World War II
During World War II (known colloquially in Ireland as "The Emergency"), the camp was used as accommodation for up to 2,000 men who were billeted in forty Nissen huts and the camp was used for a time as an internment camp for the detention of up to 40 RAF aircrews who had crashed landed or made emergency landing in the state. The RAF prisoners were repatriated in two groups one in 1943 and the remainder in May 1944. The airfield had been used on an annual basis since 1935, it was not until 1945 that the Air Corps occupied the camp on a permanent basis. No 1 Fighter Squadron was stationed there in 1944 and were equipped with Hawker Hurricanes.
Read more about this topic: Gormanston Camp
Famous quotes containing the words world and/or war:
“Remember how often you have postponed minding your interest, and let slip those opportunities the gods have given you. It is now high time to consider what sort of world you are part of, and from what kind of governor of it you are descended; that you have a set period assigned you to act in, and unless you improve it to brighten and compose your thoughts, it will quickly run off with you, and be lost beyond recovery.”
—Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121–180)
“O I know they make war because they want peace; they hate so that they may live; and they destroy the present to make the world safe for the future. When have they not done and said they did it for that?”
—Elizabeth Smart (1913–1986)