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. After his optician business was destroyed by a bomb, Mickey Davies led an effort to organize the Spitalfield Shelter. 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. Richard Dawson Bates was the Home Affairs Minister. 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. These shelters were vital as these factories had many employees working late at night and early in the morning when Luftwaffe attacks were likely. The Germans, however, saw Belfast as a legitimate target due to the shipyards in the city that were contributing to Britain's war efforts. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. 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. Authorities quickly implemented plans to protect Londoners from bombs and to house those left homeless by the attacks. 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. "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.". He gave an interview saying: "the people of Belfast are Irish people too". 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. 15 Powerful Photos Of The WW2 Blitz | Imperial War Museums Men from the South worked with men from the North in the universal cause of the relief of suffering. A short respite followed, until a widespread series of night raids on April 7 included some targets in the London area. Belfast, the city with the highest population density in the UK at the time, also had the lowest proportion of public air-raid shelters. 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). A force of 180 bombers dropped 750 bombs - including 203 tonnes of high explosives - and 29,000 incendiaries over a five-hour period. The higher the German planes had to fly to avoid the balloons, the less accurate they were when dropping their bombs. The Belfast blitz devastated a city that up until 1941 had remained unscathed during World War Two. 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? 29 interesting facts about Belfast you never knew - BeeLoved City Prayers were said and hymns sung by the mainly Protestant women and children during the bombing. Many in Northern Ireland thought that Belfast was outside the range of the Luftwaffe. But the Luftwaffe was ready. As more and more people began sleeping on the platforms, however, the government relented and provided bunk beds and bathrooms for the underground communities. The most significant loss was a 4.5-acre (1.8ha) factory floor for manufacturing the fuselages of Short Stirling bombers. On April 16 an attack even fiercer and more indiscriminate than those of the previous autumn started at 9:00 pm and continued until 5:00 the following morning; 500 aircraft were believed to have flown over in continuous waves, raining an estimated 450 tons of bombs across the city. However that attack was not an error. Strand Public Elementary school, York Road railway station, the adjacent Midland Hotel on York Road, and Salisbury Avenue tram depot were all hit. Fortunately, the railway telegraphy link between Belfast and Dublin was still operational. 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. There was no opposition. "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. The seeming normality of life on the Home Front was shattered in 1944 when the first of the V1's landed. 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. Only four were known still to be alive. VideoRussian minister laughed at for Ukraine war claims, The children left behind in Cuba's mass exodus, Xi Jinping's power grab - and why it matters, Snow, Fire and Lights: Photos of the Week. "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. Death had to a certain extent been made decent. 3. Belfast has the world's largest dry dock. Belfast | History, Population, Map, Landmarks, & Facts That night almost 300 people, many from the Protestant Shankill area, took refuge in the Clonard Monastery in the Catholic Falls Road. Because basements, a logical destination in the event of an air raid, were a relative rarity in Britain, the A.R.P. Belfast was Ireland's industrial home, famous for tobacco, rope-making, linen, and ship-building, which made it the powerhouse it was. 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. The first deliberate raid took place on the night of 7 April. That evening over 150 bombers left their bases in northern France and the Netherlands and headed for Belfast. Wherever Churchill is hiding his war material we will go. More than 1,000 people were killed, and the damage was more widespread than on any previous occasion. Your donations help keep MHN afloat. 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. 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. Instead of pressing his advantage, however, Hitler abruptly changed his strategy. The nights of November 3 and 28 were the only occasions during this period in which Londons peace was unbroken by siren or bomb. This amounted to nearly half of Britains total civilian deaths for the whole war. In early 1941 the Germans launched another wave of attacks, this time focusing on ports. On the 60th anniversary of the Belfast Blitz, Luftwaffe Pilot Gerhardt Becker spoke to BBC Northern Ireland about his mission over Belfast in 1941. The sense of relative calm was abruptly shattered in the first week of September 1940, when the war came to London in earnest. A charitable relief fund for the people of London was opened September 10. But the RAF had not responded. 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. Read about our approach to external linking. Wherever Churchill is hiding his war material we will go Belfast is as worthy a target as Coventry, Birmingham, Bristol or Glasgow." 14 Breathtaking Facts about Belfast - Fact City Everything on wheels is being pressed into service. As many were caught in the open by blast and secondary missiles, the enormous number of casualties can be readily accounted for. 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. Nearby were the citys main power station, gasworks, telephone house and the Sirocco Engineering works. As of October 2020, the population of Belfast is about 350,000 people. Between April 7 and May 6 of that year, Luftwaffe bombers unleashed death and destruction on the cities of Belfast, Bangor, Derry/Londonderry and Newtownards. The government was blamed by some for inadequate precautions. In Newtownards, Bangor, Larne, Carrickfergus, Lisburn and Antrim many thousands of Belfast citizens took refuge either with friends or strangers. "We can still see the physical scars of the Blitz in Belfast, that is what is left. By 1940, Short and Harland could shelter its entire workforce and Harland and Wolff had provision to shelter 16,000 workers. THE BELFAST BLITZ was a series of four air raids over Northern Ireland during the spring of 1941. Video, 00:00:36Tears of relief after man found in Amazon jungle. By then most of the major fires were under control and the firemen from Clydeside and other British cities were arriving. The first (April 7 -8), a small attack, was most likely carried out to test the city's defenses. It is perhaps true that many saved their lives running but I am afraid a much greater number lost them or became casualties."[20]. Singer-songwriter Van Morrison was born here. The "pothole blitz" is a common short-term initiative to combat storm weather damage. Read about our approach to external linking. By then 250 firemen from Clydeside had arrived. For two hours, 348 German bombers and 617 fighters targeted the city, dropping high-explosive bombs as well as incendiary devices. Many of the surface shelters built by local authorities were flimsy and provided little protection from bombs, falling debris, and fire. It was not the first time the alarm had sounded to signify the presence of Luftwaffe bombers over the city. The Belfast Blitz - KS3 History (Environment and society) - BBC At the start of World War Two, Belfast had considered itself safe from an aerial attack, as the city's leaders believed that Belfast was simply too far away for Luftwaffe bombers to reach - assuming that they would have to fly from Nazi Germany. London was bombed for 57 consecutive nights from 7 September 1940 Contributions poured in from every part of the world in such profusion that on October 28 its scope was extended to cover the whole of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. Air power alone had failed to knock the United Kingdom out of the war. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. The raids on London primarily targeted the Docklands area of the East End. Streetlights, car headlights, and illuminated signs were kept off. Video, 00:01:38At least 17 dead in Jakarta fuel storage depot fire, Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine. 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. Video, 00:02:54Living through the London Blitz, At least 17 dead in Jakarta fuel storage depot fire. In the first days of the Blitz, a tragic incident in the East End stoked public anger over the governments shelter policy. [1][2], The third raid on Belfast took place over the evening and morning of 45 May 1941; 150 were killed. Video, 00:00:51, Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine, Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off. Very early in the German bombing campaign, it became clear that the preparationshowever extensive they seemed to have beenwere inadequate. The 2017 film Zoo depicts an air raid during the Belfast Blitz. 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..
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