The Vatican Pimpernel (27 page)

In his account of the battle for Rome the historian Raleigh Trevelyan notes:

John Furman held him in great respect, not only for his work but for another interesting facet of his character:

In early 1960 the Church authorities had discussed with O'Flaherty the possibility of appointing him as Papal Nuncio to Tanzania but unfortunately by the middle of the year his health began to fail him and he suffered his first stroke. He spent several weeks in the hospital in Rome before retiring officially from his post in September of that year. He returned to live in Cahersiveen, County Kerry, with his sister Bride Sheehan in that year, though occasionally he left to do some technical, legal and canonical work for the Diocese of Los Angeles. While he was limited to some extent by the effects of the stroke, he was anxious to keep working at all times. By the time he returned to live in Cahersiveen, Danny O'Connor, his former altar boy, was now working in Mrs Sheehan's shop. Their friendship developed further and Danny began to gain a fuller picture of the Monsignor's character, remembering him as ‘a man of strong character and determination who was at the same time very gentle and hated to see even animals hurt.'
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Danny also remembers the Monsignor's interest in gadgetry and recollects gifts of an electric razor (a Remington) and the first transistor radio he had ever seen. As he was somewhat hampered by the effects of his stroke, any time the Monsignor wanted to go on a long journey, Danny drove him. They spent many hours together. The Monsignor never spoke about events in Rome during the War. In his chats with Danny the topics were, invariably, the fortunes of the local and county football teams and the activities of the various characters in the town. Not only did O'Flaherty love football matches but the entire experience before and afterwards, mixing with the crowd, and meeting people he knew, was always a joy to him. He loved the trips to Dublin for matches in Croke Park, meeting people on the train or in the station, meeting others on O'Connell Street or in the Gresham Hotel. It was only in later years, and from others, that Danny began to learn the nature of the work the Monsignor had been involved in while he was living in Rome. For example, he recalls Mrs Sheehan telling him that on a holiday in Rome when the Monsignor was still there she was recognised by a family of Jewish people whom he had helped. They brought her into the jewellery shop which they owned and insisted on presenting her with a piece of her choice.

The producers of the BBC TV programme
This is Your Life
decided in late 1962 to make a programme in tribute to the Monsignor. However, by this stage his health was failing and it was clear that it would be very inadvisable for him to travel over to London. As a result they altered the focus of the programme and decided to feature Sam Derry. He recalls that in February 1963:

In his contribution the Monsignor recalled those difficult times:

A number of the leaders of the organisation were interviewed during the programme including John Furman and Bill Simpson. Then Norman Anderson was brought on to tell his story of his appendectomy. In keeping with the focus of the programme the presenter, the renowned Irish broadcaster Eamonn Andrews, conducted the interview with Anderson as though Sam Derry were the organiser of this entire escapade. This however was too much for the honourable Englishman and when Anderson attempted to thank him, Derry can clearly be heard in the recording, quietly but firmly, placing credit where it was due, that is with Monsignor O'Flaherty. Even though the programme was being broadcast almost twenty years after these events, it is interesting to note that the presenter felt it was imprudent to mention the embassy from which the car was supplied and so used the phrase:

As the programme came towards its end, Andrews advised Sam Derry and the audience,

Sam Derry remembers:

This must have been an emotional gathering for many in the audience, as well as for Derry and O'Flaherty. The vast majority of those who had been helped by the organisation never had the opportunity to meet either Derry or O'Flaherty. Derry was incarcerated in the Vatican and O'Flaherty was lying low for a lot of the time. Those being helped outside Rome had no chance of meeting either of them and only a fraction of those within Rome would have had the opportunity. As a consequence many in the audience now were able to express in person their gratitude to those who had assisted them.

Danny O'Connor recalls driving the Monsignor to Cork for the flight to London. He was very ill at that time but was quite determined that he would join with his friends for one last time. He died on 30 October 1963 and his funeral Mass was celebrated in the Daniel O'Connell Memorial Church the following Sunday. The President, Éamon de Valera, was represented by his ADC, Lieutenant Colonel O'Reilly. The British Military Attaché attended and there were messages of sympathy and wreaths from many of his associates located all over the world. His death was reported in a wide range of national and international newspapers. An obituary notice appeared in the Mungret College Journal written by his friend, the Jesuit Fr Francis Joy.

Around the time of the fiftieth anniversary of the Liberation of Rome, family and friends arranged for a grove of trees to be planted in memory of the Monsignor at the National Park in Killarney in 1994. To mark the occasion the Irish poet, Brendan Kennelly, wrote:

Frank Lewis, in his
Saturday Supplement
programme for Radio Kerry, covered the event. Sam Derry was one of those invited to attend but unfortunately ill health prevented him. For the programme, he was interviewed on the telephone. He recounted many of the episodes in O'Flaherty's life during the War. During the course of the interview it became clear that, in preparation, he had made some notes which he would like to share with the listeners. Clearly the Englishman, who died two years later, was taking this opportunity to pay one last tribute to his colleague:

The British authorities described the activities of the escape organisation in their archives as ‘the British Organisation in Rome for assisting Allied escaped prisoners-of-war, 1944'. During that period there were indeed a number of British officers actively involved, as we have seen. It is notable that these men who were involved in working with O'Flaherty in their own accounts of these times do not use the term ‘British Organisation'. Sam Derry's book is entitled
The Rome Escape Line
, Bill Simpson's is
A Vatican Lifeline
and, similarly, John Furman wrote a book entitled
Be Not Fearful
. The reality is that the organisation operated at two levels. On the one hand O'Flaherty, with the involvement of the British army personnel and his other colleagues, was looking after the welfare of escaped prisoners of war and other Allied Service personnel who were hiding in or around Rome. On the other hand, the Monsignor and his friends and colleagues were looking after civilians who for one reason or another were hiding from the Nazis and Fascists.

In relation to the former group, Derry set up a very detailed administrative structure. He was conscious of the fact that he was expending official government money, mainly British, on these people and he would be asked to account for it in due course. Financial support was being given to those who were housing these service personnel in order to feed and clothe them. Considerable sums of money were being expended as we have seen. Aside from Derry's records, we know a lot about these events because of the war memoirs written by various people. At the time of the Liberation of Rome, the organisation was catering for 3,925 escapees. Of these, 1,695 were British, 896 South African, 429 Russian, 425 Greek, 185 American and the remaining 300 or so from 20 different other countries including 28 citizens of what was then the Irish Free State. Over and above that there were others, numbering many hundreds, whom the organisation had assisted to escape back to Allied Lines or neutral countries. Derry was able to arrange for many of those who were on the run to be picked up off the Adriatic coast by ships. Hundreds of others managed to make their way back to neutral Switzerland through the help of Ristic Cedomir and his colleagues.

As regards the activities on behalf of civilians not nearly as much is known. O'Flaherty was placing these in Vatican property, in religious houses and convents, and indeed in private houses. He had financial resources available to him by way of donations, as we have seen, so it was not necessary to keep ongoing accounts. In any event, ongoing financial support was not that necessary as those who hosted these evaders were willing and able, for the most part, to provide for them. Almost all of the civilians he assisted were Italians and many inevitably were Jewish. The Jewish people in Rome had their own welfare organisation, DELASEM. By the autumn of 1943, in fact, a Capuchin monk, Fr Marie-Benoît, was its President. The monk was modest about his election to this position: ‘I was the only committee member who was sufficiently unknown in the city to be able to go about freely – to the police, to the embassies, to the various Government offices. It was a case of Marie-Benoît, or no one.'
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The Capuchin had come to Rome from Nice where he had previously befriended the Jews. Initially his work was in trying to secure accommodation in Italy for Jews who were leaving Nice for fear of being captured. In September 1943, he extended this work to Italian and Roman Jews and their needs. Of course, he was not nearly as well known in Rome as O'Flaherty and so while the majority of Jews seeking help would have gone to DELASEM, there is no doubt that many went to O'Flaherty. As we have seen, there were about 5,000 Jewish people hidden on papal property either in the Vatican or in the extra-territorial convents and religious houses. It is reasonable to assume that O'Flaherty was involved in ensuring the safety of hundreds if not thousands of these.