10 facts about the belfast blitz 10 facts about the belfast blitz

", Dawson Bates informed the Cabinet of rack-renting of barns, and over thirty people per house in some areas.[24]. All were exhausted. By 1940, Short and Harland could shelter its entire workforce and Harland and Wolff had provision to shelter 16,000 workers. 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. [1][2], The third raid on Belfast took place over the evening and morning of 45 May 1941; 150 were killed. 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. Anna and Billy were buried up their necks in sewage but were rescued and survived. 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. 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. The next took. This raid overall caused relatively little damage, but a lot was revealed about Belfast's inadequate defences. 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. Fighter Commands efforts were greatly aided by the lack of any consistent plan of action on the part of the Germans. [12], There was little preparation for the conflict with Germany. The attacks by both V1's and V2's only ended as the Allies advanced up through Western Europe . Although casualties were heavy, at no time did they approach the estimates that had been made before the war, and only a fraction of the available hospital and ambulance capacity was ever utilized. James Craig, Lord Craigavon, had been Prime Minister of Northern Ireland since its inception in 1921 up until his death in 1940. When Germany bombed Belfast as part of the Blitz during World War Two, the massive air raids left more than a thousand people dead. Six Heinkel He 111 bombers, from Kampfgruppe 26, flying at 7,000 feet (2,100m), dropped incendiaries, high explosive and parachute-mines. In the first days of the Blitz, a tragic incident in the East End stoked public anger over the governments shelter policy. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. The House of Commons, Westminster Abbey, and the British Museum were severely damaged, and The Temple was almost completely destroyed. 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 creeping TikTok bans, Hong Kong skyscraper fire seen on city's skyline. "Liverpool, Clydebank and Portsmouth all have a memorial to their victims of the Blitz. 55,000 houses were damaged leaving 100,000 temporarily homeless. After the war, when the first girl from the home got married Billy gave her away, having lost his only daughter. Again the Irish emergency services crossed the border, this time without waiting for an invitation. 150 corpses remained in the Falls Road baths for three days before they were buried in a mass grave, with 123 still unidentified. Major O'Sullivan reported that "In the heavily 'blitzed' areas people ran panic-stricken into the streets and made for the open country. Singer-songwriter Van Morrison was born here. 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. He was asked, in the N.I. NI WW2 veterans honoured by France. 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, 00:00:36Tears of relief after man found in Amazon jungle. Dissatisfaction with public shelters also led to another notable development in the East EndMickeys Shelter. It is situated at on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. Can Nigeria's election result be overturned? The Belfast Blitz: April-May 1941 - History Ireland 15 Powerful Photos Of The WW2 Blitz | Imperial War Museums 6. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Two of the crews received refreshments in Banbridge; others were entertained in the Ancient Order of Hibernians hall in Newry. Belfast has the world's largest dry dock. Many people who were dug out of the rubble alive had taken shelter underneath their stairs and were fortunate that their homes had not received a direct hit or caught fire. Apart from those on London, this was the greatest loss of life in any night raid during the Blitz. Many bodies and body parts could not be identified. So had Clydeside until recently. 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 the middle of December it had reached nearly 1,700,000 (adjusted for inflation, this was the equivalent of roughly 100 million in 2020). "It says a lot about how these people are forgotten that there is no Blitz memorial in Belfast," Mr Freeburn says. Mr Freeburn set out to find out more about those who died, their personal stories and the tales of those left behind. The next took place on Easter Tuesday, 15 April 1941, when 200 Luftwaffe bombers attacked military and manufacturing targets in the city of Belfast. Added to this was the repair and refitting of 22,000 more vessels. Van Morrison is from the east part of the city. When the house was hit William, Harriette, Dorothy, 36-year-old Dot and 41-year-old Isa were all killed. "Through resources such as the Public Records Office and ancestry and genealogy websites I managed to get about 100 photos - which is about one tenth of the victims," he says. Thank you. The city covers a total area of 132.5 square kilometers (51 square miles). 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. 2. There was unease with the complacent attitude of the government, which led to resignations: Craigavon died on 24 November 1940. Belfast Blitz - Wikipedia Read about our approach to external linking. "But there is no such equivalent in Belfast. Similar initiatives bearing the same name were ordered in the past decade by former mayors Libby . 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. He was replaced by 54-year-old Sir Basil Brooke on 1 May. 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. 10 Facts About the Blitz and the Bombing of Germany 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. Unlike N Ireland, the Irish Free State was no longer part of the UK. "There are plans for one but there isn't one yet. "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, 00:01:41NI WW2 veterans honoured by France, The Spitfire turns 80. 11 churches, two hospitals and two schools were destroyed. One of every six Londoners was made homeless at some point during the Blitz, and at least 1.1 million houses and flats were damaged or destroyed. Up to now, we have escaped an attack, said John MacDermott, the Minister for Security, Belfast, on March 24, 1941. His death (along with preceding ill-health) came at a bad time and arguably inadvertently caused a leadership vacuum. But the Luftwaffe was ready. Video, 00:00:51, Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine, Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off. Everything on wheels is being pressed into service. 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. 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. By the time the raid was over, at least 744 people had lost their lives, including some living in places such as Newtownards, Bangor and Londonderry. William Joyce (known as "Lord Haw-Haw") announced in radio broadcasts from Hamburg that there will be "Easter eggs for Belfast". 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. 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. No searchlights were set up in the city at the time, and these only arrived on 10 April. The British, on the other hand, were supremely well prepared for the kind of battle in which they now found themselves. High explosive bombs predominated in this raid. 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 Titanic was built in Belfast. Under the leadership of amon de Valera it had declared its neutrality during the Second World War. The raids on London primarily targeted the Docklands area of the East End. The Blitz | Facts, History, Damage, & Casualties | Britannica London seemed ablaze from the docks to Westminster, much damage was done, and casualties were high. Other targets included Sheffield, Manchester, Coventry, and Southampton. The raids hurt Britains war production, but they also killed many civilians and left many others homeless. 29 - Belfast was once bigger than Dublin He believed that key targets identified across the city were hit. 10 fascinating facts about Belfast that you probably didn't know Why Alex Murdaugh was spared the death penalty, Why Trudeau is facing calls for a public inquiry, The shocking legacy of the Dutch 'Hunger Winter'. The mass relocation, called Operation Pied Piper, was the largest internal migration in British history. For eight months the Luftwaffe dropped bombs on London and other strategic cities across Britain. Indeed, on the night of the first raid, no Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft took to the air to intercept German planes. 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; 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. Rescue workers search through the rubble of Eglington Street in Belfast, Northern Ireland, after a German Luftwaffe air raid, 7 May 1941, Anna (left) and her husband Billy (back right) survived while Harriette, Dorothy and Billy were killed along with Dot and Isa, Dot and Isa, with Dorothy when she was a toddler, Royal Welch Fusiliers assist in clearing bomb damage in Belfast, Northern Ireland, 7 May 1941, Mapping the lives lost in the Belfast Blitz. It is perhaps true that many saved their lives running but I am afraid a much greater number lost them or became casualties."[20]. Eduard Hempel, the German Minister to Ireland, visited the Irish Ministry for External Affairs to offer sympathy and attempt an explanation. For eight months the Luftwaffe dropped bombs on London and other strategic cities across Britain. Humanity knows no borders, no politics, no differences of religious belief. 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. In a survey of shelter use, it was found that, although the public shelters were fully occupied every night, just 9 percent of Londoners made use of them. 1. 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. The Belfast blitz during World War Two - BBC News The creeping TikTok bans. Many in Northern Ireland thought that Belfast was outside the range of the Luftwaffe. The Belfast Blitz - Inside the Deadly 1941 Luftwaffe Raids on Northern 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. 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. 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. There [is] ground for thinking that the enemy could not easily reach Belfast in force except during a period of moonlight. He was succeeded by J. M. Andrews, then 69 years old, who was no more capable of dealing with the situation than his predecessor. There wasn't enough room for Anna or Billy, so they sheltered elsewhere, a twist of fate that would save their lives. Incendiary bombs predominated in this raid. 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]. along with England, Scotland, and Wales. Simpson shot down one of the Heinkels over Downpatrick. 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. In early 1941 the Germans launched another wave of attacks, this time focusing on ports. Tragically 35 were crushed to death when the mill wall collapsed. Belfast is as worthy a target as Coventry, Birmingham, Bristol or Glasgow.. 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. Interesting facts about Belfast | Just Fun Facts Nevertheless, through sheer weight of numbers, the Germans were on the brink of victory in late August 1940. 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 national government also provided funds to local municipalities to construct public air-raid shelters. 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 Belfast Blitz consisted of four German air raids on strategic targets in the city of Belfast in Northern Ireland, in April and May 1941 during World War II, causing high casualties. The Blitz was devastating for the people of London and other cities. Islington parish church, the rebuilt Our Lady of Victories (Kensington), the French church by Leicester square, St. Annes, Soho (famous for its music), All Souls, Langham place, and Christ Church in Westminster Bridge road (whose towerfortunately savedcommemorates President Lincolns abolition of slavery), were among a large number of others. On September 1, 1939, the day World War II began with Germanys invasion of Poland, the British government implemented a massive evacuation plan. 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. . Apart from one or two false alarms in the early days of the war, no sirens wailed in London until June 25. Also, on Queens Island, stood the Short and Harland Ltd. Aircraft Factory. 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. The Belfast blitz. As many were caught in the open by blast and secondary missiles, the enormous number of casualties can be readily accounted for. Learn how your comment data is processed. [21] Mass graves for the unclaimed bodies were dug in the Milltown and Belfast City Cemeteries. I felt outraged, I should have felt sympathy, grief, but instead feelings of revulsion and disgust assailed me. Belfast, the city with the highest population density in the UK at the time, also had the lowest proportion of public air-raid shelters. 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.". The bombs caused death and destruction across the city, affecting those of all religions and political backgrounds. Death should be dignified, peaceful; Hitler had made even death grotesque. Blitz Fibre UK Blitz Fibre UK Published Mar 1, 2023 + Follow Fact 1- Small but Mighty . From September 1940 until May 1941, Britain was subjected to sustained enemy bombing campaign, now known as the Blitz. 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. A Raid From Above Another claim was that the Catholic population in general and the IRA in particular guided the bombers. In every instance, all stepped forward. Video, 00:00:26, Living through the London Blitz. TOP 10: Facts About Belfast You Didn't Know - Ireland Before You Die An earlier flight on Oct. 18 allowed the crew to plot several targets in the city. Heavy jacks were unavailable. It lies where the Lagan River flows into a part of the Irish Sea. The success of Mickeys Shelter was another factor that urged the government to improve existing deep shelters and to create new ones. 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. A victory for the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain would indeed have exposed Great Britain to invasion and occupation. 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. When incendiaries were dropped, the city burned as water pressure was too low for effective firefighting. Yesterday the hand of good-fellowship was reached across the Border. 2. The Blitz began at around 4 pm on September 7, 1940, when German bomber planes first appeared over London. The bombing of British cities - Swansea, Belfast, Glasgow Many of those who died as a result of enemy action lived in tightly packed, poorly constructed, terraced housing. Moya Woodside[23] noted in her diary: "Evacuation is taking on panic proportions. The initial human cost of the Blitz was lower than the government had expected, but the level of destruction exceeded the governments dire predictions. Belfast's Albert Clock tower is sinking - it leans by four feet. The devastation was so great that the Germans coined a new verb, to coventrate, to describe it. Belfast is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland. The telegram was sent at 4:35am,[citation needed] asking the Irish Taoiseach, amon de Valera for assistance. Air power alone had failed to knock the United Kingdom out of the war. The World's Most-Famous Ship, The Titanic, was constructed here. On the ground, there were only 22 anti-aircraft guns positioned around the city, six light and 16 heavy, and on the first night only seven of these were manned and operational. Omissions? "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. J.P. Walshe, assistant secretary, recorded that Hempel was "clearly distressed by the news of the severe raid on Belfast and especially of the number of civilian casualties." 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). These shelters were vital as these factories had many employees working late at night and early in the morning when Luftwaffe attacks were likely. Poor visibility on the night meant that the accuracy of the bombers was hampered and the explosives were dropped on densely populated areas of Belfast. The offensive came to be called the Blitz after the German word blitzkrieg (lightning war). Accounts differ as to when flares were dropped to light up the city. By the end of the attacks, between 900 and 1,000 people were dead and thousands more were injured, homeless and displaced. Around 20,000 people were employed on the site with 35,000 further along in the shipyard. The period of the next moon from say the 7th to the 16th of April may well bring our turn." During the first year of the war, behind-the-lines conditions prevailed in London. [9], War materials and food were sent by sea from Belfast to Great Britain, some under the protection of the neutral Irish tricolour. It targeted the docks. 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. The M.V. Video, 00:00:46, Hong Kong skyscraper fire seen on city's skyline, Watch: Matt Hancock message row in 83 seconds. That contrasts with the figure that is often given of more than 900 killed on Easter Tuesday alone. IWM C 5424 1. The Royal Air Force announced that Squadron Leader J.W.C. THE BELFAST BLITZ was a series of four air raids over Northern Ireland during the spring of 1941. Once more, London was targeted and children were victims. Gring had insisted that such an attack was an impossibility, because of the citys formidable air defense network. Wherever Churchill is hiding his war material we will go Belfast is as worthy a target as Coventry, Birmingham, Bristol or Glasgow." 2023 BBC. This amounted to nearly half of Britains total civilian deaths for the whole war. It was not the last time Belfast would suffer. But these people all had families and friends and they had to deal with their loss for the rest of their lives.". [6] It was MacDermott who sent a telegram to de Valera seeking assistance. 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. Few children had been successfully evacuated. 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. 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. For more than six months, German planes had flown reconnaissance flights over Belfast. 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. 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. There were Heinkel He 111s, Junkers Ju 88s and Dornier Do 17s. 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. There was no smokescreen ability, however there were some barrage balloons positioned strategically for protection. 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