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Apart from those on London, this was the greatest loss of life in any night raid during the Blitz. 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. The district of Belfast has an area of 44 square miles (115 square km). 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." During the first year of the war, behind-the-lines conditions prevailed in London. 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." Similar initiatives bearing the same name were ordered in the past decade by former mayors Libby . [citation needed], There was a second massive air raid on Belfast on Sunday 45 May 1941, three weeks after that of Easter Tuesday. Wherever Churchill is hiding his war material we will go Belfast is as worthy a target as Coventry, Birmingham, Bristol or Glasgow." "It says a lot about how these people are forgotten that there is no Blitz memorial in Belfast," Mr Freeburn says. Video, 00:02:12Isabel Oakeshott: Why I leaked Hancock's messages, Tears of relief after man found in Amazon jungle. Where they are going, what they will find to eat when they get there, nobody knows. 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. 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. Video, 00:00:46Hong Kong skyscraper fire seen on city's skyline, Watch: Matt Hancock message row in 83 seconds. Death should be dignified, peaceful; Hitler had made even death grotesque. 2. However, the Docklands was also a densely populated and impoverished area where thousands of working-class Londoners lived in run-down housing. Brian Barton of Queen's University, Belfast, has written most on this topic.[19]. After the bombing began on September 7, local authorities urged displaced people to take shelter at South Hallsville School. The Battle of Britain The M.V. Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom . Nine were registered on three separate occasions, and from the start of the Blitz until November 30 there were more than 350 alerts. [citation needed]. But the Luftwaffe was ready. 1. The Premier Online Military History Magazine, Re-printed with permission fromWartimeNI.com. 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. "A lot of the people I spoke to were relatives who ended up donating images and handwritten letters from before and after the Blitz. Video, 00:02:12, Isabel Oakeshott: Why I leaked Hancock's messages, Tears of relief after man found in Amazon jungle. Air power alone had failed to knock the United Kingdom out of the war. 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. 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. 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On September 1, 1939, the day World War II began with Germanys invasion of Poland, the British government implemented a massive evacuation plan. The A.R.P. THE BELFAST BLITZ was a series of four air raids over Northern Ireland during the spring of 1941. The government was blamed by some for inadequate precautions. Beginning in September 1940, the Blitz was an aerial bombing campaign conducted by the Luftwaffe against British cities. O'Sullivan felt that the whole civil defence sector was utterly overwhelmed. The next took place on Easter Tuesday, 15 April 1941, when 200 Luftwaffe bombers attacked military and manufacturing targets in the city of Belfast. For more than six months, German planes had flown reconnaissance flights over Belfast. 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. Once more, London was targeted and children were victims. That contrasts with the figure that is often given of more than 900 killed on Easter Tuesday alone. Video, 00:01:23, Watch: Matt Hancock message row in 83 seconds, Isabel Oakeshott: Why I leaked Hancock's messages. [27] One widespread criticism was that the Germans located Belfast by heading for Dublin and following the railway lines north. Video, 00:01:38, At least 17 dead in Jakarta fuel storage depot fire, Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine. 11 churches, two hospitals and two schools were destroyed. The Belfast blitz devastated a city that up until 1941 had remained unscathed during World War Two. Davies also set up medical stations and persuaded off-duty medical personnel to treat the sick and wounded. It is perhaps true that many saved their lives running but I am afraid a much greater number lost them or became casualties."[20]. 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. The first was on the night of 7-8 April 1941, a small attack which probably took place only to test Belfast's defences. The Blitz began at around 4 pm on September 7, 1940, when German bomber planes first appeared over London. Belfast is located on the island of Ireland. People hung black curtains in their windows so that no lights showed outside their houses. Because basements, a logical destination in the event of an air raid, were a relative rarity in Britain, the A.R.P. William Joyce "Lord Haw-Haw" announced that "The Fhrer will give you time to bury your dead before the next attack Tuesday was only a sample." On 4-5 May, another raid, made up of 204 bombers, killed another 203 people and the following night 22 more died. [citation needed]. German bombing of London during the Blitz, Discover how the Third Reich attacked Great Britain during World War II's Battle of Britain, atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Watch President Roosevelt outline his Four Freedoms and learn how Britain defeated Germany's Luftwaffe. [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. Here are 10 facts about both the German Blitzkrieg and the Allied bombing of Germany. The "pothole blitz" is a common short-term initiative to combat storm weather damage. [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." The creeping TikTok bans. 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. In the eight months of attacks, some 43,000 civilians were killed. Your donations help keep MHN afloat. 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. Incendiary bombs predominated in this raid. He was succeeded by J. M. Andrews, then 69 years old, who was no more capable of dealing with the situation than his predecessor. It was the worst wartime raid outside of London in the UK. The crypt under the sanctuary and the cellar under the working sacristy had been fitted out and opened to the public as an air-raid shelter. It is situated at on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. Find out how it began, what the Germans hoped to achieve and how it severe it was, plus we visit nine places affected by the attacks. Corrections? 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. The raid so infuriated Hitler that he ordered the Luftwaffe to shift its attacks from RAF sites to London and other cities. 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. Video, 00:00:51, Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine, Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off. 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. 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. On May 11, 1941, Hitler called off the Blitz as he shifted his forces eastward against the Soviet Union. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. When the Blitz began, the government enforced a blackout in an attempt to make targeting more difficult for German night bombers. 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. The creeping TikTok bans, Hong Kong skyscraper fire seen on city's skyline. The Belfast blitz devastated a city that up until 1941 had remained unscathed during World War Two. "But there is no such equivalent in Belfast. Government ministers in Northern Ireland began to realise the Luftwaffe may launch an attack, but it was too little, too late. "Liverpool, Clydebank and Portsmouth all have a memorial to their victims of the Blitz. Video, 00:02:54, At least 17 dead in Jakarta fuel storage depot fire. There were few bomb shelters. Hundreds of incendiary and many high-explosive bombs were dropped, doing little material damage but causing many casualties. Under the leadership of Prime Minister John Miller Andrews, Northern Ireland remained unprepared. In Newtownards, Bangor, Larne, Carrickfergus, Lisburn and Antrim many thousands of Belfast citizens took refuge either with friends or strangers. 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. There is no slacking in our loyalty. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. They all say the same thing, that the government is no good. Many in Northern Ireland thought that Belfast was outside the range of the Luftwaffe. In the New Lodge area people had taken refuge in a mill. Sir Basil Brooke, the Minister of Agriculture, was the only active minister. There were Heinkel He 111s, Junkers Ju 88s and Dornier Do 17s. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). The past doesnt change, its just over.. "There are plans for one but there isn't one yet. In late August the Germans dropped some bombs, apparently by accident, on civilian areas in London. At conservative gathering, Trump is still the favourite. When the house was hit William, Harriette, Dorothy, 36-year-old Dot and 41-year-old Isa were all killed. And even then, Westminster stated it was not ample provision; Stormont still worried about the costs to industry. Many bodies and body parts could not be identified. 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. By Jonathan Bardon. Prayers were said and hymns sung by the mainly Protestant women and children during the bombing. 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. 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. and Major Sen O'Sullivan, who produced a detailed report for the Dublin government. When the bombing began, 76-year-old William and 72-year-old Harriette took refuge under the stairs along with Dorothy, Dot and Isa. Video, 00:00:36Tears of relief after man found in Amazon jungle. . As of October 2020, the population of Belfast is about 350,000 people. In many cases the daily life of the city was able to resume with delays of only hours. John Clarke MacDermott, the Minister of Public Security, after the first bombing, initiated the "Hiram Plan" to evacuate the city and to return Belfast to 'normality' as quickly as possible. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. By British mainland blitz standards, casualties were light. Accounts differ as to when flares were dropped to light up the city. Interesting facts about Belfast. Taoiseach amon de Valera formally protested to Berlin. There were still 80,000 more in Belfast. The Royal Air Force announced that Squadron Leader J.W.C. Video, 00:03:09, Mapping the lives lost in the Belfast Blitz, Russian minister laughed at for Ukraine war claims. London seemed ablaze from the docks to Westminster, much damage was done, and casualties were high. Another attacked Bangor, killing five. Few children had been successfully evacuated. Video, 00:00:46, Hong Kong skyscraper fire seen on city's skyline, Watch: Matt Hancock message row in 83 seconds. Air-raid damage was widespread; hospitals, clubs, churches, museums, residential and shopping streets, hotels, public houses, theatres, schools, monuments, newspaper offices, embassies, and the London Zoo were bombed. This view was probably influenced by the decision of the IRA Army Council to support Germany. Several accounts point out that Belfast, standing at the end of the long inlet of Belfast Lough, would be easily located. 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. There was unease with the complacent attitude of the government, which led to resignations: Craigavon died on 24 November 1940. 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. 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. NI WW2 veterans honoured by France. Belfast was ill-prepared for the blitz. 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. 9. workers. 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. 7. 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. Video, 00:01:03One-minute World News, Isabel Oakeshott: Why I leaked Hancock's messages. So had Clydeside until recently. 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. The first deliberate raid took place on the night of 7 April. Neighbouring residential areas were also hit. During the whole period, although the citys operation was disrupted in ways that were sometimes serious, no essential service was more than temporarily impaired. Read about our approach to external linking. [17] A stray bomber attacked Derry, killing 15. 7. People are leaving from all parts of town and not only from the bombed areas. 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 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. MacDermott would be proved right. 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. Belfast has the world's largest dry dock. The 2017 film Zoo depicts an air raid during the Belfast Blitz. 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. "We can still see the physical scars of the Blitz in Belfast, that is what is left. Blitz Fibre UK Blitz Fibre UK Published Mar 1, 2023 + Follow Fact 1- Small but Mighty . Most of the objectives laid out by the reconnaissance crews were of either military or industrial importance. The most heavily bombed cities outside London were Liverpool and Birmingham. Since most casualties were caused by falling masonry rather than by blast, they provided effective shelter for those who had them. ", 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]. 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 attack on Coventry was particularly destructive. High explosive bombs predominated in this raid. There was no smokescreen ability, however there were some barrage balloons positioned strategically for protection. [9], War materials and food were sent by sea from Belfast to Great Britain, some under the protection of the neutral Irish tricolour. Nevertheless, through sheer weight of numbers, the Germans were on the brink of victory in late August 1940. Heavy jacks were unavailable. ", Dawson Bates informed the Cabinet of rack-renting of barns, and over thirty people per house in some areas.[24]. After the passing of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, it became the seat of the government of Northern Ireland. 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. When incendiaries were dropped, the city burned as water pressure was too low for effective firefighting. The period of the next moon from say the 7th to the 16th of April may well bring our turn.. Since 1:45am all telephones had been cut. In early 1941 the Germans launched another wave of attacks, this time focusing on ports. Heinkel He 111 and Dornier Do 17 planes fitted with Zeiss cameras captured high-quality aerial imagery. 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 is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland. 2023 BBC. 150 corpses remained in the Falls Road baths for three days before they were buried in a mass grave, with 123 still unidentified. 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}. A force of 180 bombers dropped 750 bombs - including 203 tonnes of high explosives - and 29,000 incendiaries over a five-hour period. Gring had insisted that such an attack was an impossibility, because of the citys formidable air defense network. The attacks were authorized by Germany's chancellor, Adolf Hitler, after the British carried out a nighttime air raid on Berlin. 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. The famous Harland and Wolff cranes are called Samson and Goliath. Belfast Blitz: Facts In total there were four attacks on the County Antrim city. He was replaced by 54-year-old Sir Basil Brooke on 1 May. Tragically 35 were crushed to death when the mill wall collapsed. 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. [citation needed]. Sixty years after the Germans bombed Belfast in World War II BBC News Online looks back and remembers the anniversary of the blitz. By mid-September 1940 the RAF had won the Battle of Britain, and the invasion was postponed indefinitely. There [is] ground for thinking that the enemy could not easily reach Belfast in force except during a period of moonlight. With the surrender of France in June 1940, Germanys sole remaining enemy lay across the English Channel. 255 corpses were laid out in St George's Market. 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. [6] It was MacDermott who sent a telegram to de Valera seeking assistance. Death had to a certain extent been made decent. The Belfast blitz is remembered. Up Next. The creeping TikTok bans. St George's Church in High Street was damaged by fire. The most significant loss was a 4.5-acre (1.8ha) factory floor for manufacturing the fuselages of Short Stirling bombers. 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. The "Hiram Plan" initiated by Dawson Bates, the Home Affairs Minister, had failed to materialise. The devastation was so great that the Germans coined a new verb, to coventrate, to describe it. By then most of the major fires were under control and the firemen from Clydeside and other British cities were arriving. The offensive came to be called the Blitz after the German word blitzkrieg ("lightning war"). 55,000 British civilian casualties were sustained through German bombing before the end of 1940 This included 23,000 deaths. These shelters, made of corrugated steel, were designed to be dug into a garden and then covered with dirt. [26], Initial German radio broadcasts celebrated the raid. It remains a high death toll - a shocking number of people killed in just a few weeks. Hitlers intention had been to break the morale of the British people so they would pressure their government to surrender. Video, 00:01:23Watch: Matt Hancock message row in 83 seconds, One-minute World News. Victory for the Royal Air Forces (RAFs) Fighter Command blocked this possibility and, in fact, created the conditions for Britains survival and the eventual destruction of the Third Reich. 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 area included the Harland and Wolff Ltd. Shipyard, the Short and Harland Ltd. Aircraft Factory, and the airfield at RAF Sydenham. 55,000 houses were damaged leaving 100,000 temporarily homeless. Belfast, the city with the highest population density in the UK at the time, also had the lowest proportion of public air-raid shelters. 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. . 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. Ulster Historical Foundation. 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. Other Belfast factories manufactured gun mountings. The nights of November 3 and 28 were the only occasions during this period in which Londons peace was unbroken by siren or bomb. 2. Reviewed by: Geoffrey Roberts. When the war began, Belfast, like many other cities, adopted the wartime practices of rationing and blackouts. On 28 April 1943, six members of the Government threatened to resign, forcing him from office. Up to now, we have escaped an attack, said John MacDermott, the Minister for Security, Belfast, on March 24, 1941. It became a city by royal charter in 1888. 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 '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. As well as photographs, the Luftwaffe gathered information on landmarks, potential targets and defences or lack thereof. 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 .