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. That contrasts with the figure that is often given of more than 900 killed on Easter Tuesday alone. 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." The government announced that 77 people had died, but for years local residents insisted the toll was much higher. "But there is no such equivalent in Belfast. Belfast Blitz: Marking the lost lives 80 years on. 13 Facts You Didn't Know About Belfast 9. Belfast is as worthy a target as Coventry, Birmingham, Bristol or Glasgow.. He was replaced by 54-year-old Sir Basil Brooke on 1 May. In many cases the daily life of the city was able to resume with delays of only hours. It was not the first time the alarm had sounded to signify the presence of Luftwaffe bombers over the city. St George's Church in High Street was damaged by fire. The Belfast blitz. In Newtownards, Bangor, Larne, Carrickfergus, Lisburn and Antrim many thousands of Belfast citizens took refuge either with friends or strangers. London seemed ablaze from the docks to Westminster, much damage was done, and casualties were high. They remained for three days, until they were sent back by the Northern Ireland government. In spite of blackouts, ubiquitous shelters and sandbags, the visible effects of mass evacuation, the presence of A.R.P. ISBN 9781909556324. The Blitz was devastating for the people of London and other cities. along with England, Scotland, and Wales. 7. His report concluded with: "a second Belfast would be too horrible to contemplate". 2. 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. [citation needed]. This amounted to nearly half of Britains total civilian deaths for the whole war. The sense of relative calm was abruptly shattered in the first week of September 1940, when the war came to London in earnest. Belfast's Albert Clock tower is sinking - it leans by four feet. 2. 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. 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. The first attack was against the city's waterworks, which had been attacked in the previous raid. Guided by Davies, the people of the shelter created an ad hoc government and established a set of rules. For two hours, 348 German bombers and 617 fighters targeted the city, dropping high-explosive bombs as well as incendiary devices. There were Heinkel He 111s, Junkers Ju 88s and Dornier Do 17s. 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. [1][2], The third raid on Belfast took place over the evening and morning of 45 May 1941; 150 were killed. So had Clydeside until recently. 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. 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. When Germany bombed Belfast as part of the Blitz during World War Two, the massive air raids left more than a thousand people dead. 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. [citation needed]. They are sleeping in the same sheugh (ditch), below the same tree or in the same barn. Davies also set up medical stations and persuaded off-duty medical personnel to treat the sick and wounded. 2. 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. In early 1941 the Germans launched another wave of attacks, this time focusing on ports. Half of the city's housing was damaged over the course of all the raids. 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. 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. Fewer than 4,000 women and children were evacuated. ", Dawson Bates informed the Cabinet of rack-renting of barns, and over thirty people per house in some areas.[24]. Another attacked Bangor, killing five. (Some authors count this as the second raid of four). By British mainland blitz standards, casualties were light. 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. [21] Mass graves for the unclaimed bodies were dug in the Milltown and Belfast City Cemeteries. 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 . The M.V. By 1941, production of the Short Stirling Bomber and the Short Sunderland Flying Boat was underway. 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. 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. 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." James Craig, Lord Craigavon, had been Prime Minister of Northern Ireland since its inception in 1921 up until his death in 1940. 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. A victory for the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain would indeed have exposed Great Britain to invasion and occupation. Video, 00:00:46Hong Kong skyscraper fire seen on city's skyline, Watch: Matt Hancock message row in 83 seconds. At the beginning of the Blitz, British ack ack gunners struggled to inflict meaningful damage on German bombers, but later developments in radar guidance greatly improved the effectiveness of both antiaircraft artillery and searchlights. 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. Another defensive measure employed by the British was barrage balloonslarge oval-shaped unmanned balloons with stabilizing tail finsinstalled in and around major target areas. In the eight months of attacks, some 43,000 civilians were killed. The district of Belfast has an area of 44 square miles (115 square km). The devastation was so great that the Germans coined a new verb, to coventrate, to describe it. This type of shelteressentially a low steel cage large enough to contain two adults and two small childrenwas designed to be set up indoors and could serve as a refuge if the building began to collapse. Many bodies and body parts could not be identified. The 2017 film Zoo depicts an air raid during the Belfast Blitz. 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." Still, many in Northern Ireland believed no Luftwaffe attack would come. He was asked, in the N.I. For 57 nightsuntil November 2more than 1 million bombs were dropped on the capital city. Belfast is located on the island of Ireland. The creeping TikTok bans, Hong Kong skyscraper fire seen on city's skyline. These shelters, made of corrugated steel, were designed to be dug into a garden and then covered with dirt. 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. Three vessels nearing completion at Harland and Wolff's were hit as was its power station. Anna and Billy were buried up their necks in sewage but were rescued and survived. The Blitz Around Britain - World War 2 | Imperial War Museums Tragically 35 were crushed to death when the mill wall collapsed. parliament: "if the government realized 'that these fast bombers can come to Northern Ireland in two and three quarter hours'". Wherever Churchill is hiding his war material we will go. When the war began, Belfast, like many other cities, adopted the wartime practices of rationing and blackouts. When a bombing raid was imminent, air-raid sirens were set off to sound a warning. The attacks by both V1's and V2's only ended as the Allies advanced up through Western Europe . Where they are going, what they will find to eat when they get there, nobody knows. Very early in the German bombing campaign, it became clear that the preparationshowever extensive they seemed to have beenwere inadequate. 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. Video, 00:00:46, Hong Kong skyscraper fire seen on city's skyline, Watch: Matt Hancock message row in 83 seconds. 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. What happened in 1941 changed the city forever. Up Next. An air raid shelter on Hallidays Road received a direct hit, killing all those in it. Belfast was bombed by the Nazis in World War II. Londoners enjoyed three weeks of uneasy peace until May 1011, the night of a full moon, when the Luftwaffe launched the most intense raid of the Blitz. Nevertheless, through sheer weight of numbers, the Germans were on the brink of victory in late August 1940. ", US journalist Ben Robertson reported that at night Dublin was the only city without a blackout between New York and Moscow, and between Lisbon and Sweden and that German bombers often flew overhead to check their bearings using its lights, angering the British. 19.99. Video, 00:03:09, Mapping the lives lost in the Belfast Blitz, Russian minister laughed at for Ukraine war claims. When the bombing began, 76-year-old William and 72-year-old Harriette took refuge under the stairs along with Dorothy, Dot and Isa. continuous trek to railway stations. Interesting facts about Belfast. The Germans established that Belfast was defended by only seven anti-aircraft batteries, which made it the most poorly defended city in the United Kingdom. the Blitz, (September 7, 1940May 11, 1941), intense bombing campaign undertaken by Nazi Germany against the United Kingdom during World War II. 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. Major O'Sullivan reported that "In the heavily 'blitzed' areas people ran panic-stricken into the streets and made for the open country. There were still 80,000 more in Belfast. [26], Initial German radio broadcasts celebrated the raid. 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. Death should be dignified, peaceful; Hitler had made even death grotesque. sprang into action, and Londoners, while maintaining the work, business, and efficiency of their city, displayed remarkable fortitude. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of any material on this site without expressand written permission from the author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. But the RAF had not responded. devised the Morrison shelter (named for Home Secretary Herbert Stanley Morrison) as an alternative to the Anderson shelter. Oakland plans to unleash 'pothole blitz' to fix notorious street damage On May 11, 1941, Hitler called off the Blitz as he shifted his forces eastward against the Soviet Union. The database Mr Freeburn has compiled is, he believes, the most accurate list of those killed and includes 222 children aged 16 or under. The Belfast blitz is remembered. 7. 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". 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." 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. By the middle of December it had reached nearly 1,700,000 (adjusted for inflation, this was the equivalent of roughly 100 million in 2020). Video, 00:01:09The Spitfire turns 80, The German bombing of Coventry. Simpson shot down one of the Heinkels over Downpatrick. 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. You can see the difference in those letters - post-Blitz is very much a grieving tone. They all say the same thing, that the government is no good. "Through cross-referencing a number of different sources I have been able to get the most accurate number of people who died in the Blitz," he says. The mortuary services had emergency plans to deal with only 200 bodies. 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. [19], 220,000 people fled from the city. Video, 00:00:51Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine, Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off. 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. Some 900 people died as a result of the bombing and 1,500 were injured. By then most of the major fires were under control and the firemen from Clydeside and other British cities were arriving. A Luftwaffe terror bombing attack on the Spanish city of Guernica (April 26, 1937) during the Spanish Civil War had killed hundreds of civilians and destroyed much of the town. Incendiary bombs predominated in this raid. In the first days of the Blitz, a tragic incident in the East End stoked public anger over the governments shelter policy. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. The Air Raid Precautions (A.R.P.) 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. The youngest victim was just six-weeks-old. 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]. The creeping TikTok bans. 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. "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.". NI WW2 veterans honoured by France. Yesterday the hand of good-fellowship was reached across the Border. By 4 am the entire city seemed to be in flames. No attendant nurse had soothed the last moments of these victims; no gentle reverent hand had closed their eyes or crossed their hands. KS3 History (Environment and society) The Belfast Blitz learning resources for adults, children, parents and teachers. The famous Harland and Wolff cranes are called Samson and Goliath. The telegram was sent at 4:35am,[citation needed] asking the Irish Taoiseach, amon de Valera for assistance. Authorities had noted Queens Island in the cityas a vulnerable point as early as 1929. He successfully busied himself with the task of making Northern Ireland a major supplier of food to Britain in her time of need.[5]. Belfast was largely unprepared for an attack of such a scale as 200 German bombers shelled the city on 15 April 1941. As many were caught in the open by blast and secondary missiles, the enormous number of casualties can be readily accounted for. 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. High explosives were dropped. 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. Learn how your comment data is processed. On August 25 the British retaliated by launching a bombing raid on Berlin. Video, 00:00:36, Tears of relief after man found in Amazon jungle. The Germans, however, saw Belfast as a legitimate target due to the shipyards in the city that were contributing to Britain's war efforts. By 1940, Short and Harland could shelter its entire workforce and Harland and Wolff had provision to shelter 16,000 workers. Read about our approach to external linking. 3. Many of those who died as a result of enemy action lived in tightly packed, poorly constructed, terraced housing. 29 - Belfast was once bigger than Dublin Video, 00:01:23Watch: Matt Hancock message row in 83 seconds, One-minute World News. The town of Dromara saw its population increase from 500 to 2,500.