Shamrock Brigade - Ireland, the SS and Marshal Stalin.

[ron_broxted]

Well, there we go, I thought I had the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster. "Based on a true story" indeed. Telephone call from someone my family knows in the west of Ireland, concerning J.F. His story is an amazing one. Joined the Irish army in late 1938, J.F was on the rifle range in The Curragh, during basic training and accidentally shot an officer in the foot. Facing a jail term for negligence, he fled to England and enlisted, in time for Dunkirk. Captured and sent to a POW camp. It is there that he attracted the attention of the SS. Rather than sit out the rest of the war, he, plus a dozen others, were offered a deal. Change sides and fight "Bolshevism" on the eastern front. Of course, there was the propaganda value of having troops from a neutral nation in the German army. The SS narrowed the initial pool of 100 down to about a dozen. The thing is, nobody with the initials J.F was in the Shamrock Brigade and anybody in an SS uniform in Berlin in May 1945 was more or less shot out of hand. J.F (supposedly) managed to save himself - he was loading a lorry for the Red Army. Noticing all the luxury champagne and caviar liberated from the Fuhrerbunker he nodded to a Russian NCO, hinting that some should "disappear".
"Nyet, nyet, it is for Stalin in the Kremlin".
How J.F got from Berlin back to the west of Ireland in 1945/46 still remains a mystery.
He ended up driving cattle on a neighbour's farm.