When Ballykinlar played major role in war effort

When Ballykinlar played major role in war effort

19 February 2025

BETWEEN 2018 and 2021 about 90 stories were collected relating to people who occupied the huts at Ballykinlar Camp between 1901 and 1957.

Eighty years ago, the Second World War still raged. Here we explore some of the stories of people who were still at the camp in 1945, as the war drew to a close and peace finally arrived.

Albert Kendall, a veteran of the First World War, had been brought out of retirement in 1939 to help with the administration of the camp, which was to house many troops destined for service in North Africa and France.

He had the support of his wife, Josie, whom he had married in 1928. Josie had her own swing band, which often played in the Sandes Home at the Camp.

At that time Eva Maguire was in charge of the Sandes Home and had welcomed thousands of troops through the doors as they trained at the camp prior to Operation Torch in 1942 and D-Day in 1944. 

From 1943 Ernest McKibben was the resident engineer, responsible for all the buildings at the camp, including the First World War timber Armstrong huts and more recent Nissen huts.

One of Ernest’s more enjoyable roles was to show films in the Sandes Home for the soldiers, staff and local youngsters, like Eugene Maguire, who lived just outside the camp. The youngsters paid for entry with empty jam jars, which were then filled with strong lemonade. Eugene’s father, Matt, maintained the coal-fired generating station in the camp, which required mountains of coal brought from Belfast by lorry. 

Charles Marks, from Clough, helped in the Sandes Home, but his main job was repairing damaged aircraft, which were landed at Satellite Landing Ground No 19, near Murlough House, across the bay from Ballykinlar. Here, a grass-covered runway was hidden by fake hedges, which were removed for planes to land. The aircraft were attached to heavy anchors for repair.

Charles worked on re-covering aircraft with fine linen and glue known as ‘dope’ to tighten it in place. He remembered working with Gibraltarians and Poles while there. He married Mary Moffett in Downpatrick Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church on 29th September 1943.

From 1944 until the end of the war, 18 year-old Nora McClean rode her bicycle from near Rathfriland to the camp to teach English to Maltese evacuees housed there. She took 12 photographs of the Maltese families, including mothers and children. Some of the youngsters were pictured wearing caps given to them by US troops, who had passed through the camp between 1942 and 1944. Others like Mary Smith, a cook at the camp, also remembered the Maltese evacuees.

Women from the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), were also based in the camp. During the Blitz, when bombers flew over, the ATS girls took the children out of the main camp to the safety of the practice trenches dug by soldiers training for service on the Western Front in the First World War.

Joan Malcolm, from Clontarf, arrived there early in the war, aged 20, and joined the clerical section of the ATS. She preferred the social life to the marching, and remembered the huts as “roasting in summer and freezing in winter”. She had a romance with a Canadian soldier, Ernest Wilkinson, but decided not to go to Canada with him at the end of the war. 

Horace Caratelli, from New York, and now aged 106, remembers his time with the 1st Armored Division at the camp in the summer of 1942, prior to the invasion of North Africa, when all his comrades competed to deliver coal to the ATS huts.

Entertainment at the camp was organised by Simon Waterman, the son of Downpatrick shoemaker Samuel Waterman (formerly Solomon Wasserman) who had fled Latvia in 1904 to escape the conion of Jews into the Russian army to fight the Japanese. Simon arranged appearances by Gracie Fields, Jimmy O’Dea and Count John McCormack to entertain the troops at Ballykinlar.

From 1941, Kildare man John Kirby and his wife, May, ran their Kirby Supply Stores on the crossroads near the entrance to the camp, and did great business when the GIs arrived in 1942.

John and his son, Ken, were also members of the Ballykinlar Home Guard, Platoon 9 of the 2nd Down Battalion, and would train on the ranges on Sundays. John had bought an Armstrong hut from the camp in 1935 for £25 and rebuilt it on Tyrella beach to use as a holiday home.

From March 1945, Jacques Orban was one of the Belgian soldiers who occupied huts at Mount Panther, before returning to reclaim their home country. He and his comrades enjoyed climbing in the Mournes and, after intensive training, were welcomed at the Sandes Home at Ballykinlar, where they enjoyed playing the piano, singing and taking part in quizzes.

From 1943, the second-in-command at Ballykinlar was Major Walter Johnson, of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment. He met General Eisenhower during his visit to the camp prior to the invasion of Europe. Subsequently, his duties included looking after 35 German prisoners-of-war who arrived at the camp after their capture by Allied forces in France in August and September 1944.

Some of the prisoners were assigned to a joinery workshop at the camp, and others to boot-mending. After the end of the war, Major Johnson and his wife used to invite them to their house for Sunday lunch, and on occasions certain prisoners would babysit for their youngest son Ian, while they were out.

The prisoners held Walter and his wife, Ann, in such high esteem that they presented Ann with a sewing box which they made at the camp workshop, complete with a list of the names and addresses of all 35 of the German POWs attached to the under-side of the tray.

We know more about several Germans included in this list, as they became friends with local people.

Julius Fröhlich, from Kuhndorf in Thuringia, had been a carpenter, but was conscripted into the 3rd Parachute Division, based at Brest with 1,600 men at the time of the D-Day landings. His division was sent to Normandy to fight off the invasion on June 10, 1944, but lacked good transport. It was virtually destroyed by mass aerial bombing in the area of Falaise in August and Julius was captured at Trun on August 21. He was held at Ballykinlar until 1947 and during this time became friends with Albert Kendall and his family.

Another German, Heinrich Hannekum, from Oldenburg, was captured in Amiens on September 1, 1944. At Ballykinlar he was assigned to help out on Paddy Digney’s dairy at Tyrella, where 65 cows had to be milked. Here he met Paddy’s son, Frank, who helped him to learn English.

Each day Heinrich and another POW named Paul, would work at the dairy, have tea with the Digney family and then return to the camp for 5 o’clock. He was given a pint of milk every day (a Digney’s milk bottle was actually found under a hut in 2012).

Heinrich left the camp for Scotland in 1947, but only reached home in 1948. In a letter to the Digneys, he said that people were starving in his home town, but things improved and he wrote that his wife, Maria, had given birth to a baby girl in March 1949.

One man who benefited from the presence of the German POWs at the camp was James Killen, the brother of Josie Killen. James was a veteran of the First World War, having been sent to Salonika with the 10th (Irish) Division in 1916, and subsequently to Egypt, before finally arriving home to Clough on November 4, 1919.

In April 1927 he married Margaret Ranaghan, of Dinnanew, and in 1928 he was appointed head groundsman at Ballykinlar Camp, where he worked for the next 39 years.

Between 1945 and 1946, James supervised 18 German POWs in the construction of new football pitches at Ballykinlar, as the old ones had been destroyed by tanks. After the war, James received high praise for the excellent quality of the pitches, from Sir Stanley Matthews and goalkeeper Frank Swift, among others. Sir Alf Ramsey’s England football team, fresh from winning the World Cup, came to Ballykinlar to practice on the pitches, before playing Northern Ireland at Windsor Park in October 1966.

In 2022, 101 year-old George Newberry came to visit the newly-constructed replica of a Ballykinlar Armstrong hut at Down County Museum, when he was able to sit on the bed that told his story – the last to be included in the hut.

George had served in the RAF during the Second World War, but two major events happened in May 1945. Firstly, his wife gave birth to their first son, John Victor Newberry, on May 5, just before VE Day. Secondly, he was transferred from the RAF to the King’s Own Scottish Borderers and sent to Ballykinlar Camp to train conscripts on the ranges.

On arrival, George saw a large half-moon arch over the gateway stating ‘World’s End Camp’, the name first given to it by soldiers during the First World War. He thought the camp looked like a prison, but after a short time it seemed more like Butlins. He and his comrades enjoyed visiting the Sandes Home and had leave to go to Newcastle and Downpatrick at the weekends. Sadly, George passed away last year, but he had a great time visiting his old haunts in 2022, including a visit to the camp by special arrangement with the Ballykinlar authorities.

Many thousands of people passed through Ballykinlar Camp during the Second World War. It was truly an international melting-pot, where people had to come from many corners of the globe, far from the theatres of war, after being caught up in the whirlwind following a dictator’s opportunistic acts of aggression – the result of appeasement in the 1930s.

History is important because it warns us not to repeat the mistakes of the past. And however far away it seems that history is being made, it is actually always on our own doorstep.

Special thanks go to all the people who supplied the stories for this Peace Project, which was supported by Newry, Mourne and Down District Council and the Special European Union Programmes Body – PEACE IV Shared Spaces Programme, and especially for this piece: Sharon Lynas, Lenore Rea, Viola Thompson, Barbara Dickson, Denis Sexton, Sylvia Desmond, Horace Caratelli, Andrew Carlisle, Paul Kirby, Ian Johnson, Frank Digney, Beth Killen, Down County Museum staff and George Newberry himself.

Mike King is the former curator of Down County Museum where a replica Armstrong hut of the type used at Ballykinlar Camp opened in 2021.