Subs offer. Liverpool, for example, protected by 100 guns. 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. The Blitz of Belfast 1941 - History Learning Site Belfast is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland . Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Accounts differ as to when flares were dropped to light up the city. 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. By the. Since 1:45am all telephones had been cut. The phrase Business as usual, written in chalk on boarded-up shop windows, exemplified the British determination to keep calm and carry on as best they could. During the whole period, although the citys operation was disrupted in ways that were sometimes serious, no essential service was more than temporarily impaired. Only four were known still to be alive. Fiber-optic cables are made from thin strings of glass and are generally about one-tenth the width of a . . The Belfast blitz devastated a city that up until 1941 had remained unscathed during World War Two. More than 1,000 people were killed, and the damage was more widespread than on any previous occasion. "We can still see the physical scars of the Blitz in Belfast, that is what is left. At the core of this book is a compelling account of the Luftwaffe's blitz on Belfast in April-May 1941. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. [citation needed], There was a second massive air raid on Belfast on Sunday 45 May 1941, three weeks after that of Easter Tuesday. Brooke noted in his diary "I gave him authority as it is obviously a question of expediency". 29 interesting facts about Belfast you never knew - BeeLoved City He was succeeded by J. M. Andrews, then 69 years old, who was no more capable of dealing with the situation than his predecessor. Mr Freeburn set out to find out more about those who died, their personal stories and the tales of those left behind. Incendiary bombs predominated in this raid. 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. This view was probably influenced by the decision of the IRA Army Council to support Germany. 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. "Liverpool, Clydebank and Portsmouth all have a memorial to their victims of the Blitz. wardens, and members of the Home Guard drilling in the parks, life went on much as usual. Many of those who died as a result of enemy action lived in tightly packed, poorly constructed, terraced housing. But the raid of 15-16 April - the Easter Tuesday Raid - was on another scale. The sense of relative calm was abruptly shattered in the first week of September 1940, when the war came to London in earnest. [27] One widespread criticism was that the Germans located Belfast by heading for Dublin and following the railway lines north. Belfast Blitz: The Luftwaffe attacks Northern Ireland - WartimeNI At conservative gathering, Trump is still the favourite. 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. This raid overall caused relatively little damage, but a lot was revealed about Belfast's inadequate defences. The House of Commons, Westminster Abbey, and the British Museum were severely damaged, and The Temple was almost completely destroyed. Video, 00:01:09The Spitfire turns 80, The German bombing of Coventry. 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. 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. On August 2, Luftwaffe commander Hermann Gring issued his Eagle Day directive, laying down a plan of attack in which a few massive blows from the air were to destroy British air power and so open the way for the invasion. Compared to other cities, Belfast was virtually undefended. Yesterday for once the people of Ireland were united under the shadow of a national blow. 55,000 British civilian casualties were sustained through German bombing before the end of 1940 This included 23,000 deaths. Video, 00:00:36, Tears of relief after man found in Amazon jungle. The Titanic was built in Belfast. Taoiseach amon de Valera formally protested to Berlin. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. [17] A stray bomber attacked Derry, killing 15. 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. London was bombed for 57 consecutive nights from 7 September 1940 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. The past doesnt change, its just over.. Read about our approach to external linking. When the house was hit William, Harriette, Dorothy, 36-year-old Dot and 41-year-old Isa were all killed. Belfast was bombed by the Nazis in World War II. Both planes quickly proved their mettle against German bombers, and Germanys best fighter, the Bf 109, was of limited use as an escort due to its relatively short operating range. "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. Updates? He went to the Mater Hospital at 2pm, nine hours after the raid ended, to find the street with a traffic jam of ambulances waiting to admit their casualties. By 4 am the entire city seemed to be in flames. ", 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]. Two of the crews received refreshments in Banbridge; others were entertained in the Ancient Order of Hibernians hall in Newry. [citation needed], Other writers, such as Tony Gray in The Lost Years state that the Germans did follow their radio guidance beams. The Belfast Blitz: the city in the war years - History Ireland Over a period of nine months, over 43,500 civilians were killed in the raids, which focused on major cities and industrial centres. On 4-5 May, another raid, made up of 204 bombers, killed another 203 people and the following night 22 more died. In many cases the daily life of the city was able to resume with delays of only hours. After the passing of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, it became the seat of the government of Northern Ireland. Authorities had noted Queens Island in the cityas a vulnerable point as early as 1929. Nine were registered on three separate occasions, and from the start of the Blitz until November 30 there were more than 350 alerts. 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 Blitz | Facts, History, Damage, & Casualties | Britannica Burke Street which ran between Annadale and Dawson streets in the New Lodge area, was completely wiped off the map with all its 20 houses flattened and all of the occupants killed.[16]. 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. Video, 00:00:26, Living through the London Blitz. A Luftwaffe pilot gave this description "We were in exceptional good humour knowing that we were going for a new target, one of England's last hiding places. 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. "But there is no such equivalent in Belfast. That contrasts with the figure that is often given of more than 900 killed on Easter Tuesday alone. 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. NI WW2 veterans honoured by France. 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. [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. High explosives were dropped. Brides, Fleet St.; St. Lawrence Jewry; St. Magnus the Martyr; St. Mary-at-hill; St. Dunstan in the East; St. Clement [Eastcheap] and St. Jamess, Piccadilly). Beginning in September 1940, the Blitz was an aerial bombing campaign conducted by the Luftwaffe against British cities. The telegram was sent at 4:35am,[citation needed] asking the Irish Taoiseach, amon de Valera for assistance. The creeping TikTok bans, Hong Kong skyscraper fire seen on city's skyline. [1][2], The third raid on Belfast took place over the evening and morning of 45 May 1941; 150 were killed. The attacks were authorized by Germany's chancellor, Adolf Hitler, after the British carried out a nighttime air raid on Berlin. On April 16 an attack even fiercer and more indiscriminate than those of the previous autumn started at 9:00 pm and continued until 5:00 the following morning; 500 aircraft were believed to have flown over in continuous waves, raining an estimated 450 tons of bombs across the city. By Jonathan Bardon. 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}. As many were caught in the open by blast and secondary missiles, the enormous number of casualties can be readily accounted for. TOP 10: Facts About Belfast You Didn't Know - Ireland Before You Die 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. ", Dawson Bates informed the Cabinet of rack-renting of barns, and over thirty people per house in some areas.[24]. He spoke with Professor Flynn, (Theodore Thomson Flynn, an Australian based at the Mater Hospital and father of actor Errol Flynn), head of the casualty service for the city, who told him of "casualties due to shock, blast and secondary missiles, such as glass, stones, pieces of piping, etc." Belfast, the city with the highest population density in the UK at the time, also had the lowest proportion of public air-raid shelters. The working-class living close to industrial centres suffered more than anyone over the course of the four raids. 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 September 1, 1939, the day World War II began with Germanys invasion of Poland, the British government implemented a massive evacuation plan. Still, many in Northern Ireland believed no Luftwaffe attack would come. "A lot of the people I spoke to were relatives who ended up donating images and handwritten letters from before and after the Blitz. 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." At 10:40pm the air raid sirens sounded. 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. On occasion, forces consisting of as many as 300 to 400 aircraft would cross the coast by day and split into small groups, and a few planes would succeed in penetrating Londons outer defenses. Initially it was thought that the Germans had mistaken this reservoir for the harbour and shipyards, where many ships, including HMS Ark Royal were being repaired. It was not the last time Belfast would suffer. Harland and Wolff: The troubled history of Belfast's shipyard 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 town of Dromara saw its population increase from 500 to 2,500. Under the leadership of Prime Minister John Miller Andrews, Northern Ireland remained unprepared. Video, 00:00:36Tears of relief after man found in Amazon jungle. So had Clydeside until recently. 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. Video, 00:02:54Living through the London Blitz, At least 17 dead in Jakarta fuel storage depot fire. Up Next. An earlier flight on Oct. 18 allowed the crew to plot several targets in the city. As many as 5,000 people had packed into this network of underground tunnels, which was dangerously overcrowded, dirty, and dark. He successfully busied himself with the task of making Northern Ireland a major supplier of food to Britain in her time of need.[5]. The Royal Air Force announced that Squadron Leader J.W.C. Omissions? Emma Duffin, a nurse at the Queen's University Hospital, (who previously served during the Great War), who kept a diary; Fighter Commands efforts were greatly aided by the lack of any consistent plan of action on the part of the Germans. 10 Facts about Belfast City | Fun Facts About Belfast | Europa Hotel When Germany bombed Belfast as part of the Blitz during World War Two, the massive air raids left more than a thousand people dead. 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 . The period of the next moon from say the 7th to the 16th of April may well bring our turn." the Blitz, (September 7, 1940May 11, 1941), intense bombing campaign undertaken by Nazi Germany against the United Kingdom during World War II. The attacks by both V1's and V2's only ended as the Allies advanced up through Western Europe . [citation needed]. Maps and documents uncovered at Gatow Airfield near Berlin in 1945 showed the level of detail involved. 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. Guided by Davies, the people of the shelter created an ad hoc government and established a set of rules. Humanity knows no borders, no politics, no differences of religious belief. 10,000 "officially" crossed the border. John Wood Dunlop invented the pneumatic tyre in Belfast in 1887. London seemed ablaze from the docks to Westminster, much damage was done, and casualties were high. There were still 80,000 more in Belfast. headquarters, Toynbee hall and St. Dunstans; the American, Spanish, Japanese and Peruvian embassies and the buildings of the Times newspaper, the Associated Press of America, and the National City bank of New York; the centre court at Wimbledon, Wembley stadium, the Ring (Blackfriars); Drury Lane, the Queens and the Saville theatres; Rotten row, Lambeth walk, the Burlington arcade and Madame Tussauds. The Blitz began at around 4 pm on September 7, 1940, when German bomber planes first appeared over London. The British government had anticipated air attacks on its population centres, and it had predicted catastrophic casualties. 50,000 houses, more than half the houses in the city, were damaged. In the first days of the Blitz, a tragic incident in the East End stoked public anger over the governments shelter policy. 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. As well as photographs, the Luftwaffe gathered information on landmarks, potential targets and defences or lack thereof. There [is] ground for thinking that the enemy could not easily reach Belfast in force except during a period of moonlight. Instead of pressing his advantage, however, Hitler abruptly changed his strategy. 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. People are leaving from all parts of town and not only from the bombed areas. The Germans expanded the Blitz to other cities in November 1940. [19], 220,000 people fled from the city. Prior to the "Belfast Blitz" there were only 200 public shelters in the city, although around 4,000 households had built their own private shelters. Gring had insisted that such an attack was an impossibility, because of the citys formidable air defense network. The database Mr Freeburn has compiled is, he believes, the most accurate list of those killed and includes 222 children aged 16 or under. Over 500 received care from the Irish Red Cross in Dublin. The government announced that 77 people had died, but for years local residents insisted the toll was much higher. MacDermott would be proved right. Several accounts point out that Belfast, standing at the end of the long inlet of Belfast Lough, would be easily located. The fourth and final Belfast raid took place on the following night, 56 May. It was not the first time the alarm had sounded to signify the presence of Luftwaffe bombers over the city. The Belfast Blitz - KS3 History (Environment and society) - BBC department distributed more than two million Anderson shelters (named after Sir John Anderson, head of the A.R.P.) 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. While Anderson shelters offered good protection from bomb fragments and debris, they were cold and damp and generally ill-suited for prolonged occupancy. Nevertheless, for all the hardship it caused, the campaign proved to be a strategic mistake by the Germans. No searchlights were set up in the city at the time, and these only arrived on 10 April. 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. The Belfast Blitz: April-May 1941 - History Ireland The national government also provided funds to local municipalities to construct public air-raid shelters. Also, on Queens Island, stood the Short and Harland Ltd. Aircraft Factory. 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. Ulster Historical Foundation. Between Black Saturday and December 2, there was no 24-hour period without at least one alertas the alarms came to be calledand generally far more. Few children had been successfully evacuated. 10 Awesome Facts About Fibre - linkedin.com ", Mapping the lives lost in the Belfast Blitz. By British mainland blitz standards, casualties were light. Belfast is as worthy a target as Coventry, Birmingham, Bristol or Glasgow.. continuous trek to railway stations. Most of the objectives laid out by the reconnaissance crews were of either military or industrial importance. Interesting facts about Belfast. But Mr Freeburn's research casts doubt on this. There was no smokescreen ability, however there were some barrage balloons positioned strategically for protection. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Blitz, The - Kids | Britannica Kids | Homework Help He stated that "he would once more tell his government how he felt about the matter and he would ask them to confine the operations to military objectives as far as it was humanly possible. Major O'Sullivan reported that "In the heavily 'blitzed' areas people ran panic-stricken into the streets and made for the open country. Tragically 35 were crushed to death when the mill wall collapsed. The first (April 7 -8), a small attack, was most likely carried out to test the city's defenses. 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. Horrendous Belfast losses during World War Two bombing blitz Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Death should be dignified, peaceful; Hitler had made even death grotesque. The bombs caused death and destruction across the city, affecting those of all religions and political backgrounds. "They have never been published before, never seen the light of day.".
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