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interview Eamon Gallagher,
This story is taken from an interview with Eamon Gallagher, and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions. The interview was by Deirdre Donnelly, and transcription was by Bruce Logan.
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I worked for an American company. They were called the TAF. We just called them “the Technicians”. In actual fact there were 2 companies. “George A Fuller & Co” and “Merit, Topman & Scott Corporation”. They were the 2, what we called “the Technicians”. And I was the supply clerk to the hospital. And … it was hard work. You had to be at the hospital at 6Am. Breakfast had to be made, and you had to arrange it. I was in charge of the food supplies. I had a store, broken into one day.
The doctor in charge of the hospital fired me because it was broken into. And I told him “it wasn’t my fault. It was broken into when I was at home.” And funny enough, one of the orderlies, he was a man who did a line with one of the nurses, and she said “wait a minute and I’ll talk to him”. And all was right in the world.
My store was directly opposite the kitchen. There was 3 experienced cooks there. There was Miss Callaghan, Miss Robertson and Miss Burling.
I never forgot them, because it was a great pleasure working with them.
I had to get one of the boys from the Commissary dept. and the head of the Commissary Dept was a man called Jimmy Opperman.It was good craic.
I had to go up actually to the dining room, and this American was taking his lunch. In those days in Derry we used to call it “dinner”, you went home for your dinner, but now it’s lunch.
I’ll always remember they had prunes for what they call a pudding, we used to call it an after-course. And this guy, he put the prunes in the middle of his potatoes. And I went over to him later and I said “those prunes are meant to be eaten after your dinner.”
He says “what point is there? Saves time — they’re all going the one way!”

I was over to get some supplies, and there was a man there. Young fellow. They got butter over from America in big 5lb tins. And he was taking them out of the box, bending down and putting them on the table. And as he said himself, he had 4 on the table, bent down to get the 5th, and when he looked up there was only 3. And there was a terrible commotion! The Americans stood by one another. They weren’t a bit pleased at him reporting it. As he said to me “I would have been accused of stealing it!”
But I actually was a witness to the fact that there was 4 on the table. However …

I’m one for reading Westerns.
There’s a jail over in Ebrington barracks. And the man in charge, they called him Chief Adam.
I only had to go into it on one occasion. It was like a Wild West book. He was sitting at his desk, and behind him were the cells.

There was 1 man I knew there very well, 1 of the Americans. Funny enough, I met him in Marlborough Terrace with a young lady. And I stopped and had a chat. He couldn’t wait to see me at the hospital later on. He was actually in the hospital, there was nothing very serious wrong with him, but he had to get special food or something. He said “do you know that young lady?”
I said “I’ve known her all my life.”
They got married. And he just died last year. They have a big family. She’s a sister of Fr Tierney’s. He lives in Derry here. They lived in the Domain, as they called it. Up Beechwood direction.

The petrol … I used to do a turn in the petrol office.
Young people don’t realise how well-paid they are. I started on 5 shillings a week. Mind you, 5 shillings a week when the war came wasn’t a big lot of money. But I got a rise. I got a rise of 5 shillings to make it 10, then I got another rise. You see, you got your stamp paid for. The third rise I got, they deducted the stamp. You can work it out — a rise of 5 shillings minus 1 and 10p was pretty sore!
It was then I went to interview with the Americans. A friend of ours was secretary to one of the big-shots, and I used to go over regularly to see if there were any jobs going. He said to her once “that brother of yours, is he still around?” and she thought for a moment, “yes, he is. But he’s not my brother.”
“Well, tell him to call in. I have a job for him.”

I remember when these boys from Texas arrived at the hospital. All the big boots with spurs. The manager of the hospital was an Englishman, a very very nice man. He said to me “you see those boys, the Texans? Those boys probably never saw a horse! And they’re talking about the big cities. Derry is probably the biggest city they ever saw, because one would live about 500 miles from the other. And they’re bombing away. These fellows, they were never on a horse but you’d think by the look of them they were cowboys.”

The Officers’ mess in Ebrington barracks was the main building. It was the hospital was there. The big building you see when you look across. It was also the reception area. And away on over to the left, there was buildings there. That’s where the commissary was, and the stores.

The ferry-boat used to run from the back of the Guild-Hall. That land, the motorway at the back of the Guildhall, that’s all reclaimed land. The Foyle used to come up there. And I think it was a man called Brown had a ferry-boat, and I used to cross on the ferry-boat. I went over to the barracks in the bus, because there was a special bus took us from the Guildhall at about 5.45am. I never was late 1 morning! And yet when I got a job starting at 9am I don’t think I was ever early!
But going across on the boat, I got home for about 2 hours, then I would go back on the ferry-boat. There was 1 day a destroyer passed, and the ferry was caught in the wash of the destroyer. There was a woman, you would have heard her screeching in Buncrana! We all thought we were done for.
But the boat was very convenient. It ran for years.

[Who was stationed in the barracks?]
Just the Americans. That’s all. It would have been 1940. I think they came in 1941 or early 1942. They built the wharf at Lisnahally,. They used the old shipboard. There was a lot of old destroyers in Derry. There was a saying the British Govt lent NI to the Americans for 50 old destroyers that were used in WW1. And sure enough, a lot of the destroyers were the old type with big funnels, used to be just behind the Guildhall.

We used to get bananas! They brought fruit over from America, and also cigarettes. And cigarettes were … you had camel, Lucky Strike — they were the 2 brands you always remembered. I know there was a shop raided in Derry, because the lady got arrested for selling Lucky Strike and they found something like 100 packets of cigarettes. You bought them for 6p, but she sold them for half a crown. That’s 2 and 6p! Half a crown would be 30p. Buy for 3p, sold for 30p. The excuse she gave was — why had she so many cigarettes? She said her brother was a chain-smoker!

I really enjoyed working for them, but they were hard task-masters! The Americans we saw, they would give a girl anything but a man nothing. 2-3 of them stayed in a house at the top of St James St. and this actually happened. The maid always came down around 11 to the kitchen for tea. And down they came. They were making the beds. And when they came up again, one of the beds was gone. It was found in this house in St James St. They’d stolen the bed!
I said to this American “How can you steal a bed?”
He says “You Irish, when you steal, you steal a razor blade, something small. But when we steal, we steal something big!”

Dances, all entertainment stopped at 11.30. If you went to a dance, it had to be over at 11.20. But the first time I ever hear an airraid siren. There were 3 of us. 2 of my pals were walking down West End park, and the airraid siren went. We turned and run up to one of the lads’ houses. And we were sitting there for a while, and somebody says “Where’s Aiden?”
We went out, and he was that petrified with fear that he couldn’t move. He was standing in the same spot, shaking with fear. Of course, we thought there was really going to be an airraid. But …

I had my meals in the hospital.
The cooks were very good to me. It’s a very small store. There was a girl called Miss Mealy was in charge. She married one of the Americans. It was a chemist, he worked in the hospital. And I had my dinner brought in, covered. I worked next door to the operating theatre. I took the cover off. And you know what it was? 2 fingers that had been amputated from a man next door! They weren’t afraid to play a joke on you.

[The patients] were all Americans. The hospital used to be full, except on the likes of Xmas eve it would be empty. Boxing day it’d be full again.

They used to make their own ice cream. I used to go over and get the ice cream, their own brand.

Actually it was a town of their own. Everything was done there as they would have done in America. I said to this man “how did you get to come over here?”
“I was in the bread line, and one day I was asked if I was interested in going to Ireland.
I said sure.
Can you boil an egg?
Yes.
Can you cook?
No.
No experience in cooking. But you can boil an egg?
And I was sent to Ireland.”
I think he spent his time peeling potatoes!

You could get cigarettes 6p a packet. But I wasn’t all that fussed about their cigarettes. To me the American cigarettes were more like the Turkish. We used to get Turkish cigarettes too during the war. Abdullah, you called them. You’d have bought anything.

It was more like a small American town. The Americans were in charge of it. Dr Fisher was the head of the American, head Doctor in the Hospital. And there was a Doctor Frick. He was of German extraction, believe it or not. And he was sent home. I think he got into the Irish way of working. When an Irishman goes into a shop, you’d have a bit of a craic. According to Fisher, he got into the Irish SLOW way of working.
And the doctors were all very nice, except I didn’t like Fisher. Half the time he wasn’t sober anyway.

They had a canteen and Johnny Opperman said to me on one occasion “I can’t get anyone to do the canteen tonight. Would you do the canteen?”
“What do you do?”
”You can fry them a steak.”
“I know nothing about frying.”
”Don’t you worry. They’ll not be long at telling you! You can serve them with drinks. Plenty of cans, different types, and they’ll ask you the type they want.”
Which they did. And I knew it was an experience. They wouldn’t take a steak unless the blood was running out of it. You talk about “rare steaks”?

James McCafferty — great character. A great musician. James worked with the Americans a while during the war. He was a clerk in the … some dept. when you sign in to work. Time Office. James was in that.
I was asked to organise a table-tennis tournament for the Americans. James and myself, we organised the table tennis. We had quite a big entry. It was played in a room in the hospital. Do you know who were in the final? Me and James!

[Were the hospital patients all wounded in battle?]
Actually, no. There were some of them had maybe … I never saw an injured man in the hospital. They all had some sorta … you might have had the flu or something like that. Kidney trouble. Used to be good craic, the sister used to go round, some of them were in bed for some time and of course they suffered from bed-sores. She used to rub some sort of ointment into their bottoms. This nurse came in, and you’d have heard them say “My turn next! My turn next!”

It was all American. Like a small American town. The civilians worked there, but it was all Americans. They weren’t servicemen, they were technicians. They were the men that were here to build the wharfs, and as I say they built Lisnahalley. Mind you, it was a great job. It was at Lisnahalley the German subs surrendered.

[How long did you work for the Americans?]
It must have been for about a year and a half. That job for Johnny Opperman, he couldn’t get anyone to do it. And he said to me “any chance you could …”
I said “certainly.”
And he said to me “When these Americans go, you’ll be the last man to leave.”
And he was as true as his word. Myself and a man called Brothers were the last 2 to leave.

Johnny Opperman, I remember hearing about him in Dublin. He became quite famous there. He was a Swiss, and his father worked there too.

[When the Americans left, did the British Army take over the barracks?]
The British navy. It was the RNAS.
My cousin who was in the RN was transferred to Ebrington barracks from England. And he was the Medical Officer over there.

The Tennis club went on a huge way during the war. I was never a member of the City of Derry Bridge Club, but it used to meet in the Melville Hotel. But it stopped from 39 to 45. It stopped during the war. Then started again.
Roberts garage was directly opposite the hotel. I’ll tell you who stopped there. He was a well-known film actor, a Hollywood actor called Robert Montgomery was in the USN, and he used to stop in the Melville Hotel.
And during the war there were these, I think Bing Crosby and Bob Hope were here. They came over to entertain the Americans, not the locals. I think it was the Palace Cinema was used generally for the entertainments. I don’t ever remember any entertainments in Ebrington barracks.

[were there Americans in Derry after the RN took over?]
No. They went back to America. They were all civilians. At least, we were told that. And they all went back to America.
You often wonder about them, the people you knew years ago, lose track of altogether.
There’s one man. He was a baker, head of the bakery. Named Murphy. He was famous. For his operations. Apparently he had gone under 113 operations! A very delicate-looking man, but he was in charge of the bakery.

They used to make their own ice cream. Everything was done. I dare say they got their vegetables locally, but I think that was about all. They might have got their meat locally.
I used top go over to the commissary dept to get the likes of ice cream, and you used to carry it in a Dixie — a sort of an oblong … I don’t know if it was tin, what it was made of.
It’s the first time I ever heard of them, when I started working for the Americans. And it was the first time I ever encountered really frozen food.
I had to get a turkey, and I dropped it. I had it in my hands, and … cold is as bad as heat. I dropped it, and it broke. It was frozen. I’d never come across frozen things. I’d heard prior to the war, New Zealand lamb was supposed to be a great delicacy here. Of course, nowadays people wouldn’t eat frozen food. But it was the first time ever I had encountered frozen food.

It was a small store.
They had tinned fruit. If the cooks wanted something, like eggs, butter, whatever. Anything for the kitchen. I was in charge of it in the wee store. I had it.
I can’t remember what I had in the place. But I remember it was broken into.

There was a guy called “Alabam” — he was from Alabama. They were very suspicious of that boy.

My title, when I got that the job, was “surgical supply clerk”. I thought I was gonna help the surgeons in operations. But instead of that I was in charge of stores food supplies to the hospital.

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