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. Has it taken bursting bombs to remind the people of this little country that they have common tradition, a common genius and a common home? The Premier Online Military History Magazine, Re-printed with permission fromWartimeNI.com. There was unease with the complacent attitude of the government, which led to resignations: Craigavon died on 24 November 1940. Sir Basil Brooke, the Minister of Agriculture, was the only active minister. Heavy jacks were unavailable. In each station volunteers were asked for, as it was beyond their normal duties. Indeed, on the night of the first raid, no Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft took to the air to intercept German planes. Nevertheless, for all the hardship it caused, the campaign proved to be a strategic mistake by the Germans. The creeping TikTok bans. 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. 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. continuous trek to railway stations. 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. 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. 29 - Belfast was once bigger than Dublin There was no smokescreen ability, however there were some barrage balloons positioned strategically for protection. 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 . At the start of World War Two, Belfast had considered itself safe from an aerial attack, as the city's leaders believed that Belfast was simply too far away for Luftwaffe bombers to reach - assuming that they would have to fly from Nazi Germany. The raids on London primarily targeted the Docklands area of the East End. 8. The higher the German planes had to fly to avoid the balloons, the less accurate they were when dropping their bombs. After his optician business was destroyed by a bomb, Mickey Davies led an effort to organize the Spitalfield Shelter. The Belfast blitz. [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." devised the Morrison shelter (named for Home Secretary Herbert Stanley Morrison) as an alternative to the Anderson shelter. So had Clydeside until recently. Video, 00:01:41NI WW2 veterans honoured by France, The Spitfire turns 80. The next took place on Easter Tuesday, 15 April 1941, when 200 Luftwaffe bombers attacked military and manufacturing targets in the city of Belfast. Mr Freeburn set out to find out more about those who died, their personal stories and the tales of those left behind. Under the leadership of Prime Minister John Miller Andrews, Northern Ireland remained unprepared. As more and more people began sleeping on the platforms, however, the government relented and provided bunk beds and bathrooms for the underground communities. Government apathy, a lack of leadership and a belief the Luftwaffe could not reach Belfast lead to the city lagging behind in terms of basic defences. Roads out of town are still one stream of cars, with mattresses and bedding tied on top. The first (April 7 -8), a small attack, was most likely carried out to test the city's defenses. He was replaced by 54-year-old Sir Basil Brooke on 1 May. 13 died, including a soldier killed when an anti-aircraft gun, at the Balmoral show-grounds, misfired. The first day of the Blitz is remembered as Black Saturday. As well as these two major targets, other firms in Belfast produced valuable materials for the war effort including munitions, linen, ropes, food supplies and, of course, cigarettes. They remained for three days, until they were sent back by the Northern Ireland government. Maps and documents uncovered at Gatow Airfield near Berlin in 1945 showed the level of detail involved. Wherever Churchill is hiding his war material we will go. One, Tom Coleman, attended to receive recognition for his colleagues' solidarity at such a critical time. For more than six months, German planes had flown reconnaissance flights over Belfast. Interesting facts about Belfast. In early 1941 the Germans launched another wave of attacks, this time focusing on ports. The first deliberate raid took place on the night of 7 April. Updates? Beginning on Black Saturday, London was attacked on 57 straight nights. Also, on Queens Island, stood the Short and Harland Ltd. Aircraft Factory. There wasn't enough room for Anna or Billy, so they sheltered elsewhere, a twist of fate that would save their lives. With the surrender of France in June 1940, Germanys sole remaining enemy lay across the English Channel. The most significant loss was a 4.5-acre (1.8ha) factory floor for manufacturing the fuselages of Short Stirling bombers. After the passing of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, it became the seat of the government of Northern Ireland. workers. The World's Most-Famous Ship, The Titanic, was constructed here. 55,000 houses were damaged leaving 100,000 temporarily homeless. Simpson shot down one of the Heinkels over Downpatrick. [18], Over 900 people died, 1,500 people were injured, 400 of them seriously. Belfast suffered a series of bombing raids in the spring of 1941, which became known as the 'Blitz of Belfast'. The 'Blitz' - from the German term Blitzkrieg ('lightning war') - was the sustained campaign of aerial bombing attacks on British towns and cities carried out by the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) from September 1940 until May 1941. Around 20,000 people were employed on the site with 35,000 further along in the shipyard. 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. Despite the military and industrial importance of the city, the Luftwaffe described the defences asweak, scanty, insufficient. By 1940, Short and Harland could shelter its entire workforce and Harland and Wolff had provision to shelter 16,000 workers. 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. 50,000 houses, more than half the houses in the city, were damaged. London was bombed for 57 consecutive nights from 7 September 1940 The Blitz began at around 4 pm on September 7, 1940, when German bomber planes first appeared over London. In Bristol, the bombed-out ruins of St Peter's Church were left standing with added memorial plaques to the civilians who were killed. Van Morrison is from the east part of the city. The district of Belfast has an area of 44 square miles (115 square km). 55,000 British civilian casualties were sustained through German bombing before the end of 1940 This included 23,000 deaths. Still, many in Northern Ireland believed no Luftwaffe attack would come. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. [4], The Government of Northern Ireland lacked the will, energy and capacity to cope with a major crisis when it came. From papers recovered after the war, we know of a Luftwaffe reconnaissance flight over Belfast on 30 November 1940. From their photographs, they identified suitable targets: There had been a number of small bombings, probably by planes that missed their targets over the River Clyde in Glasgow or the cities of the northwest of England. 7. The danger faced in London was greatly increased when the V2 attacks started and the casualty figures mirrored those of the Blitz.. 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. High explosives were dropped. Corrections? The British, on the other hand, were supremely well prepared for the kind of battle in which they now found themselves. 1. Video, 00:01:38, At least 17 dead in Jakarta fuel storage depot fire, Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine. . Added to this was the repair and refitting of 22,000 more vessels. The bombs caused death and destruction across the city, affecting those of all religions and political backgrounds. Up Next. Reviewed by: Geoffrey Roberts. The 2017 film Zoo depicts an air raid during the Belfast Blitz. The creeping TikTok bans, Hong Kong skyscraper fire seen on city's skyline. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of any material on this site without expressand written permission from the author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Thank you. Many bodies and body parts could not be identified. Major O'Sullivan reported that "In the heavily 'blitzed' areas people ran panic-stricken into the streets and made for the open country. ", 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]. Churches destroyed or wrecked included Macrory Memorial Presbyterian in Duncairn Gardens; Duncairn Methodist, Castleton Presbyterian on York Road; St Silas's on the Oldpark Road; St James's on the Antrim Road; Newington Presbyterian on Limestone Road; Crumlin Road Presbyterian; Holy Trinity on Clifton Street and Clifton Street Presbyterian; York Street Presbyterian and York Street Non-Subscribing Presbyterian; Newtownards Road Methodist and Rosemary Street Presbyterian (the last of which was not rebuilt). Three vessels nearing completion at Harland and Wolff's were hit as was its power station. Belfast was bombed by the Nazis in World War II. Weighing 46,328 tonnes, Titanic was to be the largest manmade moveable object the world had ever seen. The Belfast blitz devastated a city that up until 1941 had remained unscathed during World War Two. What's the least amount of exercise we can get away with? Video, 00:02:12, Isabel Oakeshott: Why I leaked Hancock's messages, Tears of relief after man found in Amazon jungle. Prayers were said and hymns sung by the mainly Protestant women and children during the bombing. By 4 am the entire city seemed to be in flames. Video, 00:01:41, The German bombing of Coventry. Lecturer of History, Queens University, Belfast, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Belfast_Blitz&oldid=1136721396, During the war years, Belfast shipyards built or converted over 3,000 navy vessels, repaired more than 22,000 others and launched over half a million tons of merchant shipping over 140. 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. 2023 BBC. 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. Neighbouring residential areas were also hit. However they were not in a position to communicate with the Germans, and information recovered from Germany after the war showed that the planning of the blitz was based entirely on German aerial reconnaissance. Omissions? Richard Dawson Bates was the Home Affairs Minister. Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom . Belfast's Albert Clock tower is sinking - it leans by four feet. This view was probably influenced by the decision of the IRA Army Council to support Germany. Apart from one or two false alarms in the early days of the war, no sirens wailed in London until June 25. 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. 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. Subs offer. Belfast has the world's largest dry dock. This raid overall caused relatively little damage, but a lot was revealed about Belfast's inadequate defences. Belfast confetti," said one archive news report. Once more, London was targeted and children were victims. For eight months the Luftwaffe dropped bombs on London and other strategic cities across Britain. Other targets included Sheffield, Manchester, Coventry, and Southampton. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. It became a city by royal charter in 1888. The devastation was so great that the Germans coined a new verb, to coventrate, to describe it. 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. Several accounts point out that Belfast, standing at the end of the long inlet of Belfast Lough, would be easily located. 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. The offensive came to be called the Blitz after the German word blitzkrieg ("lightning war"). Heinkel He 111 and Dornier Do 17 planes fitted with Zeiss cameras captured high-quality aerial imagery. These private air-raid shelters were Anderson shelters, constructed of sheets of corrugated galvanised iron covered in earth. 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. 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. Dissatisfaction with public shelters also led to another notable development in the East EndMickeys Shelter. On September 1, 1939, the day World War II began with Germanys invasion of Poland, the British government implemented a massive evacuation plan. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. This part of Belfast was the only one required to provide air raid shelters for workers. In just these few hours, 430 people were killed and 1,600 were badly injured. 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. Other Belfast factories manufactured gun mountings. No searchlights were set up in the city at the time, and these only arrived on 10 April. The creeping TikTok bans. Targets identified included: the Short and Harland Ltd. Aircraft Factory; the Belfast power station and waterworks; Other maps uncovered following the Second World War also showed the parliament and city hall, Belfast gasworks, a rope factory and the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. Yesterday for once the people of Ireland were united under the shadow of a national blow. By the middle of December it had reached nearly 1,700,000 (adjusted for inflation, this was the equivalent of roughly 100 million in 2020). 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. 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. From September 1940 until May 1941, Britain was subjected to sustained enemy bombing campaign, now known as the Blitz. Fighter Commands efforts were greatly aided by the lack of any consistent plan of action on the part of the Germans. Again the Irish emergency services crossed the border, this time without waiting for an invitation. Nevertheless, through sheer weight of numbers, the Germans were on the brink of victory in late August 1940. Those who sought refuge at the school were told that they would quickly be relocated to a safer area, but the evacuation was delayed. About 1,000 people were killed and bombs hit half of the houses in the city, leaving 100,000. The South Hallsville School disaster prompted Londoners, especially residents of the East End, to find safer shelters, on their own if necessary. 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. Everything on wheels is being pressed into service. The offensive came to be called the Blitz after the German word blitzkrieg (lightning war). 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. In total over 1,300 houses were demolished, some 5,000 badly damaged, nearly 30,000 slightly damaged while 20,000 required "first aid repairs".[3]. This amounted to nearly half of Britains total civilian deaths for the whole war. Authorities had noted Queens Island in the cityas a vulnerable point as early as 1929. 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'. There [is] ground for thinking that the enemy could not easily reach Belfast in force except during a period of moonlight. "[22], In his opinion, the greatest want was the lack of hospital facilities. 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. Video, 00:00:51, Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine, Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off. It was not the first time the alarm had sounded to signify the presence of Luftwaffe bombers over the city. In the eight months of attacks, some 43,000 civilians were killed. Belfast is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland. 6. "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. Brooke noted in his diary "I gave him authority as it is obviously a question of expediency". These shelters, made of corrugated steel, were designed to be dug into a garden and then covered with dirt. 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. Belfast is famous for being the birthplace of the Titanic. [27] One widespread criticism was that the Germans located Belfast by heading for Dublin and following the railway lines north. 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. Video, 00:02:54Living through the London Blitz, At least 17 dead in Jakarta fuel storage depot fire. They prevented low-flying aircraft from approaching their targets at optimal altitudes and angles of attack. The seeming normality of life on the Home Front was shattered in 1944 when the first of the V1's landed. 6. In every instance, all stepped forward. "We can still see the physical scars of the Blitz in Belfast, that is what is left. On 28 April 1943, six members of the Government threatened to resign, forcing him from office. Emma Duffin, a nurse at the Queen's University Hospital, (who previously served during the Great War), who kept a diary; 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.
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