May 30 began with a clear
moonlight evening, the streets filled with rev-
ellers celebrating the beginning of Whitsun, a
three-day weekend. Shortly after midnight
(May 30/31) the familiar drone of foreign
intruders grew louder and the city’s search-
lights began probing the skies for the ‘large
numbers of aircraft proceeding northwards
and southwards’ along the country’s east
coast. Especially puzzling was the route of
the bombers towards the south. Where were
they headed? On the ground Captain Aidan
A. Quigley estimated that ‘as far as could be
ascertained from Air Defence Command,
there were 20 planes, some grouped in fives’.
Some witnesses guessed more, up to twice
this number, though it proved difficult to
count individual bombers as several ‘kept
circling’. The order was given at 00.18 a.m. to
fire three tri-colour flares, signalling the
incursion over neutral Irish territory. Several
red flares followed, a warning to the aircraft
that they would be fired upon. Fifteen min-
utes later, the prescribed waiting period, the
3.7-inch heavy battery at Clontarf opened
up, firing four rounds.
Many Dubliners now stood by their win-
dows or ventured outside to watch the spec-
tacle. An ominous sound, described after-
wards as ‘a peculiar whistle’, preceded the
first bomb. Falling near the intersection of
North Circular Road and North Richmond
Street at 1.28 a.m., the detonation ‘lit up the
sky’. Several homes collapsed and a small
fire was started. A second bomb exploded
nearby in Summerhill Parade a minute later,
also destroying several homes and shops. A
third bomb at 1.31 a.m. left a large crater in
Phoenix Park, shattering nearby windows
and causing panic among the animals caged
inside the park’s zoo. Although the distinc-
5
German propaganda, William Joyce —
known as ‘Lord Haw Haw’ (see
After the
Battle
No. 136) — broadcast a threat to bomb
Amiens Street (now Connolly Street) rail-
way station, disembarkation point for the
refugees arriving from the north.
A significant increase in enemy air activity
was noted in May with nearly 2,700 German
bombers recorded above or close to Dublin
on their way to targets in the south or west of
Britain. The
Irish Times
warned ‘spectators’
of the risk of falling metal splinters from
warning shots — ‘there is no need for pan-
icky rush to shelter, but “rubber-necking”
may well lead to unnecessary danger’. The
aircraft passing overhead on the night of
May 4/5 again struck Belfast. Although the
city was better prepared, assistance from the
South was again requested, though de Valera
specified that the 53 men, six tenders and
seven ambulances sent north were solely for
‘rescue activities to private homes rather
than military objectives’.
New air raid precautions were introduced
in Dublin as the danger of attack escalated.
Under the Emergency Powers Order,
Dublin’s city manager P. J. Hernon announ-
ced new black-out laws banning all illumi-
nated signs, advertisements and shop-front
lighting with interior lighting permitted only
during business hours. Exterior lighting was
also prohibited outside public venues such as
theatres and cinemas, however no restric-
tions were applied to residential homes. The
city’s most-realistic air raid drill to date was
conducted on May 25 using houses ear-
marked for demolition, ironically, in the
North Strand area. Intended to prepare its
citizens ‘to the terrors of an enemy air raid’,
the exercise was deemed a success; the ARP
wardens confident that Dublin could effec-
tively respond to an actual attack.

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