In 1938 The Chamberlain government relinquished British rights to the treatyports in the Irish Free State, Cobh (Queenstown) Berehaven and Loughner Scilly. Winston Churchill protested vehemently against that agreement and wrote in his memoires that not having those treaty Ports in World War Two severely hampered the British war efforts during the Battle of the Altlantic.
How much was Britains war effort hampered by the relinquishing of the Irish treatyports in 1938?
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I didn’t realize the British government had given them up so late … I’d always assumed they were a time-limited provision of the peace treaty and would have expired in five or ten years.
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The neutrality of the Irish Free State at the beginning of World War 2 was an immense benefit to Great Britain. The combination of the economic impact of the Great Depression along with the Irish hostility to Great Britain had the effect of leaving Ireland with the worst equipped military in Europe at the beginning of World War 2.
At the beginning of the war, the Irish start off with an army of 2 severely newly organized and understrength infantry divisions with poorly maintained leftover equipment from the British Expeditionary Force of World War 1. The army completely lacked tanks, modern armored cars, trucks, anti-tank guns and most important of all, practically no anti-aircraft guns besides the handful of permanently placed anti-aircraft guns at the treaty ports. The air force consisted of a single squadron armed with a grand total of three Gladiator fighter bi-planes. The other nineteen aircraft in the squadron consisted of 16 obsolete observation planes and 3 obsolete seaplanes. The navy consisted of 8 patrol boats for customs inspections that were totally worthless for convoy duty.
The Royal Air Force estimated that it would take a minimum of 32 fighter squadron (500+ fighters) and two full strength anti-aircraft divisions to successfully defend Ireland from Luftwaffe attack. The British Army completely lacked the resources in the first three years of the war to equip the Irish Army which has been expanded to two reinforced infantry divisions and an independent infantry brigade (40,000 men in total).
The British military attitude towards the neutrality of Ireland changed as the spring of 1943 approaches. The United States military is starting to build up in strength in Great Britain. The rapidly growing United States Army Air Force presence in Great Britain can easily be used to provide the air protection for the defense of Ireland. The treaty ports and Dublin can be used for the disembarkation and basing of the United States Army along with providing bases for additional supplies for the planned invasion of France. The United States can also provide the equipment and the trainers to fully upgrade the Irish Army so it could participate in the invasion of France. The most important thing that the British want from Ireland is for the British and Americans to build airfields in the westernmost counties of Ireland (Mayo, Galway, Claire, and Kerry) to extend the reach of the Liberator bombers of RAF Coastal Command further into the Atlantic Ocean to hunt for German U-Boats. So you are going to see a hardening of American and British attitudes towards Irish neutrality as the war continued.
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Thanks for your informatieve reaction, Macdurm. For a large part I also believe Irish neutrality is much better for Britain than a succesfull German invasion of Southern Ireland. However if Britain’s had not relinquished the treatyports Berehaven and Queenstown (near Cork) could have been like Gibraltar, without making Irish neutrality impossible. Britain had an airport on Bere island as part of the treatyports of Berehaven (near Beara Peninsula) and an airport on the southwest of Ireland would have given the British airforce more reach for airsupport for the navy in the Battle of Atlantic.
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Aside from the issues identified had Eire not been neutral and on the allied side.
The treaty ports probably would have made very little difference if Britain had retained them. While the USN did operate an air station on Bere island in WW1, it was for balloons, not fixed wing.
I am not aware of a RAF or FAA base there.
The anchorage could have been used as a seaplane base, but it would have been very vulnerable to sneak attacks from Luftwaffe aircraft based in Brittany.
The good will created by returning the treaty ports may have been significant in the creation of the Donegal air corridor that allowed seaplanes based on Loch Erne fast access to the Atlantic.
The transatlantic convoy routes ran to the north and Loch Erne was far better placed to support them, with the limited long range aircraft available early in the war.
There initially weren’t the aircraft and aircrew to support extensive coverage for the southbound convoys.
Later when aircraft such as the B24 became available the difference between a base on Bere Island, which would have to have been built and supplied, and those in Cornwall would have been marginal.
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Like most things in the war the main problem was never resources but strategic incompetence. The British already had Lough Foyle /Derry airbase and Iceland. They didn’t use these properly until 42/43 because Bomber Command starved Coastal Command (interservice rivalry). Specific examples : the US Liberator when loaned to the RAF was an excellent long range anti sub platform but Harris took them all because he had the greater clout. When airborne radar appeared it was a key sub killer. Again bomber command took everything for ground navigation systems.
So, no point in having extra bases if you don’t even utilise the existing infrastructure.
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