outside of his influence. These were hated by the vast majority of inmates and when McGrath publicly set his face against them it enhanced his credibility as SBO with the rest.
Among the prisoners spoken to by McGrath were ‘Sergeant’ Thomas Cushing; Lance Corporal Andrew Walsh and Private Patrick O’Brien all from Tipperary. All three had joined the British Army before the war and, after being placed in Friesack, volunteered for training by the Germans. All were considered at the time to have strong nationalist and anti-British sentiments. Cushing was the dominant personality among the three. A chaplain who spent some time in the camp considered him ‘too active a man to stand prison life’ and someone who would ‘do and say anything to get out of prison’. The priest, though, didn’t believe that he would, in the end, do anything to help the Germans.24 One of the Abwehr officers in the camp painted a more disparaging picture of Cushing during post-war interrogation, when he described him as a stool pigeon who had informed the Germans of McGrath’s predecessor’s escape plan.25 Although it’s not clear if McGrath knew of this, he had his suspicions about Cushing from an early stage. While it remains a matter for conjecture, it is unlikely that Cushing seriously contemplated working for the Germans. He felt little commitment to any cause, least of all that of his jailers, though he may have intended to make a final call depending on which side he perceived as offering the best opportunities for freedom and survival.
Cushing made the most of the freedom afforded him during his training in Berlin. He was less interested in sabotage techniques than the opportunity to indulge in his passion for drink. When captured in Normandy, he and a few colleagues were found to be inebriated, having earlier taken shelter in a well-stocked wine cellar. He was, as he later defined himself, a ‘soldier of fortune’26 and a feckless one at that. He claims to have been involved with the IRA during the Irish War of Independence and Civil War, but this is highly unlikely as he would have been only about ten years old in 1921.27 He was sent to live with a relative in America at the age of fifteen where he subsequently enlisted in the US Army. There, he was regularly in trouble for being drunk and brawling. Soon after his return to civilian life, he claims he enlisted in the Lincoln Brigade to fight on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War.28 He liked to be known as ‘Red’ Cushing, but this was in reference to his hair colour, not his politics. In fact, he often boasted about his anti-Communism, something that would have placed him at some risk within the International Brigade. The problem with Cushing as a source is that he is entirely unreliable. Barry McLaughlin, who has researched Irish participation in the International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War, is doubtful that he was ever in Spain, or at least not on the Republican side.29 Although he spent his time in captivity known as ‘Sergeant Cushing’ he wasn’t a sergeant.30 In the chaos that was Friesack, he had convinced the Germans and his fellow prisoners that he held that rank, most likely to avoid manual work, as under the Geneva Convention NCOs were only required to do supervisory work. Although some in the Abwehr had confidence in him, at least one considered him to be ‘a rank opportunist, without backbone or moral fibre, a loud mouthed braggart with little courage or intelligence, whose reliability was highly doubtful’.31 He may well have been a braggart, but he was also clever, if irresponsible. The assignment for which Cushing was being trained would have had him transported to Central America on a mission to blow up a lock on the Panama Canal where he had been stationed during his service with the US Army. That the Abwehr could believe that Cushing would carry out such a dangerous and difficult mission for them, in a place where he could easily abscond, illustrates the irrationality that permeated the whole Friesack venture.
Cushing was, by all accounts, loquacious. To use an Irish expression, he had the gift of the gab, and he seems to have used this talent to charm women he met during his stay in Berlin. According to a fellow trainee ‘he led a wild sort of life in Berlin and seldom slept in his own room’.32 One of his alternative sleeping quarters was the lodgings of a former model. He sought permission from the Germans to marry her, but his request was refused.33 Whether he was lovestruck or just hoping to use her as a ticket to gain more freedom, it’s impossible to say, although, as he makes no mention of her subsequently, it’s safe to assume he was not inconsolable. It was likely through her that he became friendly with some German black-marketeers, an association that attracted the attention of the Gestapo. He also got into trouble for ‘getting drunk and singing Irish songs in a café’ where he offered ‘to fight all and sundry’.34 It’s not difficult to conceive how this might have occurred: the sight of a drunk, obstreperous, tall, red-haired ‘Britisher’ having a good time in the company of a German woman, was bound to provoke some Wehrmacht soldier on leave. These skirmishes may have troubled the Abwehr, but of greater concern was the fact that the Irishmen might be defying strict orders not to fraternise together, for the Germans didn’t want them disclosing their respective assignments to each other. In fact, Cushing was meeting regularly with Andy Walsh.
Lance Corporal Andy Walsh, a RAF aircraft fitter, had been considered by the Abwehr to have the most potential. He was described as tall and dark with ‘large, rather tragic brown eyes’.35 The Abwehr judged him to be intelligent and ‘a mature, determined and quiet person, who seemed to have genuine Irish nationalist feelings’, although, like Cushing, he had a fondness for drink. In fact, he was probably only semi-literate at best.36 Walsh was being trained by the Germans to blow-up a power station within the large aluminium works in Kinlochleven in Scotland where he had worked before the war. He was at an airport in Oslo, about to board a plane from which he was to be parachuted out over Scotland, when he was arrested. It was the day after he had met with Cushing in Berlin. Already under suspicion, Cushing was being followed and he and Walsh had been seen to be ‘behaving very furtively’ and exchanging notes.37 A report was filed the following day leading to a decision to arrest them both, by which time Walsh had left for Oslo. Walsh seemed to be the type of person everyone felt drawn to. The Germans, prior to his arrest, felt confident that he was on their side, while McGrath felt certain he could trust him to comply with his instructions to report his presence to the British authorities. In fact, Walsh was as unreliable as Cushing and, like his companion, he had been making up for lost drinking time in the bars of Berlin, befriending Germans involved in the black market and smuggling.
After their arrest, Cushing and Walsh were faced with a classic ‘prisoner’s dilemma’: whether to deny everything in the hope that the other would do the same, or accuse the other before being betrayed by him. Both chose the latter course, fiercely accusing each other of planning to double-cross the Germans, and implicating John McGrath into the bargain. Another Irish ‘trainee’ Private William Murphy was also arrested at this time.38 Their confessions were likely to have been extracted after fairly rough treatment by the Gestapo. Walsh later described being kept ‘in total darkness’ with very little food and being ‘beaten up and kicked’.39
The other Tipperary man, Patrick O’Brien, was also undergoing training in Berlin at that time. He was considered by the Abwehr to be of sub-normal intelligence although their judgement may have been influenced by his insolence towards them. Within Friesack he had played the role of an ‘irrepressible comedian’ according to one account. When Jupp Hoven would appear, O’Brien would usually greet him with: ‘Hello Joe, how’s the scheme going?’40 (Hoven was known to the inmates as Gestapo Joe.) If he was of below-average intelligence it might explain, but not excuse, a disturbing aspect of O’Brien’s persona. He was arrested by the criminal police for molesting a child living in his lodgings in Berlin.41 The Abwehr convinced the enraged parents to withdraw the charges, presumably to avoid any disclosures about the nature of his assignment.
Despite McGrath being fingered by Walsh and Cushing, no immediate action was taken against him and he remained at Friesack for another few months. Perhaps, the authorities felt they couldn’t believe anything Cushing and Walsh told them, but later they discovered more compelling evidence of McGrath’s attempts to undermine their project. This may have been the result of the inadvertent action of a good friend.
About a month after McGrath arrived in Friesack, he was joined by a young Irish priest. Hoven, dressed as a civilian, had earlier visited Rome seeking to have an Irish Catholic chaplain assigned to Friesack. He alleged that this was the wish of the camp inmates. In fact, no
