CORRESPONDENCE SPANNING ALMOST 50 years about a compensation claim by Ireland against Germany over the WWII bombing and machine-gunning of a ship is contained in new files released to the National Archives.

The claim, which was rebuffed by Germany, arises from an attack on 16 August 1940 by three German warplanes on the MV Loch Ryan while it was in international waters en route from Cornwall in England to Arklow, Co Wicklow.

Significant damage was done to the Skibbereen-registered vessel but there were no injuries to the crew.

The 240-ton vessel was dubbed “the ship the Nazis could not sink” as it managed to stay afloat despite the 40 minute attack. The warplanes strafed it with machine gun fire 12 times and dropped bombs, two of which hit it.

The owner and skipper of the unarmed schooner, Captain James Nolan, did not have adequate insurance to cover the attack and the financial repercussions were felt for decades by the family.

During the war a total of 27 Irish commercial ships came under attack from German planes and 17 were sunk during. Compensation terms were agree for all but the Loch Ryan as German authorities refused across decades to concede liability in the case.

A dispute over when the attack happened was an initial sticking point.

At the time, the Embassy in Berlin said that the attack had occurred in an area declared by the Germans to be a “blockade zone”. Accordingly, the German authorities would take no responsibility for the fate of any vessel in the area.

However, Ireland’s Department of Foreign (DFA) had subsequently realised that the attack had taken place the day before the blockade zone was declared by the Germans.

Ireland’s Embassy in Berlin made a fresh approach on that basis but were told that the Germans had no record of the attack and could not, therefore, take responsibility.

In subsequent decades, the Nolan family alleged that then taoiseach Eamon de Valera repeated the German timeline of events, that the attack happened during the blockade, in the Dáil when he knew this was incorrect.

The 1930 Certificate of Registry for the MV Loch Ryan. National Archives National Archives

Reactiviated

A claim for compensation on behalf of the Nolan’s family was reactivated by the DFA in 1994 and correspondence relating to this claim can be seen in the document release.

Secret government documents are released annually under the 30-year rule and sent to the National Archives, providing journalists and historians with a fresh glimpse into historical events.

A letter sent by Eileen Twomey, sister of Capt. Nolan, to the DFA is dated 7 June 1994 and in it she expresses hope that a “satisfactory conclusion” is brought in the case.

“It is long past the appropriate time to present my fathers claim for compensation to the German Government in respect of the bombing of his vessel during the second World War,” Twomey wrote.

As a result my father lost his livelihood at a crucial time in his life, when he had a wife and a large family to support. There is no need for me to tell you how that affected his life, my mother’s and their family.

“I do know my father died a very sad and disappointed man in 1962, as did my mother in 1976. Both had hoped that the Irish Government would have received his claim in their lifetime.”

However, a fax sent by the Irish Embassy in Bonn, Germany to the Secretary General of the DFA just two weeks after Twomey’s letter outlined how unlikely it was that any such claim would be successful.

The official outlined that part of the issue is that Germany did not accept responsibility for the attack, unlike in other incidents such as the bombing of the North Strand in Dublin in 1941.

The official added that pushing the case without new evidence could be politically problematic.

“The major obstacle is the refusal of the Germans to accept responsibility for the attack. If this was not accepted in 1940, it seems very unlikely that it would be in 1994, without additional proof from our side,” the DFA’s Bonn counsellor Marie Cross wrote.

Nothing in the documentation made available to the Embassy would amount to such proof. You may wish to consider whether anything amounting to proof is available.

The embassy official goes on state that pursuing the case “formally and forcefully would therefore in all likelihood result in our relations with Germany more generally being adversely affected.”

Later, in 2001, then foreign affairs minister Brian Cowen effectively conceded that it was unlikely any compensation would be paid.

“There is no evidence of a disposition to change in the German position and, in light of this, the prospect of an admission of responsibility by Germany at a future time must be considered unlikely,” Cowen told the Dáil in 2001.

“I can assure the Deputy and the family of the late owner of the MV Loch Ryan that it is very much regretted that it has not been possible to achieve a satisfactory outcome to this case.”