An Cosantóir

An Cosantóir October 2016 www.dfmagazine.ie 28 | by AP TONY KEARNS T here has been much discussion, sometimes hotly de- bated, of the reasons behind the bombing of Dublin's North Strand on the night of 30/31 May 1941. A number of historians and commentators have expressed the opinion that it was a deliberate act intended as a warning to the Irish government not to get involved in the war on the Allied side. other suggestions were that Amiens Street Station, a conduit to belfast, and/or Dublin Fire brigade, who provided assistance during the bombing of belfast, were deliberately selected as targets. one commentator even claimed to have interviewed a former German Luftwaffe pilot, then living in Canada, who had been involved in the bombing of Dublin. However, many believe the night sortie of 30/31 May was a rou- tine Luftwaffe mission against British targets that went wrong. The planners of the Luftwaffe's nightly bombing raids being carried out on British cities at that time depended on weather reports from its meteorological service and each day the Luft- waffe flew weather reconnaissance missions from France to the south-west coast of Ireland and further into the Atlantic, taking readings and transmitting the information to their base. Known as 'cloud dancers', two units operated from Brest, namely Wetterkundungstaffel 2 (Weather Reconnaissance Squadron 2), or Wekusta 2 for short, and Wekusta 51. A single air- craft undertook what was often described as 'a long and lonely flight' over an empty ocean, while the onboard meteorologist, often referred to as 'the frog', took his pressure readings and passed them to the radio operator for transmission to base. A typical sortie would involve an early morning take-off, with the aircraft reaching the area off the south-west coast of Ireland at around 0830hrs. Volunteers manning the look-out posts around Ireland's south coast were very familiar with these aircraft and so regular were their timings that the coastwatchers often jokingly mentioned if 'Gunther' was either early or late. Reaching the Bull Rock, an acknowledged navigation point, in- dicated a change to a northerly heading and the German aircraft passing the Bull usually rocked its wings in response to a wave from the lighthouse keeper. The flight would proceed north then Was the North Strand Bombing a Mistake?

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