So had Clydeside until recently. 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. 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. THE BELFAST BLITZ was a series of four air raids over Northern Ireland during the spring of 1941. Many bodies and body parts could not be identified. Death should be dignified, peaceful; Hitler had made even death grotesque. workers. The firm had produced Handley Page Hereford bombers since 1936. Hitlers intention had been to break the morale of the British people so they would pressure their government to surrender. Incendiary bombs predominated in this raid. Around 20,000 people were employed on the site with 35,000 further along in the shipyard. 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. A force of 180 bombers dropped 750 bombs - including 203 tonnes of high explosives - and 29,000 incendiaries over a five-hour period. 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. 2023 BBC. 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}. The British thus fought with the advantage of superior equipment and undivided aim against an enemy with inconsistent objectives. 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. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Only four were known still to be alive. 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." Nevertheless, through sheer weight of numbers, the Germans were on the brink of victory in late August 1940. 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. Although it arrested German spies that its police and military intelligence services caught, the state never broke off diplomatic relations with Axis nations: the German Legation in Dublin remained open throughout the war. 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." and Major Sen O'Sullivan, who produced a detailed report for the Dublin government. 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 Battle of Britain [26], Initial German radio broadcasts celebrated the raid. Read about our approach to external linking. The past doesnt change, its just over.. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Video, 00:01:23Watch: Matt Hancock message row in 83 seconds, One-minute World News. What happened in 1941 changed the city forever. 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. The most heavily bombed cities outside London were Liverpool and Birmingham. By then most of the major fires were under control and the firemen from Clydeside and other British cities were arriving. 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). Moya Woodside[23] noted in her diary: "Evacuation is taking on panic proportions. Updates? The government announced that 77 people had died, but for years local residents insisted the toll was much higher. Belfast's Albert Clock tower is sinking - it leans by four feet. 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. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). The government was blamed by some for inadequate precautions. He was asked, in the N.I. 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. Read about our approach to external linking. There [is] ground for thinking that the enemy could not easily reach Belfast in force except during a period of moonlight. With tangled hair, staring eyes, clutching hands, contorted limbs, their grey-green faces covered with dust, they lay, bundled into the coffins, half-shrouded in rugs or blankets, or an occasional sheet, still wearing their dirty, torn twisted garments. "[22], In his opinion, the greatest want was the lack of hospital facilities. The attack on Coventry was particularly destructive. Can Nigeria's election result be overturned? 50,000 houses, more than half the houses in the city, were damaged. During the first year of the war, behind-the-lines conditions prevailed in London. The wartime output of the yard included aircraft carriers HMS Formidable and HMS Unicorn, cruisers such as HMS Belfast and more than 130 other vessels used by the Royal Navy. You can see the difference in those letters - post-Blitz is very much a grieving tone. Belfast is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland . 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). Despite the military and industrial importance of the city, the Luftwaffe described the defences asweak, scanty, insufficient. parliament: "if the government realized 'that these fast bombers can come to Northern Ireland in two and three quarter hours'". 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. 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]. The most significant loss was a 4.5-acre (1.8ha) factory floor for manufacturing the fuselages of Short Stirling bombers. The Belfast Blitz was a series of devastating Luftwaffe air raids that took place in Northern Ireland during the Second World War. The first was on the night of 78 April 1941, a small attack which probably took place only to test Belfast's defences. Video, 00:01:09The Spitfire turns 80, The German bombing of Coventry. On May 11, 1941, Hitler called off the Blitz as he shifted his forces eastward against the Soviet Union. Still, many in Northern Ireland believed no Luftwaffe attack would come. . Belfast was Ireland's industrial home, famous for tobacco, rope-making, linen, and ship-building, which made it the powerhouse it was. 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. 2. The seeming normality of life on the Home Front was shattered in 1944 when the first of the V1's landed. The next took place on Easter Tuesday, 15 April 1941, when 200 Luftwaffe bombers attacked military and manufacturing targets in the city of Belfast. 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. "A lot of the people I spoke to were relatives who ended up donating images and handwritten letters from before and after the Blitz. But Mr Freeburn's research casts doubt on this. Another attacked Bangor, killing five. Gring had insisted that such an attack was an impossibility, because of the citys formidable air defense network. Belfast is as worthy a target as Coventry, Birmingham, Bristol or Glasgow.. The offensive came to be called the Blitz after the German word blitzkrieg (lightning war). Clydeside got its blitz during the period of the last moon. Weighing 46,328 tonnes, Titanic was to be the largest manmade moveable object the world had ever seen. ", 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]. Many of the surface shelters built by local authorities were flimsy and provided little protection from bombs, falling debris, and fire. Blitz Fibre UK Blitz Fibre UK Published Mar 1, 2023 + Follow Fact 1- Small but Mighty . the Blitz, (September 7, 1940May 11, 1941), intense bombing campaign undertaken by Nazi Germany against the United Kingdom during World War II. Other Belfast factories manufactured gun mountings. 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. The M.V. Eduard Hempel, the German Minister to Ireland, visited the Irish Ministry for External Affairs to offer sympathy and attempt an explanation. [27] One widespread criticism was that the Germans located Belfast by heading for Dublin and following the railway lines north. 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. 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. The Belfast blitz devastated a city that up until 1941 had remained unscathed during World War Two. However that attack was not an error. 1. This part of Belfast was the only one required to provide air raid shelters for workers. By 1940, Short and Harland could shelter its entire workforce and Harland and Wolff had provision to shelter 16,000 workers. Under the leadership of Prime Minister John Miller Andrews, Northern Ireland remained unprepared. 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. Video, 00:00:51Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine, Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off. "There will always be people who will slip through the net but I am able to say at least 987 were killed across all raids.". The area included the Harland and Wolff Ltd. Shipyard, the Short and Harland Ltd. Aircraft Factory, and the airfield at RAF Sydenham. 6. The mortuary services had emergency plans to deal with only 200 bodies. Anna and Billy returned to England and continued running the children's home. When incendiaries were dropped, the city burned as water pressure was too low for effective firefighting. 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. The attacks by both V1's and V2's only ended as the Allies advanced up through Western Europe . These private air-raid shelters were Anderson shelters, constructed of sheets of corrugated galvanised iron covered in earth. Beginning in September 1940, the Blitz was an aerial bombing campaign conducted by the Luftwaffe against British cities. Reviewed by: Geoffrey Roberts. The Germans expanded the Blitz to other cities in November 1940. Brides, Fleet St.; St. Lawrence Jewry; St. Magnus the Martyr; St. Mary-at-hill; St. Dunstan in the East; St. Clement [Eastcheap] and St. Jamess, Piccadilly). Once more, London was targeted and children were victims. 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 24 March 1941, John MacDermott, Minister for Security, wrote to Prime Minister John Andrews, expressing his concerns that Belfast was so poorly protected: "Up to now we have escaped attack. 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. 2. Streetlights, car headlights, and illuminated signs were kept off. The bombing of British cities - Swansea, Belfast, Glasgow Before the war broke out, civilians had been issued with gas masks and Anderson shelters, which people were encouraged to build at the. The mass relocation, called Operation Pied Piper, was the largest internal migration in British history. 13 died, including a soldier killed when an anti-aircraft gun, at the Balmoral show-grounds, misfired. Days later a group of East Enders occupied the shelter at the upscale Savoy Hotel, and many others began to take refuge in the citys underground railway, or Tube, stations. Belfast was not properly prepared for the attacks, with too few shelters and not enough anti-aircraft guns. Wave after wave of bombers dropped their incendiaries, high explosives and land-mines. Sir Basil Brooke, the Minister of Agriculture, was the only active minister. 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. The Air Raid Precautions (A.R.P.) 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. Yesterday for once the people of Ireland were united under the shadow of a national blow. After the bombing began on September 7, local authorities urged displaced people to take shelter at South Hallsville School. It targeted the docks. Over 500 received care from the Irish Red Cross in Dublin. Fortunately, the railway telegraphy link between Belfast and Dublin was still operational. 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. 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. Video, 00:00:36, Tears of relief after man found in Amazon jungle. 7. Hundreds of incendiary and many high-explosive bombs were dropped, doing little material damage but causing many casualties. 10 Facts about Belfast City. 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. Mr Freeburn set out to find out more about those who died, their personal stories and the tales of those left behind. 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. Video, 00:01:38At least 17 dead in Jakarta fuel storage depot fire, Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine. 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. But the authorities were afraid that bombs might not be the. 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. Clydeside got its blitz during the period of the last moon. His report concluded with: "a second Belfast would be too horrible to contemplate". [4], The Government of Northern Ireland lacked the will, energy and capacity to cope with a major crisis when it came. The shipyard was among the largest in the world, producing merchant vessels and military shipping. It was not the last time Belfast would suffer. 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. Belfast is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland. This amounted to nearly half of Britains total civilian deaths for the whole war. Corrections? After his optician business was destroyed by a bomb, Mickey Davies led an effort to organize the Spitalfield Shelter. 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.
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