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From: Jay Dooling <jdooling@worldnet.att.net> To: "Ireland News" <jdooling@worldnet.att.net> Date: Sat, 11 Oct 1997 22:31:57 -0600 Subject: News 10/11/97 2230 CDT - IRA Helped Hitler - Unionist Claims I helped Hitler bomb Belfast, says IRA man Electronic Telegraph, 12 October 1997, Issue 871 By Jacqui Thornton THE IRA provided the Nazis with vital military intelligence during the Second World War, a former Irish senator will claim this week. It is alleged that the information about vulnerable targets in Belfast aided Luftwaffe bombing raids that left 1,100 people dead and 25,000 homeless. The claims by Sam McAughtry, an RAF veteran of the Battle of Britain, are based on confessions of a former IRA activist. The source gathered the evidence in Belfast before and after the Germans carried out the four bombing raids of 1941. Now an elderly man, the source - who refuses to be identified for fear of reprisals - admits he gave guidance on targets and reported on damage of two highly destructive raids on the city's docklands. The information was passed to his "Officer Commanding" in the IRA and fed to the German legation in Dublin and then into Germany itself. Ireland remained neutral throughout the war. Mr McAughtry says that the former activist is now ashamed and appalled that as a young man he actively helped the Nazis to kill his fellow countrymen. The former senator, who stood down from his post in July, is a respected independent with a Protestant Unionist background. He will make the allegations in a controversial documentary to be screened on Channel 4 on Wednesday. Although the former IRA activist is not interviewed on screen, the former senator describes his confession as impeccable. He says: "The IRA were particularly involved in reporting the damage done in the first raid so that it could be destroyed in the second." Channel 4 made its own inquiries to verify the story. The timing of the documentary will be particularly embarrassing for Sinn Fein as it claims that Dominic Adams - the uncle of Gerry - was quartermaster under Sean Russell, the then Chief of Staff for the IRA in its campaign against English targets in 1939. It shows footage of how Russell collaborated with the Nazis on a U-boat on Operation Pigeon but died before it could come to fruition. It also contains interviews with Republican supporters who worked with Edmund Veesenmeyer, at one time Hitler's security officer, who was later sentenced to 20 years at Nuremberg for crimes against humanity. The director of the film, Gerry Greg, said: "The programme simply tells an English audience a few things they did not know about the people they're negotiating with at Stormont." He said he believed that "hundreds" of IRA activists were used to gather information harmful to the Allies. "Irishmen were not going to fight England's war, they were going to fight their own. But Catholics and Protestants perished," he said. "Even if the reports were simply to say that civilian morale was shattered, that was enough." Peter Robinson, the Ulster Democrat MP for Belfast East, said he was sickened but not surprised by the revelations. He added: "The nationalist government in the Irish Republic gave assistance from Dublin. De Valera sent condolences on the death of Adolf Hitler. "It was recognised by people in Northern Ireland in the way that we were bombed badly because the Republic lit the path for German fighters. It is not new that the IRA were assisting in killing people in Northern Ireland. That is their aim and has been for generations. I don't see why people think they would change now." ------- Jay Dooling (jdooling@worldnet.att.net) Irish Aires - 90.1FM KPFT in Houston http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Irish_Aires/homepage.htm Dooling & Mabe, CPA http://www.doolingmabe-cpa.com/ ------------- ------ Forwarded message ends here ------
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