10 facts about the belfast blitz 10 facts about the belfast 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. The first attack was against the city's waterworks, which had been attacked in the previous raid. Video, 00:01:38, At least 17 dead in Jakarta fuel storage depot fire, Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine. 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. Even the children of soldiers had not been evacuated, with calamitous results when the married quarters of Victoria Barracks received a direct hit. Belfast is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland . Video, 00:00:26The German bombing of Coventry, Living through the London Blitz. By British mainland blitz standards, casualties were light. In late August the Germans dropped some bombs, apparently by accident, on civilian areas in London. In just these few hours, 430 people were killed and 1,600 were badly injured. In Newtownards, Bangor, Larne, Carrickfergus, Lisburn and Antrim many thousands of Belfast citizens took refuge either with friends or strangers. [17] A stray bomber attacked Derry, killing 15. Thank you. "There are plans for one but there isn't one yet. The use of the Tube system as a shelter saved thousands of lives, and images of Londoners huddled in Underground stations would become an indelible image of British life during World War II. The Germans established that Belfast was defended by only seven anti-aircraft batteries, which made it the most poorly defended city in the United Kingdom. workers. Government apathy, a lack of leadership and a belief the Luftwaffe could not reach Belfast lead to the city lagging behind in terms of basic defences. As more and more people began sleeping on the platforms, however, the government relented and provided bunk beds and bathrooms for the underground communities. Munster, for example, operated by the Belfast Steamship Company, plied between Belfast and Liverpool under the tricolour, until she hit a mine and was sunk outside Liverpool. Neighbouring residential areas were also hit. Strand Public Elementary school, York Road railway station, the adjacent Midland Hotel on York Road, and Salisbury Avenue tram depot were all hit. He successfully busied himself with the task of making Northern Ireland a major supplier of food to Britain in her time of need.[5]. They prevented low-flying aircraft from approaching their targets at optimal altitudes and angles of attack. 8. There was no opposition. Here are 10 facts about both the German Blitzkrieg and the Allied bombing of Germany. Between April 7 and May 6 of that year, Luftwaffe bombers unleashed death and destruction on the cities of Belfast, Bangor, Derry/Londonderry and Newtownards. The Germans expanded the Blitz to other cities in November 1940. The Luftwaffe crews returned to their base in Northern France and reported that Belfast's defences were, "inferior in quality, scanty and insufficient". Video, 00:03:09, Mapping the lives lost in the Belfast Blitz, Russian minister laughed at for Ukraine war claims. Death had to a certain extent been made decent. For 57 nightsuntil November 2more than 1 million bombs were dropped on the capital city. 24 - The tyres Dunlop were invented in Belfast in 1887 25 - The two H&W cranes are named Samson and Goliath 26 - The Albert Clock is Ireland's leaning tower 27 - The mobile defibrillator was invented in Belfast 28 - Belfast's ice hockey team, the Giants, is one of the best in Europe. An air raid shelter on Hallidays Road received a direct hit, killing all those in it. The danger faced in London was greatly increased when the V2 attacks started and the casualty figures mirrored those of the Blitz.. The area included the Harland and Wolff Ltd. Shipyard, the Short and Harland Ltd. Aircraft Factory, and the airfield at RAF Sydenham. The telegram was sent at 4:35am,[citation needed] asking the Irish Taoiseach, amon de Valera for assistance. By 1940, Short and Harland could shelter its entire workforce and Harland and Wolff had provision to shelter 16,000 workers. Unlike N Ireland, the Irish Free State was no longer part of the UK. The first day of the Blitz is remembered as Black Saturday. O'Sullivan reported: "There were many terrible mutilations among both living and dead heads crushed, ghastly abdominal and face wounds, penetration by beams, mangled and crushed limbs etc.". The most significant loss was a 4.5-acre (1.8ha) factory floor for manufacturing the fuselages of Short Stirling bombers. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Several theatres and many cinemas were open, and there were even a few sporting events. Video, 00:00:26, Living through the London Blitz. No searchlights were set up in the city at the time, and these only arrived on 10 April. While Anderson shelters offered good protection from bomb fragments and debris, they were cold and damp and generally ill-suited for prolonged occupancy. 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. The winter of 193940 was severe, but the summer was pleasant, and in their leisure hours Londoners thronged the parks or worked in their gardens. The Belfast blitz is remembered. 7. 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." Video, 00:00:51Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine, Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off. 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". Few children had been successfully evacuated. Train after train and bus after bus were filled with those next in line. Read about our approach to external linking. 29 - Belfast was once bigger than Dublin The "pothole blitz" is a common short-term initiative to combat storm weather damage. ISBN 9781909556324. Since 1:45am all telephones had been cut. [citation needed], Other writers, such as Tony Gray in The Lost Years state that the Germans did follow their radio guidance beams. Another defensive measure employed by the British was barrage balloonslarge oval-shaped unmanned balloons with stabilizing tail finsinstalled in and around major target areas. Half of the city's housing was damaged over the course of all the raids. His death (along with preceding ill-health) came at a bad time and arguably inadvertently caused a leadership vacuum. In the east of the city, Westbourne and Newcastle Streets on the Newtownards Road, Thorndyke Street off the Albertbridge Road and Ravenscroft Avenue were destroyed or damaged. One, Tom Coleman, attended to receive recognition for his colleagues' solidarity at such a critical time. He believed that key targets identified across the city were hit. By 6am, within two hours of the request for assistance, 71 firemen with 13 fire tenders from Dundalk, Drogheda, Dublin, and Dn Laoghaire were on their way to cross the Irish border to assist their Belfast colleagues. Protection of the city fell to seven anti-aircraft batteries of 16 heavy guns and six light guns. 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. A Luftwaffe terror bombing attack on the Spanish city of Guernica (April 26, 1937) during the Spanish Civil War had killed hundreds of civilians and destroyed much of the town. THE BELFAST BLITZ was a series of four air raids over Northern Ireland during the spring of 1941. Around 20,000 people were employed on the site with 35,000 further along in the shipyard. Brooke noted in his diary "I gave him authority as it is obviously a question of expediency". As of October 2020, the population of Belfast is about 350,000 people. [citation needed] However on 20 October 1941 the Garda Sochna captured a comprehensive IRA report on captured member Helena Kelly giving a detailed analysis of damage inflicted on Belfast and highlighting prime targets such as Shortt and Harland aircraft factory and RAF Sydenham, describing them as 'the remaining and most outstanding objects of military significance, as yet unblitzed' and suggesting they should be 'bombed by the Luftwaffe as thoroughly as other areas in recent raids'[28][29], After three days, sometime after 6pm, the fire crews from south of the border began taking up their hoses and ladders to head for home. John Wood Dunlop invented the pneumatic tyre in Belfast in 1887. Again the Irish emergency services crossed the border, this time without waiting for an invitation. For two hours on the first day, 348 German bombers and 617 fighters blasted London. The mass relocation, called Operation Pied Piper, was the largest internal migration in British history. Video, 00:01:41NI WW2 veterans honoured by France, The Spitfire turns 80. The Air Raid Precautions (A.R.P.) From a purely military perspective, the Blitz was entirely counterproductive to the main purpose of Germanys air offensiveto dominate the skies in advance of an invasion of England. On May 11, 1941, Hitler called off the Blitz as he shifted his forces eastward against the Soviet Union. The period of the next moon from say the 7th to the 16th of April may well bring our turn." Dissatisfaction with public shelters also led to another notable development in the East EndMickeys Shelter. The first (April 7 -8), a small attack, was most likely carried out to test the city's defenses. The attack on Coventry was particularly destructive. He gave an interview saying: "the people of Belfast are Irish people too". Some are a total loss; others are already under repair with little outward sign of the damage sustained: Besides Buckingham palace, the chapel of which was wrecked, and Guildhall (the six-centuries old centre of London civic ceremonies and of great architectural beauty), which was destroyed by fire, Kensington palace (the London home of the earl of Athlone, governor general of Canada, and the birthplace of Queen Mary and Queen Victoria), the banqueting hall of Eltham palace (dating from King Johns time and long a royal residence), Lambeth palace (the archbishop of Canterbury), and Holland house (famous for its 17th century domestic architecture, its political associations, and its art treasures), suffered, the latter severely. In every instance, all stepped forward. These private air-raid shelters were Anderson shelters, constructed of sheets of corrugated galvanised iron covered in earth. Blitz Fibre UK Blitz Fibre UK Published Mar 1, 2023 + Follow Fact 1- Small but Mighty . Instead of pressing his advantage, however, Hitler abruptly changed his strategy. to households. Sometimes they were trying establish a blockade by destroying shipping and port facilities, sometimes they were directly attacking Fighter Command ground installations, sometimes they were targeting aircraft factories, and sometimes they were attempting to engage Fighter Command in the skies. Another large-scale attack followed on March 19, when hundreds of houses and shops, many churches, six hospitals, and other public buildings were destroyed or seriously damaged. The working-class living close to industrial centres suffered more than anyone over the course of the four raids. His report concluded with: "a second Belfast would be too horrible to contemplate". I felt outraged, I should have felt sympathy, grief, but instead feelings of revulsion and disgust assailed me. [18], Over 900 people died, 1,500 people were injured, 400 of them seriously. 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. "Through resources such as the Public Records Office and ancestry and genealogy websites I managed to get about 100 photos - which is about one tenth of the victims," he says. In many cases the daily life of the city was able to resume with delays of only hours. Fighter Commands efforts were greatly aided by the lack of any consistent plan of action on the part of the Germans. With Britains powerful Royal Navy controlling the surface approaches in the Channel and the North Sea, it fell to the Luftwaffe to establish dominance of the skies above the battle zone. This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/event/the-Blitz, National Museums Liverpool - Merseyside Maritime Museum - The Blitz, The History Learning Site - The Blitz and World War Two. There are other diarists and narratives. 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. There [is] ground for thinking that the enemy could not easily reach Belfast in force except during a period of moonlight. When the war began, Belfast, like many other cities, adopted the wartime practices of rationing and blackouts. Sir Basil Brooke, the Minister of Agriculture, was the only active minister. Belfast was largely unprepared for an attack of such a scale as 200 German bombers shelled the city on 15 April 1941. Belfast is as worthy a target as Coventry, Birmingham, Bristol or Glasgow.. In early 1941 the Germans launched another wave of attacks, this time focusing on ports. However they were not in a position to communicate with the Germans, and information recovered from Germany after the war showed that the planning of the blitz was based entirely on German aerial reconnaissance. The attacks by both V1's and V2's only ended as the Allies advanced up through Western Europe . 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. After the bombing began on September 7, local authorities urged displaced people to take shelter at South Hallsville School. 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. Video, Russian minister laughed at for Ukraine war claims, US-made cheese can be called 'gruyere' - court, AOC under investigation for Met Gala dress, Saving Private Ryan actor Tom Sizemore dies at 61, The children left behind in Cuba's exodus, Walkie Talkie architect Rafael Violy dies aged 78, Alex Murdaugh's legal troubles are far from over, Mother who killed her five children euthanised. Belfast was Ireland's industrial home, famous for tobacco, rope-making, linen, and ship-building, which made it the powerhouse it was. A victory for the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain would indeed have exposed Great Britain to invasion and occupation. The next took place on Easter Tuesday, 15 April 1941, when 200 Luftwaffe bombers attacked military and manufacturing targets in the city of Belfast. The Belfast Blitz consisted of four German air raids on strategic targets in the city of Belfast in Northern Ireland, in April and May 1941 during World War II, causing high casualties. Six Heinkel He 111 bombers, from Kampfgruppe 26, flying at 7,000 feet (2,100m), dropped incendiaries, high explosive and parachute-mines. Hundreds of incendiary and many high-explosive bombs were dropped, doing little material damage but causing many casualties. As the UK was preparing for the conflict, the factories and shipyards of Belfast were gearing up. The most heavily bombed cities outside London were Liverpool and Birmingham. MacDermott would be proved right. The attacks were authorized by Germanys chancellor, Adolf Hitler, after the British carried out a nighttime air raid on Berlin. The Premier Online Military History Magazine, Re-printed with permission fromWartimeNI.com. In the course of four Luftwaffe attacks on the nights of 7-8 April, 15-16 April, 4-5 May and 5-6 May 1941, lasting ten hours in total, 1,100 people died, over 56,000 houses in the city were damaged (53 per cent of its entire housing stock), roughly 100,000 made temporarily homeless and 20 million damage was caused to property at wartime values. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. The Belfast Blitz was a series of devastating Luftwaffe air raids that took place in Northern Ireland during the Second World War. The bombing of British cities - Swansea, Belfast, Glasgow Before the war broke out, civilians had been issued with gas masks and Anderson shelters, which people were encouraged to build at the. Apart from those on London, this was the greatest loss of life in any night raid during the Blitz. Similar initiatives bearing the same name were ordered in the past decade by former mayors Libby . The success of Mickeys Shelter was another factor that urged the government to improve existing deep shelters and to create new ones. Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Historical Topics Series 2, The Belfast Blitz, 2007, This page was last edited on 31 January 2023, at 20:18. On 28 April 1943, six members of the Government threatened to resign, forcing him from office. The couple, who ran a children's home, stayed with Anna's parents, William and Harriette Denby, and her sisters, Dot and Isa, at Evelyn Gardens, off the Cavehill Road, in the north of the city. The M.V. NI WW2 veterans honoured by France. Belfast, Irish Bal Feirste, city, district, and capital of Northern Ireland, on the River Lagan, at its entrance to Belfast Lough (inlet of the sea). Unauthorized use and/or duplication of any material on this site without expressand written permission from the author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Another claim was that the Catholic population in general and the IRA in particular guided the bombers. Corrections? Gring had insisted that such an attack was an impossibility, because of the citys formidable air defense network. It is situated at on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. Video, 00:01:41, The German bombing of Coventry. Subs offer. At the core of this book is a compelling account of the Luftwaffe's blitz on Belfast in April-May 1941. The government announced that 77 people had died, but for years local residents insisted the toll was much higher. The raid so infuriated Hitler that he ordered the Luftwaffe to shift its attacks from RAF sites to London and other cities. On September 10, 1940, the school was flattened by a German bomb, and people huddled in the basement were killed or trapped in the rubble. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Video, 00:01:03One-minute World News, Isabel Oakeshott: Why I leaked Hancock's messages. 2023 BBC. The shipyard was among the largest in the world, producing merchant vessels and military shipping. Over 20 hospitals were hit, among them the London (many times), St. Thomass, St. Bartholomews, and the childrens hospital in Great Ormond st., as well as Chelsea hospital, the home for the aged and invalid soldiers, built by Wren. On July 16, 1940, Hitler issued a directive ordering the preparation and, if necessary, execution of Operation Sea Lion, the amphibious invasion of Great Britain. Belfast was not properly prepared for the attacks, with too few shelters and not enough anti-aircraft guns. At 4:15am John MacDermott, the Minister of Public Security, managed to contact Basil Brooke (then Agriculture Minister), seeking permission to seek help from the Irish government. [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. Video, 00:01:23Watch: Matt Hancock message row in 83 seconds, One-minute World News. Richard Dawson Bates was the Home Affairs Minister. The fourth and final Belfast raid took place on the following night, 56 May. 7. James Craig, Lord Craigavon, had been Prime Minister of Northern Ireland since its inception in 1921 up until his death in 1940. No attendant nurse had soothed the last moments of these victims; no gentle reverent hand had closed their eyes or crossed their hands. Authorities quickly implemented plans to protect Londoners from bombs and to house those left homeless by the attacks. The first was on the night of 78 April 1941, a small attack which probably took place only to test Belfast's defences. . This amounted to nearly half of Britains total civilian deaths for the whole war. Emma Duffin, a nurse at the Queen's University Hospital, (who previously served during the Great War), who kept a diary; Although casualties were heavy, at no time did they approach the estimates that had been made before the war, and only a fraction of the available hospital and ambulance capacity was ever utilized. At the start of World War Two, Belfast had considered itself safe from an aerial attack, as the city's leaders believed that Belfast was simply too far away for Luftwaffe bombers to reach - assuming that they would have to fly from Nazi Germany. These balloons, the largest of which were some 60 feet (18 metres) long, were essentially an airspace denial tool. While the balloons themselves were an obvious deterrent, they were anchored to the ground by steel tethers that were strong enough to damage or destroy any aircraft that flew into them. 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. Video, 00:00:46, Hong Kong skyscraper fire seen on city's skyline, Watch: Matt Hancock message row in 83 seconds. In the first days of the Blitz, a tragic incident in the East End stoked public anger over the governments shelter policy. department distributed more than two million Anderson shelters (named after Sir John Anderson, head of the A.R.P.) During what was known as the "Belfast Blitz," 1,000 people were killed by bombs dropped by the Nazis in 1941 during the Second World War. For more than six months, German planes had flown reconnaissance flights over Belfast. Death should be dignified, peaceful; Hitler had made even death grotesque. "They have never been published before, never seen the light of day.". The Battle of Britain The wartime output of the yard included aircraft carriers HMS Formidable and HMS Unicorn, cruisers such as HMS Belfast and more than 130 other vessels used by the Royal Navy. The Blitz began at around 4 pm on September 7, 1940, when German bomber planes first appeared over London. Under the leadership of Prime Minister John Miller Andrews, Northern Ireland remained unprepared. By 4 am the entire city seemed to be in flames. [13] However at the time Lord Craigavon, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland since its inception in 1921, said: "Ulster is ready when we get the word and always will be." Has it taken bursting bombs to remind the people of this little country that they have common tradition, a common genius and a common home? A Raid From Above Over the course of three days, some 1.5 million civiliansthe overwhelming majority of them childrenwere transported from urban centres to rural areas that were believed to be safe. We were in exceptional good humour knowing that we were going for a new target, one of Englands last hiding places, said one pilot of the raid. Because basements, a logical destination in the event of an air raid, were a relative rarity in Britain, the A.R.P. O'Sullivan felt that the whole civil defence sector was utterly overwhelmed. Belfast Blitz: Marking the lost lives 80 years on. THE BELFAST BLITZ was a series of four air raids over Northern Ireland during the spring of 1941. Still, many in Northern Ireland believed no Luftwaffe attack would come. That evening over 150 bombers left their bases in northern France and the Netherlands and headed for Belfast. Beginning in September 1940, the Blitz was an aerial bombing campaign conducted by the Luftwaffe against British cities. 9. After the war, when the first girl from the home got married Billy gave her away, having lost his only daughter.