‘L’ Infantry Base Depot (IBD), Calais.56 Hitchcock also spent some time at an IBD in Calais, in August 1918. In his memoir, he described the depot as being located ‘on the high ground overlooking the old historical town of Calais’. Accommodation was in tents, around which deep trenches ran at intervals in case of an air raid. The camp had suffered some direct hits ‘and numerous casualties’. There was an officers’ club where meals were provided.57
As Captain Dalton found, there was a social side to life in the depot. Among Dalton’s papers at the National Library in Dublin is a programme for a dinner dance at the ‘L’ IBD, Calais on 3 January 1919. Listed on the programme for the evening are some of the popular dances of the day – including the Waltz, One Step, Veleta and Lancers. On the back of the programme, a number of officers signed their names, with regiments also given – they include Irish regiments, the Royal Dublin Fusiliers and the Leinsters, and English regiments such as the Essex and the Suffolk.58 No doubt, the end of the war added to the festive atmosphere. A few days later, on 6 January, Dalton entered Germany to serve with the 2nd Leinsters, as part of the Allies’ Army of Occupation of the Rhineland.59 (The occupation was mandated by the Armistice, and was carried out by French, Belgian, American and British troops.) In early 1919, Dalton was with a unit of the 2nd Leinsters stationed in a quiet rural village called Dhunn, about eighteen miles northeast of Cologne. This was in the outpost area occupied by the 88th Brigade. Lieutenant Hitchcock, who had been stationed here for a period and departed before Dalton arrived, found the area depressing. Platoons were billeted in ‘very dirty isolated farms’. It was also ‘bitterly cold and rained continually’.
Lieutenant Hitchcock was delighted to get orders to leave this bleak area peopled by hard-working farmers. He noted that, before departure, they received official news in December of the award of two Victoria Crosses to the battalion.60 The following month, January, somebody had the idea of gathering together, for a photograph, members of ‘D’ Company of the battalion who had been awarded decorations for bravery. The picture was taken outdoors, in a field or garden with a row of tall trees in the background. It is a most remarkable photograph and still survives as a treasured memento in the possession of Emmet Dalton’s daughter Audrey. It shows Dalton and Captain John Moran, both recipients of the Military Cross, with the two winners of the Victoria Cross, Sergeant O’Neill and Private Moffat.
While Dalton was stationed at Dhunn with ‘D’ Company, 2nd Leinsters, he spent time in training and exercises, which no doubt helped to further develop his military expertise. On 14 February 1919, Dalton drew up Operation Orders for the company as part of a battalion exercise involving an advance on the ancient town of Radevormwald.61 (Although Dalton had been promoted to Captain or acting Captain, he describes himself as ‘Lieut. J.E. Dalton’ on the handwritten document, and commanding officer of the company.) ‘D’ Company was to form the advance guard of the battalion advance, and he deployed elements of the company in various roles, in accordance with British military doctrine, outlining the relevant map references. Second Lieutenant Dorgan, with numbers 1 and 2 Sections and a Lewis Gun, was to be in the lead, acting in a ‘Point’ role. Flankers would be provided by no. 3 Section, while Lieutenant Johnson and no. 14 Platoon would form the Vanguard. The Main Guard would consist of two Platoons under the O.C. and his second in command. There would also be Connecting Files, provided by a Section, while two runners, Private Hart and Private Martin Moffat VC, would report to the Battalion HQ and act as Liaison. Experience in such exercises involving the deployment of infantry forces during military manoeuvres would, no doubt, come in useful when Dalton went on to become a senior officer in the National Army during the Irish Civil War. The experience would have been especially relevant as Dalton deployed his forces for the advance on Cork following seaborne landings in August 1922.
While stationed in the Cologne region, Emmet Dalton had a poignant task to fulfil. He went in search of a grave – the last resting place of a close friend, a fellow Irish officer who had been wounded, captured by the Germans and then died as a prisoner of war in October 1918, just before the Armistice. John Kemmy Boyle was, like Dalton, a northside Dubliner, and a fellow student at O’Connell School. The two men had both joined the Royal Dublin Fusiliers in 1916.
Already highly decorated, on 24 March 1918 Boyle was wounded and taken prisoner by the Germans while serving with 2nd Royal Irish Rifles (RIR). He died in a German Prisoner of War camp of pneumonia just three weeks before the Armistice. He was twenty-one years old. His remains lie in a war cemetery in Germany – Cologne Southern Cemetery. Dalton must, by now, have become used to comrades being killed in the war, but Boyle’s death appears to have affected him deeply. He was so moved that he wrote a very emotional seven-verse poem in memory of his dead friend – the handwritten text, in capital letters, on a single sheet of paper, is still preserved within the pages of his diary, among his papers at the National Library in Dublin.62 The poem is titled ‘Lieut. John K. Boyle M.C., My Dearest & Best Friend R.I.P’, and it is signed at the bottom, ‘J. Emmet Dalton’. The poem is undated, but the opening lines indicate that Dalton was inspired to write the verses after he found Boyle’s grave in Germany. ‘At last I have found your lowly place of rest…’ In the poem, Dalton reflects on his friend living in the ‘Hunnish Gaol’ for months and then dying with no mother or sweetheart or friend by his side. The tough-minded soldier-poet shows a compassionate, sensitive side in these lines in memory of his friend.
As Dalton was being demobilized, he received the usual letter from the British War Office to say that he was released from military duty. In his case, the release was from 4 April 1919. The letter stated that he would be permitted to wear uniform for one month only after date of release, to enable him to obtain plain clothes, but this would not entitle him to a concession voucher while travelling.63 The War Office sent the letter to Dalton at his father’s business address, 15 Wicklow Street, Dublin, where Dalton senior operated an importing concern. (The office would later move to 12 Wicklow Street.) The authorities had been informed that after leaving the army, Emmet would be working for his father on a ‘profit sharing’ basis.
Dalton’s service as an officer in the British Army, while often difficult and sometimes dangerous, had broadened his horizons. He had learned the art of soldiering, the finer points of tactics, strategy and leadership, and had developed abilities as a military instructor. He had quickly matured and acquired new skills – including horse riding. He had been to interesting places, including the Middle East. He had encountered people from outside his Irish Catholic middle-class environment. Among them were men from the ‘other’ community in Ireland, the Protestants, including members of the landed gentry, the middle class and the farming community. It had been a very interesting and challenging time in his life, interspersed with moments of great tragedy and trauma. Twenty-one year-old Emmet Dalton was now returning to a country in turmoil – the Great War had ended but his war-fighting days were far from over.
CHAPTER THREE
IRA Activities
After his service in the Great War, Emmet Dalton returned home to a very different Ireland. The movement for Irish independence was gaining momentum. Following the suppression of the Easter Rising, the Volunteers had been re-formed and Dalton’s younger brother Charlie had joined in December 1917. He became a member of F Company, 2nd Battalion in Dublin, at only fourteen years of age. He would later, with boyish pride, come to possess his own personal weapon – a German-made Mauser pistol which Emmet had brought home as a souvenir.1 Charlie grew more deeply involved in the movement as part of the IRA’s intelligence operations overseen by Michael Collins. Emmet would also be drawn into republican activities.
It was a time of political turmoil. The separatist Sinn Féin movement rejected the Westminster parliament and instead set up an independent Irish legislative assembly. The party had won a strong majority in the December 1918 general election, and on 21 January 1919 the Sinn Féin elected representatives (Teachtaí Dála – TDs) met in Dublin as the first Dáil Éireann. Later in the year, the British would seek to suppress the assembly. On the very day that the first Dáil met, what are generally seen as the first shots of the War of Independence were fired in Soloheadbeg, County Tipperary. A group of IRA men led by Dan Breen and Sean Treacy shot dead two