He was succeeded by J. M. Andrews, then 69 years old, who was no more capable of dealing with the situation than his predecessor. Since most casualties were caused by falling masonry rather than by blast, they provided effective shelter for those who had them. He was replaced by 54-year-old Sir Basil Brooke on 1 May. 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. Compared to other cities, Belfast was virtually undefended. Ulster Historical Foundation. This amounted to nearly half of Britains total civilian deaths for the whole war. 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. The most significant loss was a 4.5-acre (1.8ha) factory floor for manufacturing the fuselages of Short Stirling bombers. Again the Irish emergency services crossed the border, this time without waiting for an invitation. And then naturally as I was over the target, I did pick up flak but I have no sense of exactly how weak or how strong it was, because every bit of flak you get is dangerous.. (Great War casualties) had died in hospital beds, their eyes had been reverently closed, their hands crossed to their breasts. The attack on Coventry was particularly destructive. In just these few hours, 430 people were killed and 1,600 were badly injured. For two hours on the first day, 348 German bombers and 617 fighters blasted London. Belfast is famous for being the birthplace of the Titanic. Fortunately, the railway telegraphy link between Belfast and Dublin was still operational. 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. Omissions? These shelters, made of corrugated steel, were designed to be dug into a garden and then covered with dirt. 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. 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. Prayers were said and hymns sung by the mainly Protestant women and children during the bombing. parliament: "if the government realized 'that these fast bombers can come to Northern Ireland in two and three quarter hours'". After his optician business was destroyed by a bomb, Mickey Davies led an effort to organize the Spitalfield Shelter. 8. By 4 am the entire city seemed to be in flames. Half of the city's housing was damaged over the course of all the raids. [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 famous Harland and Wolff cranes are called Samson and Goliath. Belfast's Albert Clock tower is sinking - it leans by four feet. 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. ISBN 9781909556324. No attendant nurse had soothed the last moments of these victims; no gentle reverent hand had closed their eyes or crossed their hands. High explosives were dropped. 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). 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. 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. ", Mapping the lives lost in the Belfast Blitz. [citation needed], Other writers, such as Tony Gray in The Lost Years state that the Germans did follow their radio guidance beams. [17] A stray bomber attacked Derry, killing 15. The firm had produced Handley Page Hereford bombers since 1936. Heavy jacks were unavailable. London seemed ablaze from the docks to Westminster, much damage was done, and casualties were high. [1][2], The third raid on Belfast took place over the evening and morning of 45 May 1941; 150 were killed. Apart from one or two false alarms in the early days of the war, no sirens wailed in London until June 25. Where they are going, what they will find to eat when they get there, nobody knows. Singer-songwriter Van Morrison was born here. The database Mr Freeburn has compiled is, he believes, the most accurate list of those killed and includes 222 children aged 16 or under. Video, 00:01:09The Spitfire turns 80, The German bombing of Coventry. A charitable relief fund for the people of London was opened September 10. 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; Despite the attacks, Belfast continued to contribute to the war effort, and within less than a year the city witnessed the arrival of thousands of American troops. The A.R.P. 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. 19.99. Here are 10 facts about both the German Blitzkrieg and the Allied bombing of Germany. 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. Video, 00:02:12Isabel Oakeshott: Why I leaked Hancock's messages, Tears of relief after man found in Amazon jungle. The past doesnt change, its just over.. It was not the first time the alarm had sounded to signify the presence of Luftwaffe bombers over the city. Video, 00:00:51, Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine, Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off. Video, 00:01:41NI WW2 veterans honoured by France, The Spitfire turns 80. Published: September 7, 2020 at 12:00 pm. The shipyard was among the largest in the world, producing merchant vessels and military shipping. 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]. sprang into action, and Londoners, while maintaining the work, business, and efficiency of their city, displayed remarkable fortitude. 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. Men from the South worked with men from the North in the universal cause of the relief of suffering. 10,000 "officially" crossed the border. The M.V. At 10:40pm the air raid sirens sounded. 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." Since 1:45am all telephones had been cut. The period of the next moon from say the 7th to the 16th of April may well bring our turn." Video, 00:00:36Tears of relief after man found in Amazon jungle. 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." Other targets included Sheffield, Manchester, Coventry, and Southampton. 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. This view was probably influenced by the decision of the IRA Army Council to support Germany. Nevertheless, for all the hardship it caused, the campaign proved to be a strategic mistake by the Germans. During the first year of the war, behind-the-lines conditions prevailed in London. About 1,000 people were killed and bombs hit half of the houses in the city, leaving 100,000 people homeless. Video, 00:00:51Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine, Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off. The higher the German planes had to fly to avoid the balloons, the less accurate they were when dropping their bombs. The 2017 film Zoo depicts an air raid during the Belfast Blitz. 13 died, including a soldier killed when an anti-aircraft gun, at the Balmoral show-grounds, misfired. The youngest victim was just six-weeks-old. The creeping TikTok bans. Wherever Churchill is hiding his war material we will go. This part of Belfast was the only one required to provide air raid shelters for workers. . 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. Under the leadership of Prime Minister John Miller Andrews, Northern Ireland remained unprepared. Weighing 46,328 tonnes, Titanic was to be the largest manmade moveable object the world had ever seen. Video, 00:03:09, Mapping the lives lost in the Belfast Blitz, Russian minister laughed at for Ukraine war claims. 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. Belfast is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland. He believed that this was being done already but it was inevitable that a certain number of civilian lives should be lost in the course of heavy bombing from the air". 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. Protection of the city fell to seven anti-aircraft batteries of 16 heavy guns and six light guns. These shelters were vital as these factories had many employees working late at night and early in the morning when Luftwaffe attacks were likely. 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. Of the churches, besides St. Pauls cathedral, where at one time were five unexploded bombs in the immediate vicinity and the roof of which was pierced by another that exploded and shattered the high altar to fragments, those damaged were Westminster abbey, St. Margarets Westminster, Southwark cathedral; fifteen Wren churches (including St. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. The raid so infuriated Hitler that he ordered the Luftwaffe to shift its attacks from RAF sites to London and other cities. 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. Anna and Billy returned to England and continued running the children's home. 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). The most heavily bombed area was that which lay between York Street and the Antrim Road, north of the city centre. Dissatisfaction with public shelters also led to another notable development in the East EndMickeys Shelter. 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. Belfast is located on the island of Ireland. On November 14, 1940, a German force of more than 500 bombers destroyed much of the old city centre and killed more than 550 people. 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. But the RAF had not responded. 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. [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. 29 - Belfast was once bigger than Dublin In the New Lodge area people had taken refuge in a mill. His report concluded with: "a second Belfast would be too horrible to contemplate". 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. "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.". Video, 00:01:37, Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off, Tear gas fired at Greece train crash protesters. wardens, and members of the Home Guard drilling in the parks, life went on much as usual. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of any material on this site without expressand written permission from the author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. O'Sullivan reported: "There were many terrible mutilations among both living and dead heads crushed, ghastly abdominal and face wounds, penetration by beams, mangled and crushed limbs etc.". 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. The creeping TikTok bans, Hong Kong skyscraper fire seen on city's skyline. The Air Raid Precautions (A.R.P.) The government announced that 77 people had died, but for years local residents insisted the toll was much higher. 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. 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. The British government had anticipated air attacks on its population centres, and it had predicted catastrophic casualties. By then most of the major fires were under control and the firemen from Clydeside and other British cities were arriving. In Newtownards, Bangor, Larne, Carrickfergus, Lisburn and Antrim many thousands of Belfast citizens took refuge either with friends or strangers. There wasn't enough room for Anna or Billy, so they sheltered elsewhere, a twist of fate that would save their lives. It remains a high death toll - a shocking number of people killed in just a few weeks. These balloons, the largest of which were some 60 feet (18 metres) long, were essentially an airspace denial tool. Updates? James Craig, Lord Craigavon, had been Prime Minister of Northern Ireland since its inception in 1921 up until his death in 1940. The first attack was against the city's waterworks, which had been attacked in the previous raid. 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. An air raid shelter on Hallidays Road received a direct hit, killing all those in it. Maps and documents uncovered at Gatow Airfield near Berlin in 1945 showed the level of detail involved. IWM C 5424 1. 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 next took place on Easter Tuesday, 15 April 1941, when 200 Luftwaffe bombers attacked military and manufacturing targets in the city of Belfast. During the whole period, although the citys operation was disrupted in ways that were sometimes serious, no essential service was more than temporarily impaired. The success of Mickeys Shelter was another factor that urged the government to improve existing deep shelters and to create new ones. At 10:40 on the evening of Easter Tuesday 1941 air raid sirens sounded across Belfast, sending people across the city scrambling for safety - in one of the 200 public shelters in the city or the thousands of shelters or other "safe" spaces in private homes. Streetlights, car headlights, and illuminated signs were kept off. Richard Dawson Bates was the Home Affairs Minister. 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. Belfast was not properly prepared for the attacks, with too few shelters and not enough anti-aircraft guns. The seeming normality of life on the Home Front was shattered in 1944 when the first of the V1's landed. 7. 255 corpses were laid out in St George's Market. Some had received food, others were famished. 4. In the first days of the Blitz, a tragic incident in the East End stoked public anger over the governments shelter policy. The "pothole blitz" is a common short-term initiative to combat storm weather damage. Wave after wave of bombers dropped their incendiaries, high explosives and land-mines. 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. 2. continuous trek to railway stations. After the war, instructions from Joseph Goebbels were discovered ordering it not to be mentioned. St George's Church in High Street was damaged by fire. NI WW2 veterans honoured by France. 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. Please select which sections you would like to print: Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Even the children of soldiers had not been evacuated, with calamitous results when the married quarters of Victoria Barracks received a direct hit. The fourth and final Belfast raid took place on the following night, 56 May. 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. The danger faced in London was greatly increased when the V2 attacks started and the casualty figures mirrored those of the Blitz.. People are leaving from all parts of town and not only from the bombed areas. The district of Belfast has an area of 44 square miles (115 square km). Some 900 people died as a result of the bombing and 1,500 were injured. William Joyce (known as "Lord Haw-Haw") announced in radio broadcasts from Hamburg that there will be "Easter eggs for Belfast". No searchlights were set up in the city at the time, and these only arrived on 10 April. But the Luftwaffe was ready. 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. The city has been a leader in women's rights. 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. 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. Van Morrison is from the east part of the city. By British mainland blitz standards, casualties were light. Added to this was the repair and refitting of 22,000 more vessels. That contrasts with the figure that is often given of more than 900 killed on Easter Tuesday alone. [citation needed]. [25] He followed up with his "they are our people" speech, made in Castlebar, County Mayo, on Sunday 20 April 1941 (Quoted in the Dundalk Democrat dated Saturday 26 April 1941): In the past, and probably in the present, too, a number of them did not see eye to eye with us politically, but they are our people we are one and the same people and their sorrows in the present instance are also our sorrows; and I want to say to them that any help we can give to them in the present time we will give to them whole-heartedly, believing that were the circumstances reversed they would also give us their help whole-heartedly Frank Aiken, the Irish Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures was in Boston, Massachusetts at the time. They prevented low-flying aircraft from approaching their targets at optimal altitudes and angles of attack. 6. Three vessels nearing completion at Harland and Wolff's were hit as was its power station. 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. 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. Many of those who died as a result of enemy action lived in tightly packed, poorly constructed, terraced housing. Video, 00:01:37Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off, Tear gas fired at Greece train crash protesters. The national government also provided funds to local municipalities to construct public air-raid shelters. Morale did suffer amid the death and devastation, but there were few calls for surrender. Similar initiatives bearing the same name were ordered in the past decade by former mayors Libby . to households. Video, 00:01:41, The German bombing of Coventry. Belfast was Ireland's industrial home, famous for tobacco, rope-making, linen, and ship-building, which made it the powerhouse it was. The first was on the night of 7-8 April 1941, a small attack which probably took place only to test Belfast's defences. After a brief lull, the Luftwaffe returned in force on February 17. When the house was hit William, Harriette, Dorothy, 36-year-old Dot and 41-year-old Isa were all killed. Belfast confetti," said one archive news report. "But there is no such equivalent in Belfast. However Belfast was not mentioned again by the Nazis. 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." The government was blamed by some for inadequate precautions. The use of the Tube system as a shelter saved thousands of lives, and images of Londoners huddled in Underground stations would become an indelible image of British life during World War II. Roads out of town are still one stream of cars, with mattresses and bedding tied on top. 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. It is situated at on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. The Blitz was devastating for the people of London and other cities. 7. Nearby residential areas in east Belfast were also hit when "203 metric tonnes of high explosive bombs, 80 land mines attached to parachutes, and 800 firebomb canisters containing 96,000 incendiary bombs"[16] were dropped.