It is the case that collectors are sometimes odd
people; they may even be described as obsessive but
down in Caledon there’s a very sane and well organised
man who is dedicated to preserving the significant history
of the US forces who were based in the Caledon and Tynan
area between 1942 and 1944.
Davy Fitzsimons has a collection of photographic memorabilia
that numbers thousands, all carefully annotated with
as many cross checks for accuracy as might be humanly
possible and here he thanks the facility of the Internet
which allows him access to many US government sources
previously inaccessible. His also has an impressive
collection of arms, uniforms and other military artefacts
which are all original.
Davy was asked what started him on the road to amassing
this huge collection of WWII memorabilia of US soldiers.
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It is now through the same facility
of the Internet that we can help Davy with his
main aim of allowing everyone access to his collection.
Naturally with such a huge collection it would
be a monster site if we were to try and put it
all in but we hope to reveal much of what he
has battled to collect.
Although there were US troops all over Northern
Ireland he’d chosen to concentrate on his
own home area of Caledon and Tynan.
"I haven't been able to find that much left
in Northern Ireland" he told us "although I think
there must be lots of stuff still lingering in
lofts and at the bottom of cupboards, so much
of the collection I have retrieved from America" Collections
of photographs taken by soldiers when they were
in the area provide a fascinating insight into
how they must have found this then exceedingly
rural part of Northern Ireland.
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We wondered if Davy had come across people who still
had contact with some of the soldiers who were here
during the war
How did these young men, for they were mainly in their
late teens and early twenties, from towns and cities
in America where such things as cars and television
were everyday items, find Caledon and Tynan, where such
things were beyond the imagination of the ordinary family?
It was these young men of the US 2nd Division who
were brought here to be trained in the arts of war by
seasoned British experts. As Davy's archives show the
young Americans were not quite ready for the training
regime laid on by the British.
Here are a couple of quotations from one of the training booklets in Davy's collection which indicate why the US soldiers had been sent to train under British instructors:
The British and French know what they are fighting
for because they have been in this war a long time,
and the Germans believe that they do to. The British
fight for their lives; they fight to stop the Germans
from bombing their homes; to stop them from killing
their families. The British front line soldier slashes
forward without mercy. He hates the enemy. The American
soldier is different. He is fair minded and thinks that
the enemy will be fair too. He does not really want
to kill, because he does not hate, YET.
 At
this time is seems most US soldiers who hadn't been into battle
still looked on it as a game where the umpire's whistle might stop
it before it gets too rough - he couldn't imagine anyone wanting
to kill HIM! The booklet then refers to more terrible examples
of the US soldier in war:
..I know so well those men who were cut to ribbons at the
Kasserine Pass and I know why they were thrown into confusion,
panicked by attacks, and accepted their fate almost paralyzed.
When they jumped into their foxholes to let the tanks roll over
them and they were bayoneted in those foxholes by the Infantry
that came behind the tanks, they died with an astonished look
on their faces, as if they wanted to ask: "Could that be possible,
would they really do that? " |
And so those soldiers of the 2nd Infantry Division were given the benefit of the British knowledge. The young men of 23rd Infantry Regiment - all in Caledon and Tynan - and the 9th and 38th Infantry Regiments farther away in Markethill and Armagh hopefully learned their lessons well before they went to take their part in the invasion of Europe in June 1944.
In this fascinating history, which seems not to have
been documented at all, it's clear the Americans were
very confused when they came to this part of Country
Armagh. Social conditions were obviously so unlike their
homeland and they had never had to contemplate that
just a mile down the road, or track or path they were
on was another country, one that was not taking part
in the war - a neutral country.
This led to many occasions when soldiers, jeeps and
other transports innocently drove over a border only
to be put back on the right road by the good citizens
of the 'Free State'. Then, as now, the border was of
much less importance to the people who lived there than
people who lived 50 miles away!
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So much of Davy's collection has come from making
personal contact with people .....
is he still happy
for people to contact him with any information
they might have ?
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