10 facts about the belfast blitz

These shelters were vital as these factories had many employees working late at night and early in the morning when Luftwaffe attacks were likely. In The Blitz: Belfast in the War Years, Brian Barton wrote: "Government Ministers felt with justification, that the Germans were able to use the unblacked out lights in the south to guide them to their targets in the North." The raid so infuriated Hitler that he ordered the Luftwaffe to shift its attacks from RAF sites to London and other cities. They are sleeping in the same sheugh (ditch), below the same tree or in the same barn. The "Hiram Plan" initiated by Dawson Bates, the Home Affairs Minister, had failed to materialise. This hub of industry and trade represented a legitimate military target for the Germans, and some 25,000 bombs were dropped on the Port of London alone. The next took. The government announced that 77 people had died, but for years local residents insisted the toll was much higher. The 2017 film Zoo depicts an air raid during the Belfast Blitz. You can see the difference in those letters - post-Blitz is very much a grieving tone. Outside of London, with some 900 dead, this was the greatest loss of life in a night raid during the Blitz. Belfast made a considerable contribution towards the Allied war effort, producing many naval ships, aircraft and munitions; therefore, the city was deemed a suitable bombing target by the Luftwaffe. For two hours, 348 German bombers and 617 fighters targeted the city, dropping high-explosive bombs as well as incendiary devices. He gave an interview saying: "the people of Belfast are Irish people too". The danger faced in London was greatly increased when the V2 attacks started and the casualty figures mirrored those of the Blitz.. Find out how it began, what the Germans hoped to achieve and how it severe it was, plus we visit nine places affected by the attacks. He believed that this was being done already but it was inevitable that a certain number of civilian lives should be lost in the course of heavy bombing from the air". 11 churches, two hospitals and two schools were destroyed. 2023 BBC. The Belfast blitz. The first (April 7 -8), a small attack, was most likely carried out to test the city's defenses. Fiber-optic cables are made from thin strings of glass and are generally about one-tenth the width of a . Since 1:45am all telephones had been cut. Subs offer. Although there were some comparatively slight raids later in 1941, the most notable one on July 27, the May 1011 attack marked the conclusion of the Blitz. And even then, Westminster stated it was not ample provision; Stormont still worried about the costs to industry. Maps and documents uncovered at Gatow Airfield near Berlin in 1945 showed the level of detail involved. [12], There was little preparation for the conflict with Germany. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of any material on this site without expressand written permission from the author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom . In the subsequent years, this lack of preparation has often dominated the discussion about the Belfast Blitz, but a new project led by Alan Freeburn from the Northern Ireland War Memorial aims to shift the focus back to the ordinary men, women and children who lost their lives. He was succeeded by J. M. Andrews, then 69 years old, who was no more capable of dealing with the situation than his predecessor. [27] One widespread criticism was that the Germans located Belfast by heading for Dublin and following the railway lines north. The sense of relative calm was abruptly shattered in the first week of September 1940, when the war came to London in earnest. London was bombed for 57 consecutive nights from 7 September 1940 Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Video, 00:01:15The Belfast blitz, Up Next. During the whole period, although the citys operation was disrupted in ways that were sometimes serious, no essential service was more than temporarily impaired. This raid overall caused relatively little damage, but a lot was revealed about Belfast's inadequate defences. Many of those who died as a result of enemy action lived in tightly packed, poorly constructed, terraced housing. For 57 nightsuntil November 2more than 1 million bombs were dropped on the capital city. The bombs caused death and destruction across the city, affecting those of all religions and political backgrounds. All were exhausted. However that attack was not an error. By 4 am the entire city seemed to be in flames. Despite the attacks, Belfast continued to contribute to the war effort, and within less than a year the city witnessed the arrival of thousands of American troops. The firm had produced Handley Page Hereford bombers since 1936. But the RAF had not responded. In the New Lodge area people had taken refuge in a mill. Video, 00:01:09The Spitfire turns 80, The German bombing of Coventry. Gring had insisted that such an attack was an impossibility, because of the citys formidable air defense network. [17] A stray bomber attacked Derry, killing 15. [9], War materials and food were sent by sea from Belfast to Great Britain, some under the protection of the neutral Irish tricolour. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. On the 60th anniversary of the Belfast Blitz, Luftwaffe Pilot Gerhardt Becker spoke to BBC Northern Ireland about his mission over Belfast in 1941. Many people who were dug out of the rubble alive had taken shelter underneath their stairs and were fortunate that their homes had not received a direct hit or caught fire. His reply was: "We here today are in a state of war and we are prepared with the rest of the United Kingdom and Empire to face all the responsibilities that imposes on the Ulster people. The government was blamed by some for inadequate precautions. From September 1940 until May 1941, Britain was subjected to sustained enemy bombing campaign, now known as the Blitz. [6] It was MacDermott who sent a telegram to de Valera seeking assistance. That contrasts with the figure that is often given of more than 900 killed on Easter Tuesday alone. (Some authors count this as the second raid of four). About 1,000 people were killed and bombs hit half of the houses in the city, leaving 100,000 people homeless. parliament: "if the government realized 'that these fast bombers can come to Northern Ireland in two and three quarter hours'". Video, 00:00:46, Hong Kong skyscraper fire seen on city's skyline, Watch: Matt Hancock message row in 83 seconds. They all say the same thing, that the government is no good. A short respite followed, until a widespread series of night raids on April 7 included some targets in the London area. Another attacked Bangor, killing five. On August 25 the British retaliated by launching a bombing raid on Berlin. The Belfast blitz devastated a city that up until 1941 had remained unscathed during World War Two. It is believed that the wartime government covered up the death toll because of concern over the effect it would have had on public morale. The attacks were authorized by Germanys chancellor, Adolf Hitler, after the British carried out a nighttime air raid on Berlin. Belfast was not properly prepared for the attacks, with too few shelters and not enough anti-aircraft guns. Instead of pressing his advantage, however, Hitler abruptly changed his strategy. The Germans expanded the Blitz to other cities in November 1940. Although it arrested German spies that its police and military intelligence services caught, the state never broke off diplomatic relations with Axis nations: the German Legation in Dublin remained open throughout the war. Some 27 percent of Londoners utilized private shelters, such as Anderson shelters, while the remaining 64 percent spent their evenings on duty with some branch of the civil defense or remained in their own homes. Belfast was Ireland's industrial home, famous for tobacco, rope-making, linen, and ship-building, which made it the powerhouse it was. In early 1941 the Germans launched another wave of attacks, this time focusing on ports. Of the churches, besides St. Pauls cathedral, where at one time were five unexploded bombs in the immediate vicinity and the roof of which was pierced by another that exploded and shattered the high altar to fragments, those damaged were Westminster abbey, St. Margarets Westminster, Southwark cathedral; fifteen Wren churches (including St. Apart from those on London, this was the greatest loss of life in any night raid during the Blitz. For eight months the Luftwaffe dropped bombs on London and other strategic cities across Britain. Read about our approach to external linking. By 1941, production of the Short Stirling Bomber and the Short Sunderland Flying Boat was underway. [25] He followed up with his "they are our people" speech, made in Castlebar, County Mayo, on Sunday 20 April 1941 (Quoted in the Dundalk Democrat dated Saturday 26 April 1941): In the past, and probably in the present, too, a number of them did not see eye to eye with us politically, but they are our people we are one and the same people and their sorrows in the present instance are also our sorrows; and I want to say to them that any help we can give to them in the present time we will give to them whole-heartedly, believing that were the circumstances reversed they would also give us their help whole-heartedly Frank Aiken, the Irish Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures was in Boston, Massachusetts at the time. The past doesnt change, its just over.. His death (along with preceding ill-health) came at a bad time and arguably inadvertently caused a leadership vacuum. Video, 00:03:09Mapping the lives lost in the Belfast Blitz, Belfast City Hall in darkness as the Blitz is marked, Street fighting in Bakhmut but Russia not in control, Russian minister laughed at for Ukraine war claims. Accounts differ as to when flares were dropped to light up the city. This amounted to nearly half of Britains total civilian deaths for the whole war. The M.V. Compared to other cities, Belfast was virtually undefended. Nevertheless, for all the hardship it caused, the campaign proved to be a strategic mistake by the Germans. Mr Freeburn set out to find out more about those who died, their personal stories and the tales of those left behind. On Nov. 30, 1940, a lone Luftwaffe plane flew across the Ards Peninsula unobserved and reported back to Berlin. There were few bomb shelters. Video, 00:00:26, Living through the London Blitz. [26], Initial German radio broadcasts celebrated the raid. In just these few hours, 430 people were killed and 1,600 were badly injured. Eduard Hempel, the German Minister to Ireland, visited the Irish Ministry for External Affairs to offer sympathy and attempt an explanation. When Germany bombed Belfast as part of the Blitz during World War Two, the massive air raids left more than a thousand people dead. However, the Docklands was also a densely populated and impoverished area where thousands of working-class Londoners lived in run-down housing. St George's Church in High Street was damaged by fire. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. "But there is no such equivalent in Belfast. ISBN 9781909556324. The devastation was so great that the Germans coined a new verb, to coventrate, to describe it. Everything on wheels is being pressed into service. In Newtownards, Bangor, Larne, Carrickfergus, Lisburn and Antrim many thousands of Belfast citizens took refuge either with friends or strangers. Liverpool, for example, protected by 100 guns. Belfast was largely unprepared for an attack of such a scale as 200 German bombers shelled the city on 15 April 1941. Contributions poured in from every part of the world in such profusion that on October 28 its scope was extended to cover the whole of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. Given Belfast's geographic position, it was considered to be at the fringe of the operational range of German bombers and hence there was no provision for night-fighter aerial cover. Many bodies and body parts could not be identified. Brooke noted in his diary "I gave him authority as it is obviously a question of expediency". Humanity knows no borders, no politics, no differences of religious belief. Nurse Emma Duffin, who had served in World War I, contrasted death in that conflict with what she saw:.mw-parser-output .templatequote{overflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 40px}.mw-parser-output .templatequote .templatequotecite{line-height:1.5em;text-align:left;padding-left:1.6em;margin-top:0}. The "pothole blitz" is a common short-term initiative to combat storm weather damage. In 1995, on the 50th anniversary of the ending of the Second World War, an invitation was received by the Dublin Fire Brigade for any survivors of that time to attend a function at Hillsborough Castle and meet Prince Charles. Very early in the German bombing campaign, it became clear that the preparationshowever extensive they seemed to have beenwere inadequate. Belfast is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland. When the house was hit William, Harriette, Dorothy, 36-year-old Dot and 41-year-old Isa were all killed. Dissatisfaction with public shelters also led to another notable development in the East EndMickeys Shelter. When the Blitz began, the government enforced a blackout in an attempt to make targeting more difficult for German night bombers. Video, 00:01:38At least 17 dead in Jakarta fuel storage depot fire, Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine. The famous Harland and Wolff cranes are called Samson and Goliath. Even the children of soldiers had not been evacuated, with calamitous results when the married quarters of Victoria Barracks received a direct hit. Raids between February and May pounded Plymouth, Portsmouth, Bristol, Newcastle upon Tyne, and Hull in England; Swansea in Wales; Belfast in Northern Ireland; and Clydeside in Scotland. He was asked, in the N.I. Many of the surface shelters built by local authorities were flimsy and provided little protection from bombs, falling debris, and fire. The area included the Harland and Wolff Ltd. Shipyard, the Short and Harland Ltd. Aircraft Factory, and the airfield at RAF Sydenham. The Belfast Blitzconsisted of four German air raids on strategic targets in the city of Belfastin Northern Ireland, in April and May 1941 during World War II, causing high casualties. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. 2. Belfast Blitz: Marking the lost lives 80 years on A force of 180 bombers dropped 750 bombs - including 203 tonnes of high explosives - and 29,000 incendiaries over a five-hour period. VideoRussian minister laughed at for Ukraine war claims, The children left behind in Cuba's mass exodus, Xi Jinping's power grab - and why it matters, Snow, Fire and Lights: Photos of the Week. By the time the raid was over, at least 744 people had lost their lives, including some living in places such as Newtownards, Bangor and Londonderry. Yesterday for once the people of Ireland were united under the shadow of a national blow. One of every six Londoners was made homeless at some point during the Blitz, and at least 1.1 million houses and flats were damaged or destroyed. The Germans, however, saw Belfast as a legitimate target due to the shipyards in the city that were contributing to Britain's war efforts. The most significant loss was a 4.5-acre (1.8ha) factory floor for manufacturing the fuselages of Short Stirling bombers. Victory for the Royal Air Forces (RAFs) Fighter Command blocked this possibility and, in fact, created the conditions for Britains survival and the eventual destruction of the Third Reich. A modern bomb census has attempted to pinpoint the location of every bomb dropped on London during the Blitz, and the visualization of that data makes clear how thoroughly the Luftwaffe saturated the city. There [is] ground for thinking that the enemy could not easily reach Belfast in force except during a period of moonlight. Major O'Sullivan reported that "In the heavily 'blitzed' areas people ran panic-stricken into the streets and made for the open country. continuous trek to railway stations. workers. In each station volunteers were asked for, as it was beyond their normal duties. Only four were known still to be alive. [citation needed]. These balloons, the largest of which were some 60 feet (18 metres) long, were essentially an airspace denial tool. Fortunately, the railway telegraphy link between Belfast and Dublin was still operational. Because basements, a logical destination in the event of an air raid, were a relative rarity in Britain, the A.R.P. The most heavily bombed cities outside London were Liverpool and Birmingham. In the first days of the Blitz, a tragic incident in the East End stoked public anger over the governments shelter policy. So had Clydeside until recently. Several theatres and many cinemas were open, and there were even a few sporting events. Revised estimates made decades later indicated that close to 600 men, women, and children had been killed in the bombing. The success of Mickeys Shelter was another factor that urged the government to improve existing deep shelters and to create new ones. Here are 10 facts about both the German Blitzkrieg and the Allied bombing of Germany. devised the Morrison shelter (named for Home Secretary Herbert Stanley Morrison) as an alternative to the Anderson shelter. That evening over 150 bombers left their bases in northern France and the Netherlands and headed for Belfast. This view was probably influenced by the decision of the IRA Army Council to support Germany. High explosives were dropped. No attendant nurse had soothed the last moments of these victims; no gentle reverent hand had closed their eyes or crossed their hands. The telegram was sent at 4:35am,[citation needed] asking the Irish Taoiseach, amon de Valera for assistance. 29 - Belfast was once bigger than Dublin The raids on London primarily targeted the Docklands area of the East End. By the middle of December it had reached nearly 1,700,000 (adjusted for inflation, this was the equivalent of roughly 100 million in 2020). It remains a high death toll - a shocking number of people killed in just a few weeks. . 1. The Blitz began at around 4 pm on September 7, 1940, when German bomber planes first appeared over London. 3. By Jonathan Bardon. When a bombing raid was imminent, air-raid sirens were set off to sound a warning. Men from the South worked with men from the North in the universal cause of the relief of suffering. The database Mr Freeburn has compiled is, he believes, the most accurate list of those killed and includes 222 children aged 16 or under. By mid-September 1940 the RAF had won the Battle of Britain, and the invasion was postponed indefinitely. On the ground, there were only 22 anti-aircraft guns positioned around the city, six light and 16 heavy, and on the first night only seven of these were manned and operational. The most heavily bombed area was that which lay between York Street and the Antrim Road, north of the city centre. THE BELFAST BLITZ was a series of four air raids over Northern Ireland during the spring of 1941. An air raid shelter on Hallidays Road received a direct hit, killing all those in it. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Again the Irish emergency services crossed the border, this time without waiting for an invitation. A victory for the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain would indeed have exposed Great Britain to invasion and occupation. Emma Duffin, a nurse at the Queen's University Hospital, (who previously served during the Great War), who kept a diary; In total over 1,300 houses were demolished, some 5,000 badly damaged, nearly 30,000 slightly damaged while 20,000 required "first aid repairs".[3]. Authorities had noted Queens Island in the cityas a vulnerable point as early as 1929. [citation needed], Other writers, such as Tony Gray in The Lost Years state that the Germans did follow their radio guidance beams. The youngest victim was just six-weeks-old. These shelters, made of corrugated steel, were designed to be dug into a garden and then covered with dirt. An earlier flight on Oct. 18 allowed the crew to plot several targets in the city. The 'Blitz' - from the German term Blitzkrieg ('lightning war') - was the sustained campaign of aerial bombing attacks on British towns and cities carried out by the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) from September 1940 until May 1941. After the first week of September, although night bombing on a large scale continued, the large mass attacks by day, which had proved so costly to the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain, were replaced by smaller parties coming over in successive waves. The first deliberate raid took place on the night of 7 April. Poor visibility on the night meant that the accuracy of the bombers was hampered and the explosives were dropped on densely populated areas of Belfast. Some had received food, others were famished. What happened in 1941 changed the city forever. After his optician business was destroyed by a bomb, Mickey Davies led an effort to organize the Spitalfield Shelter. The period of the next moon from say the 7th to the 16th of April may well bring our turn." Lecturer of History, Queens University, Belfast, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Belfast_Blitz&oldid=1136721396, During the war years, Belfast shipyards built or converted over 3,000 navy vessels, repaired more than 22,000 others and launched over half a million tons of merchant shipping over 140. Moya Woodside[23] noted in her diary: "Evacuation is taking on panic proportions. Belfast is located on the island of Ireland. The offensive came to be called the Blitz after the German word blitzkrieg ("lightning war"). "There will always be people who will slip through the net but I am able to say at least 987 were killed across all raids.". It targeted the docks. John Wood Dunlop invented the pneumatic tyre in Belfast in 1887. The night raids on London continued into 1941, and January 1011 saw exceptionally heavy attacks; the Mansion House (residence of the lord mayor of London) and the Bank of England narrowly avoided destruction when a bomb fell directly between them, creating a gigantic crater. By the end of the attacks, between 900 and 1,000 people were dead and thousands more were injured, homeless and displaced. At the time of the first attack in April 1941, there were no operational searchlights, too few anti-aircraft batteries and scarcely enough public air raid shelters for a quarter of the population. In every instance, all stepped forward. Since most casualties were caused by falling masonry rather than by blast, they provided effective shelter for those who had them. It was the worst wartime raid outside of London in the UK. Many "arrived in Fermanagh having nothing with them only night shirts". Anna and Billy returned to England and continued running the children's home. Belfast was the birthplace of the RMS Titanic, the world' most famous ship which, when it was constructed in the early 1900s, was longer than the height of the world's tallest building at 882 feet and six inches in length. It would appear that Adolf Hitler, in view of de Valera's negative reaction, was concerned that de Valera and Irish American politicians might encourage the United States to enter the war. Around 20,000 people were employed on the site with 35,000 further along in the shipyard. Added to this was the repair and refitting of 22,000 more vessels. (Great War casualties) had died in hospital beds, their eyes had been reverently closed, their hands crossed to their breasts. Video, 00:01:37Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off, Tear gas fired at Greece train crash protesters. Sixty years after the Germans bombed Belfast in World War II BBC News Online looks back and remembers the anniversary of the blitz. As of October 2020, the population of Belfast is about 350,000 people. That night almost 300 people, many from the Protestant Shankill area, took refuge in the Clonard Monastery in the Catholic Falls Road. I was definitely one of the first over the target and as I flew in there was no great defence because there were not a great many aircraft over the target at that point, recalled Becker. Their Chain Home early warning radar, the most advanced system in the world, gave Fighter Command adequate notice of where and when to direct their forces, and the Luftwaffe never made a concerted effort to neutralize it. Death had to a certain extent been made decent. Video, 00:01:41, The German bombing of Coventry. At the core of this book is a compelling account of the Luftwaffe's blitz on Belfast in April-May 1941. Roads out of town are still one stream of cars, with mattresses and bedding tied on top. The ill-fated ship was built in the city in 1912, and to this day, there is a museum dedicated to its building and the lives of all of those on board. Richard Dawson Bates was the Home Affairs Minister. Read about our approach to external linking. Video, 00:02:12, Isabel Oakeshott: Why I leaked Hancock's messages, Tears of relief after man found in Amazon jungle. Air-raid damage was widespread; hospitals, clubs, churches, museums, residential and shopping streets, hotels, public houses, theatres, schools, monuments, newspaper offices, embassies, and the London Zoo were bombed. In late August the Germans dropped some bombs, apparently by accident, on civilian areas in London. Author Lawrence H. Dawson detailed the damage to Londons historic buildings for the 1941 Britannica Book of the Year: The following curtailed list identifies some of the better known places in inner London that have been damaged by enemy action. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Yesterday the hand of good-fellowship was reached across the Border. In spite of blackouts, ubiquitous shelters and sandbags, the visible effects of mass evacuation, the presence of A.R.P. The fall of France in June, 1940, enabled the Luftwaffe to establish airfields across the north of the country, leaving Ulster within reach of bombers.

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