It remains a high death toll - a shocking number of people killed in just a few weeks. Wherever Churchill is hiding his war material we will go. The Luftwaffe crews returned to their base in Northern France and reported that Belfast's defences were, "inferior in quality, scanty and insufficient". Learn how your comment data is processed. By the end of the attacks, between 900 and 1,000 people were dead and thousands more were injured, homeless and displaced. A short respite followed, until a widespread series of night raids on April 7 included some targets in the London area. 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. Wave after wave of bombers dropped their incendiaries, high explosives and land-mines. [26], Initial German radio broadcasts celebrated the raid. These balloons, the largest of which were some 60 feet (18 metres) long, were essentially an airspace denial tool. Blitz, The - Kids | Britannica Kids | Homework Help Richard Dawson Bates was the Home Affairs Minister. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. What's the least amount of exercise we can get away with? In 1995, on the 50th anniversary of the ending of the Second World War, an invitation was received by the Dublin Fire Brigade for any survivors of that time to attend a function at Hillsborough Castle and meet Prince Charles. MacDermott would be proved right. 9. Video, 00:00:46, Hong Kong skyscraper fire seen on city's skyline, Watch: Matt Hancock message row in 83 seconds. 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? [18], Over 900 people died, 1,500 people were injured, 400 of them seriously. Video, 00:01:09The Spitfire turns 80, The German bombing of Coventry. 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. 1. 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. Neighbouring residential areas were also hit. 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 fall of France in June, 1940, enabled the Luftwaffe to establish airfields across the north of the country, leaving Ulster within reach of bombers. 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. When the war began, Belfast, like many other cities, adopted the wartime practices of rationing and blackouts. Video, 00:01:41NI WW2 veterans honoured by France, The Spitfire turns 80. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Just eight days earlier, eight planes destroyed the aircraft fuselage factory and damaged the docks, with 15 people ultimately killed as a result of that raid. As of October 2020, the population of Belfast is about 350,000 people. 10 Awesome Facts About Fibre - linkedin.com 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. 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. 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. ISBN 9781909556324. Humanity knows no borders, no politics, no differences of religious belief. Horrendous Belfast losses during World War Two bombing blitz 13 died, including a soldier killed when an anti-aircraft gun, at the Balmoral show-grounds, misfired. The first attack was against the city's waterworks, which had been attacked in the previous raid. On September 1, 1939, the day World War II began with Germanys invasion of Poland, the British government implemented a massive evacuation plan. 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. 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. [27] One widespread criticism was that the Germans located Belfast by heading for Dublin and following the railway lines north. 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. 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). In just these few hours, 430 people were killed and 1,600 were badly injured. During the first year of the war, behind-the-lines conditions prevailed in London. After his optician business was destroyed by a bomb, Mickey Davies led an effort to organize the Spitalfield Shelter. The A.R.P. 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. Video, 00:00:46Hong Kong skyscraper fire seen on city's skyline, Watch: Matt Hancock message row in 83 seconds. 14 Breathtaking Facts about Belfast - Fact City By 1940, Short and Harland could shelter its entire workforce and Harland and Wolff had provision to shelter 16,000 workers. On August 25 the British retaliated by launching a bombing raid on Berlin. Video, 00:01:38At least 17 dead in Jakarta fuel storage depot fire, Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine. When the house was hit William, Harriette, Dorothy, 36-year-old Dot and 41-year-old Isa were all killed. sprang into action, and Londoners, while maintaining the work, business, and efficiency of their city, displayed remarkable fortitude. 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." The most significant loss was a 4.5-acre (1.8ha) factory floor for manufacturing the fuselages of Short Stirling bombers. Roads out of town are still one stream of cars, with mattresses and bedding tied on top. In addition, there simply was not enough space for everyone who needed shelter in one of the largest and most densely populated cities in the world. In early 1941 the Germans launched another wave of attacks, this time focusing on ports. WW2: How did an elephant beat the Belfast Blitz? - BBC Teach 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. In late August the Germans dropped some bombs, apparently by accident, on civilian areas in London. 2023 BBC. Another attacked Bangor, killing five. "Liverpool, Clydebank and Portsmouth all have a memorial to their victims of the Blitz. Belfast Blitz - Wikipedia 2023 BBC. The working-class living close to industrial centres suffered more than anyone over the course of the four raids. Half of the city's housing was damaged over the course of all the raids. . 150 corpses remained in the Falls Road baths for three days before they were buried in a mass grave, with 123 still unidentified. The "Hiram Plan" initiated by Dawson Bates, the Home Affairs Minister, had failed to materialise. 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. The Belfast Blitz: the city in the war years - History Ireland Belfast is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland . There [is] ground for thinking that the enemy could not easily reach Belfast in force except during a period of moonlight. Belfast confetti," said one archive news report. IWM C 5424 1. The Blitz began at around 4 pm on September 7, 1940, when German bomber planes first appeared over London. The attacks by both V1's and V2's only ended as the Allies advanced up through Western Europe . You can see the difference in those letters - post-Blitz is very much a grieving tone. They prevented low-flying aircraft from approaching their targets at optimal altitudes and angles of attack. Because basements, a logical destination in the event of an air raid, were a relative rarity in Britain, the A.R.P. 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. Read about our approach to external linking. Belfast is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland. Thank you. [citation needed]. There is no slacking in our loyalty. Jimmy Doherty, an air raid warden (who later served in London during the V1 and V2 blitz), who wrote a book on the Belfast blitz; Belfast is as worthy a target as Coventry, Birmingham, Bristol or Glasgow.. From papers recovered after the war, we know of a Luftwaffe reconnaissance flight over Belfast on 30 November 1940. 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. The nights of November 3 and 28 were the only occasions during this period in which Londons peace was unbroken by siren or bomb. Belfast was bombed by the Nazis in World War II. Other targets included Sheffield, Manchester, Coventry, and Southampton. 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. Belfast's Albert Clock tower is sinking - it leans by four feet. After the war, instructions from Joseph Goebbels were discovered ordering it not to be mentioned. Most of the objectives laid out by the reconnaissance crews were of either military or industrial importance. Gring had insisted that such an attack was an impossibility, because of the citys formidable air defense network. 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. 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. By British mainland blitz standards, casualties were light. Added to this was the repair and refitting of 22,000 more vessels. But the RAF had not responded. Beginning on Black Saturday, London was attacked on 57 straight nights. 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. On 28 April 1943, six members of the Government threatened to resign, forcing him from office. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Another defensive measure employed by the British was barrage balloonslarge oval-shaped unmanned balloons with stabilizing tail finsinstalled in and around major target areas. Everything on wheels is being pressed into service. The Premier Online Military History Magazine, Re-printed with permission fromWartimeNI.com. Video, 00:02:12, Isabel Oakeshott: Why I leaked Hancock's messages, Tears of relief after man found in Amazon jungle. Apart from one or two false alarms in the early days of the war, no sirens wailed in London until June 25. However Belfast was not mentioned again by the Nazis. Fortunately, the railway telegraphy link between Belfast and Dublin was still operational. 2. 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. 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. The offensive came to be called the Blitz after the German word blitzkrieg (lightning war). By then 250 firemen from Clydeside had arrived. But the Luftwaffe was ready. He was asked, in the N.I. His report concluded with: "a second Belfast would be too horrible to contemplate". 10,000 "officially" crossed the border. The famous Harland and Wolff cranes are called Samson and Goliath. After the war, when the first girl from the home got married Billy gave her away, having lost his only daughter. 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. Few children had been successfully evacuated. 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. So had Clydeside until recently. London was bombed for 57 consecutive nights from 7 September 1940 The first was on the night of 78 April 1941, a small attack which probably took place only to test Belfast's defences. It has been reported that on Easter Tuesday, Belfast suffered the highest loss of life of any city in the UK in a single raid. and Major Sen O'Sullivan, who produced a detailed report for the Dublin government. His reply was: "We here today are in a state of war and we are prepared with the rest of the United Kingdom and Empire to face all the responsibilities that imposes on the Ulster people. The first (April 7 -8), a small attack, was most likely carried out to test the city's defenses. The firm had produced Handley Page Hereford bombers since 1936. [citation needed]. Beginning in September 1940, the Blitz was an aerial bombing campaign conducted by the Luftwaffe against British cities. It was solemn, tragic, dignified, but here it was grotesque, repulsive, horrible. 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. Video, 00:01:38, At least 17 dead in Jakarta fuel storage depot fire, Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine. 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. 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. "But there is no such equivalent in Belfast. That night almost 300 people, many from the Protestant Shankill area, took refuge in the Clonard Monastery in the Catholic Falls Road. 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. 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. Belfast Blitz: The Luftwaffe attacks Northern Ireland - WartimeNI Can Nigeria's election result be overturned? Anna and Billy were buried up their necks in sewage but were rescued and survived. The most heavily bombed cities outside London were Liverpool and Birmingham. Fewer than 4,000 women and children were evacuated. "There are plans for one but there isn't one yet. Video, 00:03:09, Mapping the lives lost in the Belfast Blitz, Russian minister laughed at for Ukraine war claims. These shelters, made of corrugated steel, were designed to be dug into a garden and then covered with dirt. Tommy Henderson, an Independent Unionist MP in the House of Commons of Northern Ireland, summed up the feeling when he invited the Minister of Home Affairs to Hannahstown and the Falls Road, saying "The Catholics and the Protestants are going up there mixed and they are talking to one another. 255 corpses were laid out in St George's Market. 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. Since most casualties were caused by falling masonry rather than by blast, they provided effective shelter for those who had them. Apart from those on London, this was the greatest loss of life in any night raid during the Blitz. That evening over 150 bombers left their bases in northern France and the Netherlands and headed for Belfast. NI WW2 veterans honoured by France. [citation needed]. 24 - The tyres Dunlop were invented in Belfast in 1887 25 - The two H&W cranes are named Samson and Goliath 26 - The Albert Clock is Ireland's leaning tower 27 - The mobile defibrillator was invented in Belfast 28 - Belfast's ice hockey team, the Giants, is one of the best in Europe. 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. 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]. Video, 00:00:51, Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine, Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off. The mass relocation, called Operation Pied Piper, was the largest internal migration in British history. 7. A force of 180 bombers dropped 750 bombs - including 203 tonnes of high explosives - and 29,000 incendiaries over a five-hour period. Fiber-optic cables are made from thin strings of glass and are generally about one-tenth the width of a . The city has been a leader in women's rights. The British, on the other hand, were supremely well prepared for the kind of battle in which they now found themselves. Burke Street which ran between Annadale and Dawson streets in the New Lodge area, was completely wiped off the map with all its 20 houses flattened and all of the occupants killed.[16]. Also, on Queens Island, stood the Short and Harland Ltd. Aircraft Factory. For more than six months, German planes had flown reconnaissance flights over Belfast. 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. For two hours, 348 German bombers and 617 fighters targeted the city, dropping high-explosive bombs as well as incendiary devices. 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. Up to now, we have escaped an attack, said John MacDermott, the Minister for Security, Belfast, on March 24, 1941. The Blitz of Belfast 1941 - History Learning Site As many as 5,000 people had packed into this network of underground tunnels, which was dangerously overcrowded, dirty, and dark. The M.V. Death should be dignified, peaceful; Hitler had made even death grotesque. By then most of the major fires were under control and the firemen from Clydeside and other British cities were arriving. Incendiary bombs predominated in this raid. Many of those who died as a result of enemy action lived in tightly packed, poorly constructed, terraced housing. 4. The shipyard was among the largest in the world, producing merchant vessels and military shipping. The creeping TikTok bans. Belfast is located on the island of Ireland. Death had to a certain extent been made decent. 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. The Titanic was built in Belfast. When incendiaries were dropped, the city burned as water pressure was too low for effective firefighting. The Air Raid Precautions (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." Nevertheless, for all the hardship it caused, the campaign proved to be a strategic mistake by the Germans. In another building, the York Street Mill, one of its massive sidewalls collapsed on to Sussex and Vere Streets, killing all those who remained in their homes. Clydeside got its blitz during the period of the last moon. In many cases the daily life of the city was able to resume with delays of only hours. The British thus fought with the advantage of superior equipment and undivided aim against an enemy with inconsistent objectives. The sense of relative calm was abruptly shattered in the first week of September 1940, when the war came to London in earnest. The South Hallsville School disaster prompted Londoners, especially residents of the East End, to find safer shelters, on their own if necessary. It was the worst wartime raid outside of London in the UK. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. On 4-5 May, another raid, made up of 204 bombers, killed another 203 people and the following night 22 more died. "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 Belfast blitz during World War Two - BBC News Taoiseach amon de Valera formally protested to Berlin. Since 1:45am all telephones had been cut. Read about our approach to external linking. However, the Docklands was also a densely populated and impoverished area where thousands of working-class Londoners lived in run-down housing. At 10:40pm the air raid sirens sounded. After the passing of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, it became the seat of the government of Northern Ireland. Simpson shot down one of the Heinkels over Downpatrick. Revised estimates made decades later indicated that close to 600 men, women, and children had been killed in the bombing. The bombs caused death and destruction across the city, affecting those of all religions and political backgrounds. He went to the Mater Hospital at 2pm, nine hours after the raid ended, to find the street with a traffic jam of ambulances waiting to admit their casualties. Nearby were the citys main power station, gasworks, telephone house and the Sirocco Engineering works. A victory for the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain would indeed have exposed Great Britain to invasion and occupation. 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.
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