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| Title |
The American troops. |
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| Description |
Interviewer: Did the war have much effect on the town of Enniskillen, on the town life?
Harry West: It had a quite a bit of effect on the town life and the social aspect particularly, and the young ladies of Enniskillen had a tremendous time because there was, the place was overloaded with servicemen and they all had their eyes on the girls. And dances and functions of that nature of course they were always going on and they had all sorts of entertainment for the troops and it created a lot of stir about Enniskillen because there was an immense concentration of troops in Fermanagh. Y'know, they had the seaplane base at Castle Archdale that did the Atlantic patrols to protect the British shipping coming across from America. They had another seaplane base at Killadeas where the Manor House is now and that trained the pilots for Coastal Command and flying boats and all these fellows. And then we had of course, great concentration of American troops. Before the D-Day landing in Europe, there was a great concentration of troops in Northern Ireland generally, preparing to land in Europe. Indeed, General Eisenhower, who later became President Eisenhower, was over here in Enniskillen inspecting the troops, inspecting the American troops. But there was an immense activity of all sorts of people about this place, at that time. And of course it helped the commercial life of the town. They bought, they bought in Enniskillen, they bought very generously indeed and many people made a lot of money off them, one way and another. And they smuggled of course too. They were across the border smuggling stuff that couldn't be had at that particular time because of the war.
Interviewer: That was one of the comments I liked when you were talking about the railway and they hung their smuggled goods out through the window on the other side.
Harry West: That’s right, indeed they did. That was on a train that left Bundoran, whenever the old train started off there was a customs check at Belleek and of course between Bundoran and Belleek the boys used to pull down the windows and hang all their goods on the handle of the door on the offside. The customs man came in that side and he examined the goods in the carriage but he never thought of looking out through the window and see the pile of stuff that was hung on handles. That was one of the ways. Ah they had many ways of smuggling goods, indeed it went on a pretty large scale. Indeed.
Ref: 90-58-105.
Interviewer: Sandra Matchett, Fermanagh County Museum.
© Fermanagh County Museum. |
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| Speaker |
Harry West |
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| Sound |
90-58-105.mp3
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