General Lee lauds Ulster

No, not THE General Lee of the C.S.A. but his namesake some eighty years later...

US ARMY SAYS FAREWELL TO ULSTER AS LAST AIRFIELD IS HANDED OVER TO RAF
August 7, 1945

Lieutenant-General J C H Lee, Commanding US Forces European Theatre, had sent a message which was read to a dinner given in the American Red Cross Club in Belfast to mark the completion of US Army operations in the province. He had been unable to attend personally as he had met with an accident while returning to England from Potsdam. His message declared: ''America's contribution to the defence of freedom was largely inspired by Ulstermen in response to their clear conscience and in keeping with the highest British tradition.'' The dinner was attended by several notable Ulster citizens including the Northern Ireland Premier and members of the cabinet, five US generals and the chiefs of the British Services, and saw the keys of Langford Lodge, the last US base in the province, handed over to a representative of the RAF. The message continued: ''It has been so fittingly appropriate for so many of the American Forces to be staged though Northern Ireland and to have landed first in Ulster for the crusade against Nazism and its intended enslavement of the world ''Countless families, including my own, left Ulster for America, fearlessly seeking the freedoms they were being denied but which soon followed them and has developed wherever the mother tongue was spoken.'' The connection between Ulster and America has been further strengthened, though our living together, training together,and fighting on to victory in a common cause.''

Sir Basil Brooke said that the men of the US Army would be welcomed back to Northern Ireland with open arms. He said: ''The greatest compliment you can pay is to come back with your wives and children as soon as transport will allow, not merely because you served here, but because you will be coming back to shake hands with your friends.''

News Letter, Saturday, August 7, 2010

As a footnote, the local Ulster TV produced a programme a year or so ago dealing with the closure of Langford Lodge and it showed how some Americans who had served in Ulster did indeed return to Ulster now and again. The programme took us to Florida to meet one of these men and he had the Ulster flag flying from his front porch.