Torpedoed ship sent to Ireland amid tensions
THIRTY-THREE survivors from the Irish Oak, which was sunk nine days earlier, were entertained at Leinster House on May 24, 1943. Ironically, this was the same day the Germans ordered all U-boats to be withdrawn from the Atlantic. The Battle of the Atlantic was over, but the bogus Allied complaints about Irish neutrality would intensify in the coming months.
The Irish Oak was one of two ships that the United States leased to Ireland under somewhat fraught circumstances in 1941. Frank Aiken, the minister for co-ordination of defensive measures, was sent to the US in Mar 1941 on a controversial mission to purchase arms and ships.
