", Mapping the lives lost in the Belfast Blitz. In many cases the daily life of the city was able to resume with delays of only hours. After the war, when the first girl from the home got married Billy gave her away, having lost his only daughter. 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. Nearby residential areas in east Belfast were also hit when "203 metric tonnes of high explosive bombs, 80 land mines attached to parachutes, and 800 firebomb canisters containing 96,000 incendiary bombs"[16] were dropped. [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. For more than six months, German planes had flown reconnaissance flights over Belfast. [26], Initial German radio broadcasts celebrated the raid. Jimmy Doherty, an air raid warden (who later served in London during the V1 and V2 blitz), who wrote a book on the Belfast blitz; [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. During the whole period, although the citys operation was disrupted in ways that were sometimes serious, no essential service was more than temporarily impaired. 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. And then naturally as I was over the target, I did pick up flak but I have no sense of exactly how weak or how strong it was, because every bit of flak you get is dangerous..
The Blitz: When Was It, Why Did It Begin And How Did It End The shipyard was among the largest in the world, producing merchant vessels and military shipping. Compared to other cities, Belfast was virtually undefended. On the 60th anniversary of the Belfast Blitz, Luftwaffe Pilot Gerhardt Becker spoke to BBC Northern Ireland about his mission over Belfast in 1941. 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 2017 film Zoo depicts an air raid during the Belfast Blitz. 9. The next took. 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. The firm had produced Handley Page Hereford bombers since 1936. wardens, and members of the Home Guard drilling in the parks, life went on much as usual. 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. They remained for three days, until they were sent back by the Northern Ireland government. [9], War materials and food were sent by sea from Belfast to Great Britain, some under the protection of the neutral Irish tricolour. Video, 00:02:12Isabel Oakeshott: Why I leaked Hancock's messages, Tears of relief after man found in Amazon jungle. The famous places damaged include the palace of Westminster and Westminster hall, the County hall, the Public Record office, the Law Courts, the Temple and the Inner Temple library; Somerset house, Burlington house, the tower of London, Greenwich observatory, Hogarths house; the Carlton, Reform, American, Savage, Arts and Orleans clubs; the Royal College of Surgeons, University college and its library, Stationers hall, the Y.M.C.A. The telegram was sent at 4:35am,[citation needed] asking the Irish Taoiseach, amon de Valera for assistance. Learn how your comment data is processed. At 10:40pm the air raid sirens sounded. 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 are sleeping in the same sheugh (ditch), below the same tree or in the same barn. 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. MacDermott would be proved right. More than 500 German planes dropped more than 700 tons of bombs across the city, killing nearly 1,500 people and destroying 11,000 homes. 6. Morale did suffer amid the death and devastation, but there were few calls for surrender. By then 250 firemen from Clydeside had arrived. Major O'Sullivan reported that "In the heavily 'blitzed' areas people ran panic-stricken into the streets and made for the open country. 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." Belfast was ill-prepared for the blitz. Belfast confetti," said one archive news report. 1. ", US journalist Ben Robertson reported that at night Dublin was the only city without a blackout between New York and Moscow, and between Lisbon and Sweden and that German bombers often flew overhead to check their bearings using its lights, angering the British. "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. Anna and Billy were buried up their necks in sewage but were rescued and survived. Video, 00:00:51, Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine, Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off. Death should be dignified, peaceful; Hitler had made even death grotesque. British Spies and Irish Rebels by Paul McMahon, Report by the Garda Sochna 23 October 1941 IMA G2/1722, Learn how and when to remove this template message, Irish Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures, "Eamon de Valera and Hitler: An Analysis of International Reaction to the Visit to the German Minister, May 1945", "Extracts from an article, "The Belfast Blitz, 1941", "Historical Topics Series 2 The Belfast Blitz", "Your Place and Mine The Belfast Blitz", "Northern Ireland Parliamentary Elections Results: Biographies", "Belfast Blitz: The night death and destruction rained down on city", "Multitext - the Blitz - Belfast during the second World War", http://www.niwarmemorial.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/The_Belfast_Blitz.pdf, http://www.proni.gov.uk/historical_topics_series_-_02_-_the_belfast_blitz.pdf, Extracts from an article on The Belfast Blitz, 1941. Very early in the German bombing campaign, it became clear that the preparationshowever extensive they seemed to have beenwere inadequate. 29 - Belfast was once bigger than Dublin Belfast suffered a series of bombing raids in the spring of 1941, which became known as the 'Blitz of Belfast'.
Horrendous Belfast losses during World War Two bombing blitz 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. 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. workers. 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. 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. The mortuary services had emergency plans to deal with only 200 bodies. The period of the next moon from say the 7th to the 16th of April may well bring our turn.. The fourth and final Belfast raid took place on the following night, 56 May. 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. What's the least amount of exercise we can get away with? 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. He was asked, in the N.I. Video, 00:00:46Hong Kong skyscraper fire seen on city's skyline, Watch: Matt Hancock message row in 83 seconds. Many of those who died as a result of enemy action lived in tightly packed, poorly constructed, terraced housing. As well as photographs, the Luftwaffe gathered information on landmarks, potential targets and defences or lack thereof. John Wood Dunlop invented the pneumatic tyre in Belfast in 1887. 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. The Belfast blitz is remembered. 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. KS3 History (Environment and society) The Belfast Blitz learning resources for adults, children, parents and teachers. Belfast is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland. It was the worst wartime raid outside of London in the UK. The attack on Coventry was particularly destructive. Apart from one or two false alarms in the early days of the war, no sirens wailed in London until June 25. Another defensive measure employed by the British was barrage balloonslarge oval-shaped unmanned balloons with stabilizing tail finsinstalled in and around major target areas. There were few bomb shelters. At the core of this book is a compelling account of the Luftwaffe's blitz on Belfast in April-May 1941. ", 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 other diarists and narratives. 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. And even then, Westminster stated it was not ample provision; Stormont still worried about the costs to industry. London was bombed for 57 consecutive nights from 7 September 1940 For eight months the Luftwaffe dropped bombs on London and other strategic cities across Britain. 19.99. It remains a high death toll - a shocking number of people killed in just a few weeks. Many "arrived in Fermanagh having nothing with them only night shirts". 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. About 1,000 people were killed during the Belfast Blitz of 1941, with Harland and Wolff among the buildings that were hit by the Luftwaffe. They prevented low-flying aircraft from approaching their targets at optimal altitudes and angles of attack. Later, guided by the raging fires caused by the first attack, a second group of planes began another assault that lasted until 4:30 the following morning. The youngest victim was just six-weeks-old. The Blitz began at about 4:00 in the afternoon on September 7, 1940, when German planes appeared over London.
The Belfast Blitz - KS3 History (Environment and society) - BBC Tragically 35 were crushed to death when the mill wall collapsed. It targeted the docks. It was not the first time the alarm had sounded to signify the presence of Luftwaffe bombers over the city. Reviewed by: Geoffrey Roberts. Belfast was bombed by the Nazis in World War II. [citation needed], Other writers, such as Tony Gray in The Lost Years state that the Germans did follow their radio guidance beams. 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. He successfully busied himself with the task of making Northern Ireland a major supplier of food to Britain in her time of need.[5]. Several accounts point out that Belfast, standing at the end of the long inlet of Belfast Lough, would be easily located. The danger faced in London was greatly increased when the V2 attacks started and the casualty figures mirrored those of the Blitz.. Apart from those on London, this was the greatest loss of life in any night raid during the Blitz. 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. In spite of blackouts, ubiquitous shelters and sandbags, the visible effects of mass evacuation, the presence of A.R.P. This amounted to nearly half of Britains total civilian deaths for the whole war. 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. [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 Germanys chancellor, Adolf Hitler, after the British carried out a nighttime air raid on Berlin. After his optician business was destroyed by a bomb, Mickey Davies led an effort to organize the Spitalfield Shelter. He described some distressing consequences, such as how "in one case the leg and arm of a child had to be amputated before it could be extricated. 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 national government also provided funds to local municipalities to construct public air-raid shelters. 1. There were Heinkel He 111s, Junkers Ju 88s and Dornier Do 17s. When a bombing raid was imminent, air-raid sirens were set off to sound a warning. Video, 00:00:51Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine, Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Belfast Blitz: Marking the lost lives 80 years on. 255 corpses were laid out in St George's Market. Beginning in September 1940, the Blitz was an aerial bombing campaign conducted by the Luftwaffe against British cities. 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. The Battle of Britain The next took place on Easter Tuesday, 15 April 1941, when 200 Luftwaffe bombers attacked military and manufacturing targets in the city of Belfast. Yesterday for once the people of Ireland were united under the shadow of a national blow. Simpson shot down one of the Heinkels over Downpatrick.
The Blitz of Belfast 1941 - History Learning Site A Raid From Above Clydeside got its blitz during the period of the last moon. Hundreds of incendiary and many high-explosive bombs were dropped, doing little material damage but causing many casualties. The bombs continued to fall until 5am. 10,000 "officially" crossed the border. 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". 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.
10 fascinating facts about Belfast that you probably didn't know 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. The mass relocation, called Operation Pied Piper, was the largest internal migration in British history. 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. 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. While Anderson shelters offered good protection from bomb fragments and debris, they were cold and damp and generally ill-suited for prolonged occupancy. [27] One widespread criticism was that the Germans located Belfast by heading for Dublin and following the railway lines north. Belfast was not properly prepared for the attacks, with too few shelters and not enough anti-aircraft guns. All were exhausted.
Other Belfast factories manufactured gun mountings. Clydeside got its blitz during the period of the last moon. Belfast was Ireland's industrial home, famous for tobacco, rope-making, linen, and ship-building, which made it the powerhouse it was. 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 . Heavy jacks were unavailable. Some 900 people died as a result of the bombing and 1,500 were injured. 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. That evening over 150 bombers left their bases in northern France and the Netherlands and headed for Belfast. So had Clydeside until recently. to households. In every instance, all stepped forward. From papers recovered after the war, we know of a Luftwaffe reconnaissance flight over Belfast on 30 November 1940. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. J.P. Walshe, assistant secretary, recorded that Hempel was "clearly distressed by the news of the severe raid on Belfast and especially of the number of civilian casualties." A charitable relief fund for the people of London was opened September 10. Blitz Fibre UK Blitz Fibre UK Published Mar 1, 2023 + Follow Fact 1- Small but Mighty . These balloons, the largest of which were some 60 feet (18 metres) long, were essentially an airspace denial tool. Video, 00:01:03One-minute World News, Isabel Oakeshott: Why I leaked Hancock's messages. Belfast has the world's largest dry dock. [6] It was MacDermott who sent a telegram to de Valera seeking assistance. The "pothole blitz" is a common short-term initiative to combat storm weather damage. 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. 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. But the RAF had not responded. Again the Irish emergency services crossed the border, this time without waiting for an invitation. Roads out of town are still one stream of cars, with mattresses and bedding tied on top.
13 Facts You Didn't Know About Belfast Men from the South worked with men from the North in the universal cause of the relief of suffering. 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. Wherever Churchill is hiding his war material we will go. When the Blitz began, the government enforced a blackout in an attempt to make targeting more difficult for German night bombers.