An Cosantóir

www.military.ie THE DEFENCE FORCES MAGAZINE | 33 the Second World War broke out, Patrick joined the 81st Fighter Squadron and so followed his subsequent D-Day involvement. For his part, Patrick James Ness was to find himself in 'US Air Force Intelligence', loaned (seconded) to the OSS, and was involved after Victory in Europe (VE) Day, 8 May 1945, in seeking out Ger- man scientists and sending them to the United States to work on 'military projects'. In all he saw service from 1942 to 1968, fought in three 'hot' wars (the Second World War, Korean and Vietnam wars) and at the height of the 'Cold War' flew a B-47 bomber for Strate- gic Air Command. His mantra throughout his service was 'You do not volunteer for anything, you do not turn anything down.' Another Irishman who was involved in D-Day was Joe Walsh, from Athy, County Kildare. On leaving the Irish Army in 1942, Joe Walsh joined the RAF and landed in Normandy in late June 1944 with the 715 Motor Transport and Light Repair Unit. He was keen to go to France to see action, and interviewed in James Durney's, Far From the Short Grass, he said: 'The Irish were not worried about the danger. They always went for the most dangerous jobs; tanks, tail gunners and paratroopers – the paras were full of Irish'. He was sent to France and reached there around the time of the Allied 'breakout' from the bocage countryside. He recalled, 'We did not see much action. I remember a V-1 rocket landing in a field beside us once though it didn't cause any casualties.' These Vergeltungswaffe (V, for vengeance) V-1 and V-2 flying bombs, unmanned aircraft loaded with explosives, were directed towards London mostly, timed to fall on the city and its population. The first one (of ten fired that day) arrived in London on 10 June 1944, killing six people. Up to 100 per day began arriving in the weeks and months thereafter, and in all it is estimated that about 8,000 V-1s fell on England before the launch sites were overrun by Allied ground troops in September. Among the last to be killed by one of them, tragically, was Captain Guinness, heir to the Guinness Brewing industry dynasty. Destabilising also was the Allied bombing of known V-1 launch sites. These perpetual air raids on the wider area and on trans- port, infrastructure and military targets hampered the production and development of other such 'products', like the V-3, a multi- barrelled gun capable of firing huge 300-pound shells across the English Channel at a rate of one every six seconds. This 'Lon- don Gun' project never properly got started, so the Americans went bigger again, this time at- tempting to pack old aircraft full of explosives. Flying them close to the launch sites, the pilots would 'bail out' and the explosive- laden aircraft would be remotely controlled and guided to the launch site targets. The premature explo- sion of some planes, killing the American pilots along with them, put an end to this initiative, but not before Joseph Kennedy Junior, who was being carefully groomed to be the future Irish-American President of the United States, was among those unfortunate pilots. A graphic illustration of how war destroys po- tential as well as people, it fell to his younger brother, John F. Kennedy, to become that candidate. It only took a split second to end the life of twenty-two-year- old Sammy Glass from Belfast. A member of the 1st Battalion Royal Ulster Rifles ('The Rifles'), Glass was struck down by a German sniper's bullet, never to realise his youthful ambition to play in goal for North- ern Ireland. How easily the bullet could have struck the man beside him, Dubliner Tommy Meehan. Random chance at the sniper's choice of target, capricious fate or fluke meant that Tommy Meehan lived and Sammy Glass did not. This was war. For the first time, this book facilitates the telling of the wide- ranging, important Irish involvement in D-Day, and it places Irish participation on the front page, by populating the undertaking through an Irish 'lens'. The story of D-Day is enormous, and the Irish have a rightful place among its many chapters. Landing craft and ships unload troops and supplies at Omaha Beach a few days after D-Day. Photo: Conseil Régional de Basse- Normandie / US National Archives USAAF Capt Patrick James Ness, US 81st Fighter Squadron (his mother was Irish, a McAuliffe), flew four sorties on D-Day. Photo: courtesy of his son Phillip Ness RSM Sean O'Donovan (Drumcondra, Co. Dublin), Royal Artillery. He escaped from a number of POW camps and also fought alongside Italian and Russian partisan resistance groups. Photo: courtesy of his nephew Lt Col Fred O'Donovan Sgt Patrick 'Paddy' Gillen (Galway), 1st Special Services Brigade ('Commandos'), came ashore at Sword Beach on D-Day. Photo: courtesy of his son Robin Gillen

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