10 facts about the belfast blitz 10 facts about the belfast blitz

[9], War materials and food were sent by sea from Belfast to Great Britain, some under the protection of the neutral Irish tricolour. 10 Facts about Belfast City. The M.V. Just before Easter 1941, Anna and Billy Burdett and their 12-year-old daughter, Dorothy, returned to Belfast from England to visit Anna's family. [26], Initial German radio broadcasts celebrated the raid. In the first days of the Blitz, a tragic incident in the East End stoked public anger over the governments shelter policy. parliament: "if the government realized 'that these fast bombers can come to Northern Ireland in two and three quarter hours'". [citation needed]. It is perhaps true that many saved their lives running but I am afraid a much greater number lost them or became casualties."[20]. The telegram was sent at 4:35am,[citation needed] asking the Irish Taoiseach, amon de Valera for assistance. Maps and documents uncovered at Gatow Airfield near Berlin in 1945 showed the level of detail involved. 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). What's the least amount of exercise we can get away with? Belfast was largely unprepared for an attack of such a scale as 200 German bombers shelled the city on 15 April 1941. Just eight days earlier, eight planes destroyed the aircraft fuselage factory and damaged the docks, with 15 people ultimately killed as a result of that raid. The refugees looked dazed and horror stricken and many had neglected to bring more than a few belongings Any and every means of exit from the city was availed of and the final destination appeared to be a matter of indifference. Belfast suffered a series of bombing raids in the spring of 1941, which became known as the 'Blitz of Belfast'. "These people are often seen as a statistic but they were human beings, people who lived and grew up in - or moved to - Belfast and died in Belfast," Mr Freeburn, the museum's collections officer, says. 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 raids on London primarily targeted the Docklands area of the East End. 29 - Belfast was once bigger than Dublin James Craig, Lord Craigavon, had been Prime Minister of Northern Ireland since its inception in 1921 up until his death in 1940. The first (April 7 -8), a small attack, was most likely carried out to test the city's defenses. Mr Freeburn set out to find out more about those who died, their personal stories and the tales of those left behind. The Belfast blitz is remembered. Your donations help keep MHN afloat. The first attack was against the city's waterworks, which had been attacked in the previous raid. From September 1940 until May 1941, Britain was subjected to sustained enemy bombing campaign, now known as the Blitz. 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 fourth and final Belfast raid took place on the following night, 56 May. The past doesnt change, its just over.. Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom . An air raid shelter on Hallidays Road received a direct hit, killing all those in it. The A.R.P. 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. Video, 00:00:51Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine, Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off. 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. The South Hallsville School disaster prompted Londoners, especially residents of the East End, to find safer shelters, on their own if necessary. The offensive came to be called the Blitz after the German word blitzkrieg ("lightning war"). William Joyce "Lord Haw-Haw" announced that "The Fhrer will give you time to bury your dead before the next attack Tuesday was only a sample." On November 14, 1940, a German force of more than 500 bombers destroyed much of the old city centre and killed more than 550 people. Also, on Queens Island, stood the Short and Harland Ltd. Aircraft Factory. Looking back on the Belfast Blitz, Oberleutnant Becker signed off with the following words: A war is the worst thing that can happen to Mankind. The Belfast blitz. The seeming normality of life on the Home Front was shattered in 1944 when the first of the V1's landed. Video, 00:00:26The German bombing of Coventry, Living through the London Blitz. Apart from those on London, this was the greatest loss of life in any night raid during the Blitz. Video, 00:01:37, Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off, Tear gas fired at Greece train crash protesters. ", Dawson Bates, the Home Affairs Minister, apparently refused to reply to army correspondence and when the Ministry of Home Affairs was informed by imperial defence experts in 1939 that Belfast was regarded as "a very definite German objective", little was done outside providing shelters in the Harbour area.[14]. "There are plans for one but there isn't one yet. During the first year of the war, behind-the-lines conditions prevailed in London. When the house was hit William, Harriette, Dorothy, 36-year-old Dot and 41-year-old Isa were all killed. "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. Another defensive measure employed by the British was barrage balloonslarge oval-shaped unmanned balloons with stabilizing tail finsinstalled in and around major target areas. Government ministers in Northern Ireland began to realise the Luftwaffe may launch an attack, but it was too little, too late. But Mr Freeburn's research casts doubt on this. The RAFs Spitfire was a superlative fighter, and it was not always easy for the Germans to distinguish it from the slightly less maneuverable but much more numerous Hurricanes. In early 1941 the Germans launched another wave of attacks, this time focusing on ports. At 10:40 on the evening of Easter Tuesday 1941 air raid sirens sounded across Belfast, sending people across the city scrambling for safety - in one of the 200 public shelters in the city or the thousands of shelters or other "safe" spaces in private homes. 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". Video, 00:02:54, At least 17 dead in Jakarta fuel storage depot fire. the Blitz, (September 7, 1940May 11, 1941), intense bombing campaign undertaken by Nazi Germany against the United Kingdom during World War II. 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. Video, 00:01:23Watch: Matt Hancock message row in 83 seconds, One-minute World News. 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. As well as photographs, the Luftwaffe gathered information on landmarks, potential targets and defences or lack thereof. Under the leadership of Prime Minister John Miller Andrews, Northern Ireland remained unprepared. . By 1941, production of the Short Stirling Bomber and the Short Sunderland Flying Boat was underway. The city covers a total area of 132.5 square kilometers (51 square miles). 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. By then 250 firemen from Clydeside had arrived. However Belfast was not mentioned again by the Nazis. At the beginning of the Blitz, British ack ack gunners struggled to inflict meaningful damage on German bombers, but later developments in radar guidance greatly improved the effectiveness of both antiaircraft artillery and searchlights. "Liverpool, Clydebank and Portsmouth all have a memorial to their victims of the Blitz. People are leaving from all parts of town and not only from the bombed areas. But the raid of 15-16 April - the Easter Tuesday Raid - was on another scale. 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. The Blitz began at about 4:00 in the afternoon on September 7, 1940, when German planes appeared over London. Belfast, the city with the highest population density in the UK at the time, also had the lowest proportion of public air-raid shelters. 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. Please select which sections you would like to print: Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Elsewhere in the skies over Britain, Nazi official Rudolph Hess chose that same evening to parachute into Scotland on a quixotic and wholly unauthorized peace mission. Read about our approach to external linking. 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. By the end of the attacks, between 900 and 1,000 people were dead and thousands more were injured, homeless and displaced. department distributed more than two million Anderson shelters (named after Sir John Anderson, head of the A.R.P.) Authorities quickly implemented plans to protect Londoners from bombs and to house those left homeless by the attacks. 2. Since 1:45am all telephones had been cut. 7. Moya Woodside[23] noted in her diary: "Evacuation is taking on panic proportions. The firm had produced Handley Page Hereford bombers since 1936. An earlier flight on Oct. 18 allowed the crew to plot several targets in the city. Video, 00:01:03One-minute World News, Isabel Oakeshott: Why I leaked Hancock's messages. Simpson shot down one of the Heinkels over Downpatrick. Belfast was bombed by the Nazis in World War II. By 4 am the entire city seemed to be in flames. These shelters, made of corrugated steel, were designed to be dug into a garden and then covered with dirt. However, the Docklands was also a densely populated and impoverished area where thousands of working-class Londoners lived in run-down housing. Video, 00:00:51, Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine, Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off. This type of shelteressentially a low steel cage large enough to contain two adults and two small childrenwas designed to be set up indoors and could serve as a refuge if the building began to collapse. The Belfast blitz devastated a city that up until 1941 had remained unscathed during World War Two. 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. The mass relocation, called Operation Pied Piper, was the largest internal migration in British history. Roads out of town are still one stream of cars, with mattresses and bedding tied on top. 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. 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. Islington parish church, the rebuilt Our Lady of Victories (Kensington), the French church by Leicester square, St. Annes, Soho (famous for its music), All Souls, Langham place, and Christ Church in Westminster Bridge road (whose towerfortunately savedcommemorates President Lincolns abolition of slavery), were among a large number of others. 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. MacDermott would be proved right. The most significant loss was a 4.5-acre (1.8ha) factory floor for manufacturing the fuselages of Short Stirling bombers. At nightfall the Northern Counties Station was packed from platform gates to entrance gates and still refugees were coming along in a steady stream from the surrounding streets Open military lorries were finally put into service and even expectant mothers and mothers with young children were put into these in the rather heavy drizzle that lasted throughout the evening. 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. London seemed ablaze from the docks to Westminster, much damage was done, and casualties were high. Heavy jacks were unavailable. [citation needed]. He was succeeded by J. M. Andrews, then 69 years old, who was no more capable of dealing with the situation than his predecessor. [citation needed], Casualties were lower than at Easter, partly because the sirens had sounded at 11.45pm while the Luftwaffe attacked more cautiously from a greater height. The working-class living close to industrial centres suffered more than anyone over the course of the four raids. The attack on Coventry was particularly destructive. The Germans expanded the Blitz to other cities in November 1940. Video, 00:00:26, Living through the London Blitz. Wave after wave of bombers dropped their incendiaries, high explosives and land-mines. The creeping TikTok bans. John Wood Dunlop invented the pneumatic tyre in Belfast in 1887. Men from the South worked with men from the North in the universal cause of the relief of suffering. In spite of blackouts, ubiquitous shelters and sandbags, the visible effects of mass evacuation, the presence of A.R.P. It has been reported that on Easter Tuesday, Belfast suffered the highest loss of life of any city in the UK in a single raid. This part of Belfast was the only one required to provide air raid shelters for workers. Weighing 46,328 tonnes, Titanic was to be the largest manmade moveable object the world had ever seen. Strand Public Elementary school, York Road railway station, the adjacent Midland Hotel on York Road, and Salisbury Avenue tram depot were all hit. Dissatisfaction with public shelters also led to another notable development in the East EndMickeys Shelter. Here are 10 facts about both the German Blitzkrieg and the Allied bombing of Germany. After the passing of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, it became the seat of the government of Northern Ireland. Accounts differ as to when flares were dropped to light up the city. In many cases the daily life of the city was able to resume with delays of only hours. Video, 00:01:09The Spitfire turns 80, The German bombing of Coventry. Video, 00:02:12Isabel Oakeshott: Why I leaked Hancock's messages, Tears of relief after man found in Amazon jungle. 1. Singer-songwriter Van Morrison was born here. Rescue workers search through the rubble of Eglington Street in Belfast, Northern Ireland, after a German Luftwaffe air raid, 7 May 1941, Anna (left) and her husband Billy (back right) survived while Harriette, Dorothy and Billy were killed along with Dot and Isa, Dot and Isa, with Dorothy when she was a toddler, Royal Welch Fusiliers assist in clearing bomb damage in Belfast, Northern Ireland, 7 May 1941, Mapping the lives lost in the Belfast Blitz. ", Dawson Bates informed the Cabinet of rack-renting of barns, and over thirty people per house in some areas.[24]. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Instead of pressing his advantage, however, Hitler abruptly changed his strategy. The Blitz was devastating for the people of London and other cities. Tragically 35 were crushed to death when the mill wall collapsed. 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. In just these few hours, 430 people were killed and 1,600 were badly injured. ISBN 9781909556324. It was not the first time the alarm had sounded to signify the presence of Luftwaffe bombers over the city. On 28 April 1943, six members of the Government threatened to resign, forcing him from office. Fiber-optic cables are made from thin strings of glass and are generally about one-tenth the width of a . Corrections? 6. For more than six months, German planes had flown reconnaissance flights over Belfast. The sense of relative calm was abruptly shattered in the first week of September 1940, when the war came to London in earnest. No attendant nurse had soothed the last moments of these victims; no gentle reverent hand had closed their eyes or crossed their hands. No significant cut was made in necessary social services, and public and private premises, except when irreparably damaged, were repaired as speedily as possible. 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. Beginning on Black Saturday, London was attacked on 57 straight nights. [21] Mass graves for the unclaimed bodies were dug in the Milltown and Belfast City Cemeteries. 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 Blitz: Facts In total there were four attacks on the County Antrim city. Some had received food, others were famished. When a bombing raid was imminent, air-raid sirens were set off to sound a warning. As many as 5,000 people had packed into this network of underground tunnels, which was dangerously overcrowded, dirty, and dark. It was the worst wartime raid outside of London in the UK. The Luftwaffe never attacked the city after May 1941, but it would be many years before life returned to normal for many in the city. Nine were registered on three separate occasions, and from the start of the Blitz until November 30 there were more than 350 alerts. 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. For two hours on the first day, 348 German bombers and 617 fighters blasted London. 2023 BBC. Video, 00:01:41NI WW2 veterans honoured by France, The Spitfire turns 80. 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. 255 corpses were laid out in St George's Market. Gring had insisted that such an attack was an impossibility, because of the citys formidable air defense network. This option had been forbidden by city officials, who feared that once people began sleeping in Underground stations, they would be reluctant to return to the surface and resume daily life. [1][2], The third raid on Belfast took place over the evening and morning of 45 May 1941; 150 were killed. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. When war broke out in 1939 the city did not expect to be attacked by German bombers: it was geographically remote and deemed a relatively . [6] It was MacDermott who sent a telegram to de Valera seeking assistance. "We can still see the physical scars of the Blitz in Belfast, that is what is left. 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. 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. Another claim was that the Catholic population in general and the IRA in particular guided the bombers. Why Alex Murdaugh was spared the death penalty, Why Trudeau is facing calls for a public inquiry, The shocking legacy of the Dutch 'Hunger Winter'.