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. By 1941, production of the Short Stirling Bomber and the Short Sunderland Flying Boat was underway. 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. In early 1941 the Germans launched another wave of attacks, this time focusing on ports. Some 900 people died as a result of the bombing and 1,500 were injured. 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. [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. 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. A Raid From Above Nevertheless, through sheer weight of numbers, the Germans were on the brink of victory in late August 1940. His death (along with preceding ill-health) came at a bad time and arguably inadvertently caused a leadership vacuum. Updates? 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. Compared to other cities, Belfast was virtually undefended.
The Blitz: When Was It, Why Did It Begin And How Did It End By the end of the attacks, between 900 and 1,000 people were dead and thousands more were injured, homeless and displaced. [9], War materials and food were sent by sea from Belfast to Great Britain, some under the protection of the neutral Irish tricolour. On Nov. 30, 1940, a lone Luftwaffe plane flew across the Ards Peninsula unobserved and reported back to Berlin. More than 1,000 people were killed, and the damage was more widespread than on any previous occasion. Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom . 1.
Belfast Blitz: The Luftwaffe attacks Northern Ireland - WartimeNI Fighter Commands efforts were greatly aided by the lack of any consistent plan of action on the part of the Germans. [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 was a series of four air raids over Northern Ireland during the spring of 1941. The Air Raid Precautions (A.R.P.) After his optician business was destroyed by a bomb, Mickey Davies led an effort to organize the Spitalfield Shelter. Belfast suffered a series of bombing raids in the spring of 1941, which became known as the 'Blitz of Belfast'. Singer-songwriter Van Morrison was born here.
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. What happened in 1941 changed the city forever. Video, 00:01:41, The German bombing of Coventry. "[22], In his opinion, the greatest want was the lack of hospital facilities. The Luftwaffe crews returned to their base in Northern France and reported that Belfast's defences were, "inferior in quality, scanty and insufficient". Many of those who died as a result of enemy action lived in tightly packed, poorly constructed, terraced housing. 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.
10 Facts about Belfast City | Fun Facts About Belfast | Europa Hotel This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Read about our approach to external linking. Brooke noted in his diary "I gave him authority as it is obviously a question of expediency". On 28 April 1943, six members of the Government threatened to resign, forcing him from office. So had Clydeside until recently. "There are plans for one but there isn't one yet. Belfast was ill-prepared for the blitz. THE BELFAST BLITZ was a series of four air raids over Northern Ireland during the spring of 1941. Revised estimates made decades later indicated that close to 600 men, women, and children had been killed in the bombing. After the bombing began on September 7, local authorities urged displaced people to take shelter at South Hallsville School. 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. Londoners enjoyed three weeks of uneasy peace until May 1011, the night of a full moon, when the Luftwaffe launched the most intense raid of the Blitz. (Some authors count this as the second raid of four). Dissatisfaction with public shelters also led to another notable development in the East EndMickeys Shelter. The working-class living close to industrial centres suffered more than anyone over the course of the four raids. Video, 00:00:46, Hong Kong skyscraper fire seen on city's skyline, Watch: Matt Hancock message row in 83 seconds. With the surrender of France in June 1940, Germanys sole remaining enemy lay across the English Channel. 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. In the west and north of the city, streets heavily bombed included Percy Street, York Park, York Crescent, Eglinton Street, Carlisle Street, Ballyclare, Ballycastle and Ballynure Streets off the Oldpark Road; Southport Street, Walton Street, Antrim Road, Annadale Street, Cliftonville Road, Hillman Street, Atlantic Avenue, Hallidays Road, Hughenden Avenue, Sunningdale Park, Shandarragh Park, and Whitewell Road. A charitable relief fund for the people of London was opened September 10. Video, 00:01:23, Watch: Matt Hancock message row in 83 seconds, Isabel Oakeshott: Why I leaked Hancock's messages. Unlike N Ireland, the Irish Free State was no longer part of the UK. Death should be dignified, peaceful; Hitler had made even death grotesque. On 4-5 May, another raid, made up of 204 bombers, killed another 203 people and the following night 22 more died. Authorities had noted Queens Island in the cityas a vulnerable point as early as 1929. Prayers were said and hymns sung by the mainly Protestant women and children during the bombing. The Titanic was built in Belfast. 1. Wave after wave of bombers dropped their incendiaries, high explosives and land-mines. The Luftwaffe had lost more than 600 aircraft, and, although the RAF had lost fewer than half that many, the battle was claiming British fighters and experienced pilots at too great a rate. 50,000 houses, more than half the houses in the city, were damaged. Major Sen O'Sullivan reported on the intensity of the bombing in some areas, such as the Antrim Road, where bombs "fell within fifteen to twenty yards of one another." Belfast is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland. [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." Outside of London, with some 900 dead, this was the greatest loss of life in a night raid during the Blitz. The first deliberate raid took place on the night of 7 April. 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. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. [19], 220,000 people fled from the city. [citation needed]. The first day of the Blitz is remembered as Black Saturday. By 1940, Short and Harland could shelter its entire workforce and Harland and Wolff had provision to shelter 16,000 workers. Belfast was largely unprepared for an attack of such a scale as 200 German bombers shelled the city on 15 April 1941. Simpson shot down one of the Heinkels over Downpatrick.
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. Corrections? But the RAF had not responded. Many bodies and body parts could not be identified. and Major Sen O'Sullivan, who produced a detailed report for the Dublin government. But Mr Freeburn's research casts doubt on this. This raid overall caused relatively little damage, but a lot was revealed about Belfast's inadequate defences. On September 1, 1939, the day World War II began with Germanys invasion of Poland, the British government implemented a massive evacuation plan. At conservative gathering, Trump is still the favourite. 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 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. His report concluded with: "a second Belfast would be too horrible to contemplate". The offensive came to be called the Blitz after the German word blitzkrieg (lightning war).
The bombing of British cities - Swansea, Belfast, Glasgow 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. In the first days of the Blitz, a tragic incident in the East End stoked public anger over the governments shelter policy. Barton wrote: "the Catholic population was much more strongly opposed to conscription, was inclined to sympathise with Germany", "there were suspicions that the Germans were assisted in identifying targets, held by the Unionist population." 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. Heavy jacks were unavailable. While some of the poorer and more crowded suburban areas suffered severely, the mansions of Mayfair, the luxury flats of Kensington, and Buckingham Palace itselfwhich was bombed four separate timesfared little better. [18], Over 900 people died, 1,500 people were injured, 400 of them seriously. He gave an interview saying: "the people of Belfast are Irish people too". Another attacked Bangor, killing five. By Jonathan Bardon. 2023 BBC. [21] Mass graves for the unclaimed bodies were dug in the Milltown and Belfast City Cemeteries. This view was probably influenced by the decision of the IRA Army Council to support Germany. 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. During the whole period, although the citys operation was disrupted in ways that were sometimes serious, no essential service was more than temporarily impaired. Streets heavily bombed in the city centre included High Street, Ann Street, Callender Street, Chichester Street, Castle Street, Tomb Street, Bridge Street (effectively obliterated), Rosemary Street, Waring Street, North Street, Victoria Street, Donegall Street, York Street, Gloucester Street, and East Bridge Street.
Horrendous Belfast losses during World War Two bombing blitz Gring had insisted that such an attack was an impossibility, because of the citys formidable air defense network. 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. NI WW2 veterans honoured by France. On the 17th I heard that hundreds who either could not get away or could not leave for other reasons simply went out into the fields and remained in the open all night with whatever they could take in the way of covering.
Oakland plans to unleash 'pothole blitz' to fix notorious street damage "We can still see the physical scars of the Blitz in Belfast, that is what is left. It was the worst wartime raid outside of London in the UK. About 1,000 people were killed and bombs hit half of the houses in the city, leaving 100,000 people homeless. 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. 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. There wasn't enough room for Anna or Billy, so they sheltered elsewhere, a twist of fate that would save their lives. Beginning on Black Saturday, London was attacked on 57 straight nights. For eight months the Luftwaffe dropped bombs on London and other strategic cities across Britain. In late August the Germans dropped some bombs, apparently by accident, on civilian areas in London. 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 A.R.P. By British mainland blitz standards, casualties were light. As many as 5,000 people had packed into this network of underground tunnels, which was dangerously overcrowded, dirty, and dark. 55,000 houses were damaged leaving 100,000 temporarily homeless. 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. Morale did suffer amid the death and devastation, but there were few calls for surrender. The World's Most-Famous Ship, The Titanic, was constructed here. The period of the next moon from say the 7th to the 16th of April may well bring our turn." Sixty years after the Germans bombed Belfast in World War II BBC News Online looks back and remembers the anniversary of the blitz. People hung black curtains in their windows so that no lights showed outside their houses.
Children and World War Two - History Learning Site [26], Initial German radio broadcasts celebrated the raid. 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. 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. 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. Strand Public Elementary school, York Road railway station, the adjacent Midland Hotel on York Road, and Salisbury Avenue tram depot were all hit. Emma Duffin, a nurse at the Queen's University Hospital, (who previously served during the Great War), who kept a diary; 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. . Where they are going, what they will find to eat when they get there, nobody knows. But the authorities were afraid that bombs might not be the. The creeping TikTok bans, Hong Kong skyscraper fire seen on city's skyline. [27] One widespread criticism was that the Germans located Belfast by heading for Dublin and following the railway lines north. ISBN 9781909556324.
The Belfast Blitz - KS3 History (Environment and society) - BBC Even the children of soldiers had not been evacuated, with calamitous results when the married quarters of Victoria Barracks received a direct hit. The attacks by both V1's and V2's only ended as the Allies advanced up through Western Europe . 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. Protection of the city fell to seven anti-aircraft batteries of 16 heavy guns and six light guns. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. The mortuary services had emergency plans to deal with only 200 bodies. 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. In Newtownards, Bangor, Larne, Carrickfergus, Lisburn and Antrim many thousands of Belfast citizens took refuge either with friends or strangers. Mr Freeburn set out to find out more about those who died, their personal stories and the tales of those left behind. Brian Barton of Queen's University, Belfast, has written most on this topic.[19]. Nine were registered on three separate occasions, and from the start of the Blitz until November 30 there were more than 350 alerts. The national government also provided funds to local municipalities to construct public air-raid shelters. O'Sullivan felt that the whole civil defence sector was utterly overwhelmed. Public buildings destroyed or badly damaged included Belfast City Hall's Banqueting Hall, the Ulster Hospital for Women and Children and Ballymacarrett library, (the last two being located on Templemore Avenue). There are other diarists and narratives. Eduard Hempel, the German Minister to Ireland, visited the Irish Ministry for External Affairs to offer sympathy and attempt an explanation. 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. to households. James Craig, Lord Craigavon, had been Prime Minister of Northern Ireland since its inception in 1921 up until his death in 1940. 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. Because basements, a logical destination in the event of an air raid, were a relative rarity in Britain, the A.R.P. In the New Lodge area people had taken refuge in a mill. 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. Under the leadership of amon de Valera it had declared its neutrality during the Second World War. However, the Docklands was also a densely populated and impoverished area where thousands of working-class Londoners lived in run-down housing. There were Heinkel He 111s, Junkers Ju 88s and Dornier Do 17s. NI WW2 veterans honoured by France. After a brief lull, the Luftwaffe returned in force on February 17. Since 1:45am all telephones had been cut. 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'. The sense of relative calm was abruptly shattered in the first week of September 1940, when the war came to London in earnest. 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. The most significant loss was a 4.5-acre (1.8ha) factory floor for manufacturing the fuselages of Short Stirling bombers. Authorities quickly implemented plans to protect Londoners from bombs and to house those left homeless by the attacks. 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. The Premier Online Military History Magazine, Re-printed with permission fromWartimeNI.com. 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. And even then, Westminster stated it was not ample provision; Stormont still worried about the costs to industry. [12], There was little preparation for the conflict with Germany. 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. 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. Up Next. 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." 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}. Thank you. 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. Anna and Billy returned to England and continued running the children's home. "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.
Belfast - Kids | Britannica Kids | Homework Help Harland and Wolff: The troubled history of Belfast's shipyard 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. Your donations help keep MHN afloat. But the raid of 15-16 April - the Easter Tuesday Raid - was on another scale. The House of Commons, Westminster Abbey, and the British Museum were severely damaged, and The Temple was almost completely destroyed. parliament: "if the government realized 'that these fast bombers can come to Northern Ireland in two and three quarter hours'". The database Mr Freeburn has compiled is, he believes, the most accurate list of those killed and includes 222 children aged 16 or under. ", Mapping the lives lost in the Belfast Blitz. The British thus fought with the advantage of superior equipment and undivided aim against an enemy with inconsistent objectives. Van Morrison is from the east part of the city. 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. Video, 00:01:09The Spitfire turns 80, The German bombing of Coventry. Belfast's Albert Clock tower is sinking - it leans by four feet. St. Giles, Cripplegate, and St. Mary Wolnooth, also in the city, were damaged, while the Dutch church in Austin Friars, dating from the 14th century and covering a larger area than any church in the city of London, St. Pauls alone excepted, was totally destroyed. Still, many in Northern Ireland believed no Luftwaffe attack would come. 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. Video, 00:01:23Watch: Matt Hancock message row in 83 seconds, One-minute World News. 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. The Belfast Blitz was a series of devastating Luftwaffe air raids that took place in Northern Ireland during the Second World War. The Battle of Britain 2023 BBC. The creeping TikTok bans. When the Blitz began, the government enforced a blackout in an attempt to make targeting more difficult for German night bombers. There was no opposition. Another claim was that the Catholic population in general and the IRA in particular guided the bombers. It was not the first time the alarm had sounded to signify the presence of Luftwaffe bombers over the city. Over 100 German planes made contact with barrage balloon cables during the Blitz, and two-thirds of them crashed or made forced landings on British soil. Barton insisted that Belfast was "too far north" to use radio guidance. By mid-September 1940 the RAF had won the Battle of Britain, and the invasion was postponed indefinitely.
TOP 10: Facts About Belfast You Didn't Know - Ireland Before You Die Fiber-optic cables are made from thin strings of glass and are generally about one-tenth the width of a .
The Belfast Blitz: April-May 1941 - History Ireland Incendiary bombs predominated in this raid. The government was blamed by some for inadequate precautions. Video, 00:02:54, At least 17 dead in Jakarta fuel storage depot fire. continuous trek to railway stations. On the 60th anniversary of the Belfast Blitz, Luftwaffe Pilot Gerhardt Becker spoke to BBC Northern Ireland about his mission over Belfast in 1941. 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. 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. Half of the city's housing was damaged over the course of all the raids. Men from the South worked with men from the North in the universal cause of the relief of suffering. 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. Video, 00:00:51, Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine, Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off. "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.
29 interesting facts about Belfast you never knew - BeeLoved City Learn how your comment data is processed. There is no slacking in our loyalty. Blitz Fibre UK Blitz Fibre UK Published Mar 1, 2023 + Follow Fact 1- Small but Mighty . In the mistaken belief that they might damage RAF fighters, the anti-aircraft batteries ceased firing. The Blitz began at about 4:00 in the afternoon on September 7, 1940, when German planes appeared over London. Belfast was Ireland's industrial home, famous for tobacco, rope-making, linen, and ship-building, which made it the powerhouse it was. High explosives were dropped. Fewer than 4,000 women and children were evacuated.