Page 41 - Garda Journal Winter 2019

HISTORY | Cork’s Collins Barracks
Burned out remains of the officers mess in Collins Barracks (then Victoria Barracks)
considered a very real probability when the Second World War broke out.
Constant coastal watch was kept along the southern shores for any signs on the horizon of a German invading armada. Despite all this vigilance, Ireland was a long, long way from being able to defend itself. It was simply militarily unable to resist an invasion. The Defence Forces were hopelessly under strength and supplies were infinitesimal, with a chronic shortage of armaments, ammunition, anti-tank weapons, and accommodation. With war looming the Defence Forces pleas for resources were not granted. Hitler’s army was advancing across Europe but the threatening international situation did not yield the necessary vital spending on the means to shape a successful national defence. Declarations of neutrality mattered little to a rampaging German army. It was nine months (7th June 1940) before a state of ‘Emergency’ was declared.
Along with ‘Operation Sea Lion,’ the German plan to invade Britain, there was known to exist ‘Operation Green’ an
actual real-life, fully prepared and printed out plan to invade Ireland. This planning involved a series of landings near Youghal Co.Cork. Troops from Collins Barracks were to be at the forefront of the effort to resist, by engaging in retrograde operations. This involved a series of defensive lines set along appropriate geographical natural features like rivers with the bridges over them to be destroyed, obstacles constructed and covered by troops in prepared fire positions, and decoys erected. All this would, theoretically, hinder the progress of the German advance out of the bridgehead established on landing, thereby trading space for time. The time used by the Irish retreating forces to regroup, falling back on the next pre-prepared defensive line, all the while moving away from the stronger enemy force, thereby preserving the integrity of its force, controlling the confusion, and intended to thwart, frustrate, and delay the enemy, especially when the combat ratio was going to be enormously unfavourable. They might even succeed by these and other means in ‘canalising’ the German advance, drawing them into more suitably defendable terrain, enabling the prudent employment of our own scarce resources. It was a time of crisis, of very real fear, but also of a very real willingness to courageously stand and fight, were an invasion to happen. This is all too easily forgotten and glossed over. Nine months earlier the German army had overrun Poland, and since then invaded Norway and Denmark, defeated the Dutch, Belgians, and French, and had forced the British into a hasty withdrawal at Dunkirk. Only the English Channel had prevented a beleaguered Britain and a defenceless Ireland from a similar fate. The British air victory at the subsequent ‘Battle of Britain’ gave Britain air superiority and made a German invasion unlikely if not impossible. The ‘Call to Arms’ to help defend Ireland, meant huge training demands were made on Collins Barracks and outline alternatives had to be found. The largest test of our combat efficiency took place from 17 August to 27 September 1942 during the now famous ‘Crossing of the Blackwater’ exercise. As these ‘Blackwater Manoeuvres’ were ending, the
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