";s:4:"text";s:17282:"Clydeside got its blitz during the period of the last moon. Prayers were said and hymns sung by the mainly Protestant women and children during the bombing. 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. The period of the next moon from say the 7th to the 16th of April may well bring our turn." Richard Dawson Bates was the Home Affairs Minister. Other targets included Sheffield, Manchester, Coventry, and Southampton. Later, guided by the raging fires caused by the first attack, a second group of planes began another assault that lasted until 4:30 the following morning. Hundreds of incendiary and many high-explosive bombs were dropped, doing little material damage but causing many casualties. The offensive came to be called the Blitz after the German word blitzkrieg (lightning war). Video, 00:01:23Watch: Matt Hancock message row in 83 seconds, One-minute World News. Video, 00:01:37Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off, Tear gas fired at Greece train crash protesters. The 2017 film Zoo depicts an air raid during the Belfast Blitz. to households. On 28 April 1943, six members of the Government threatened to resign, forcing him from office. 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. London was bombed for 57 consecutive nights from 7 September 1940 As many as 5,000 people had packed into this network of underground tunnels, which was dangerously overcrowded, dirty, and dark. The attacks by both V1's and V2's only ended as the Allies advanced up through Western Europe . 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. 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.. Since most casualties were caused by falling masonry rather than by blast, they provided effective shelter for those who had them. That night almost 300 people, many from the Protestant Shankill area, took refuge in the Clonard Monastery in the Catholic Falls Road. The first was on the night of 7-8 April 1941, a small attack which probably took place only to test Belfast's defences. In his interview, Becker stated that only military objectives were aimed for. [9], War materials and food were sent by sea from Belfast to Great Britain, some under the protection of the neutral Irish tricolour. "There are plans for one but there isn't one yet. 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. C.S Lewis was born in Belfast, and the nearby countryside helped inspire The Chronicles of Narnia. 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, 00:03:09Mapping the lives lost in the Belfast Blitz, Belfast City Hall in darkness as the Blitz is marked, Street fighting in Bakhmut but Russia not in control, Russian minister laughed at for Ukraine war claims. Because basements, a logical destination in the event of an air raid, were a relative rarity in Britain, the A.R.P. The first was on the night of 78 April 1941, a small attack which probably took place only to test Belfast's defences. On May 11, 1941, Hitler called off the Blitz as he shifted his forces eastward against the Soviet Union. Hitlers intention had been to break the morale of the British people so they would pressure their government to surrender. Belfast Blitz: Marking the lost lives 80 years on. But Mr Freeburn's research casts doubt on this. 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. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. When Germany bombed Belfast as part of the Blitz during World War Two, the massive air raids left more than a thousand people dead. and Major Sen O'Sullivan, who produced a detailed report for the Dublin government. After the first week of September, although night bombing on a large scale continued, the large mass attacks by day, which had proved so costly to the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain, were replaced by smaller parties coming over in successive waves. 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." Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Subs offer. 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). In the eight months of attacks, some 43,000 civilians were killed. While Anderson shelters offered good protection from bomb fragments and debris, they were cold and damp and generally ill-suited for prolonged occupancy. From papers recovered after the war, we know of a Luftwaffe reconnaissance flight over Belfast on 30 November 1940. The attack on Coventry was particularly destructive. Instead of pressing his advantage, however, Hitler abruptly changed his strategy. Other Belfast factories manufactured gun mountings. 55,000 houses were damaged leaving 100,000 temporarily homeless. The British thus fought with the advantage of superior equipment and undivided aim against an enemy with inconsistent objectives. On September 1, 1939, the day World War II began with Germanys invasion of Poland, the British government implemented a massive evacuation plan. The district of Belfast has an area of 44 square miles (115 square km). These shelters were vital as these factories had many employees working late at night and early in the morning when Luftwaffe attacks were likely. 11 churches, two hospitals and two schools were destroyed. 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. 2023 BBC. The firm had produced Handley Page Hereford bombers since 1936. Belfast was ill-prepared for the blitz. Video, 00:01:37, Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off, Tear gas fired at Greece train crash protesters. 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. Video, 00:02:12Isabel Oakeshott: Why I leaked Hancock's messages, Tears of relief after man found in Amazon jungle. With the surrender of France in June 1940, Germanys sole remaining enemy lay across the English Channel. The first day of the Blitz is remembered as Black Saturday. ", 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. 9. Around 1am, Luftwaffe bombers flew over the city, concentrating their attack on the Harbour Estate and Queen's Island. The raids on London primarily targeted the Docklands area of the East End. After the bombing began on September 7, local authorities urged displaced people to take shelter at South Hallsville School. 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. Can Nigeria's election result be overturned? Six Heinkel He 111 bombers, from Kampfgruppe 26, flying at 7,000 feet (2,100m), dropped incendiaries, high explosive and parachute-mines. These shelters, made of corrugated steel, were designed to be dug into a garden and then covered with dirt. 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. O'Sullivan felt that the whole civil defence sector was utterly overwhelmed. Anna and Billy returned to England and continued running the children's home. "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. This hub of industry and trade represented a legitimate military target for the Germans, and some 25,000 bombs were dropped on the Port of London alone. The British government had anticipated air attacks on its population centres, and it had predicted catastrophic casualties. 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. Eduard Hempel, the German Minister to Ireland, visited the Irish Ministry for External Affairs to offer sympathy and attempt an explanation. The government announced that 77 people had died, but for years local residents insisted the toll was much higher. Three vessels nearing completion at Harland and Wolff's were hit as was its power station. At 10:40pm the air raid sirens sounded. 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. Apart from those on London, this was the greatest loss of life in any night raid during the Blitz. 29 - Belfast was once bigger than Dublin 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." Beginning in September 1940, the Blitz was an aerial bombing campaign conducted by the Luftwaffe against British cities. 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 A.R.P. 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 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. Half of the city's housing was damaged over the course of all the raids. In spite of blackouts, ubiquitous shelters and sandbags, the visible effects of mass evacuation, the presence of A.R.P. The telegram was sent at 4:35am,[citation needed] asking the Irish Taoiseach, amon de Valera for assistance. 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. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. the Blitz, (September 7, 1940May 11, 1941), intense bombing campaign undertaken by Nazi Germany against the United Kingdom during World War II. For eight months the Luftwaffe dropped bombs on London and other strategic cities across Britain. Taoiseach amon de Valera formally protested to Berlin. In every instance, all stepped forward. The Belfast blitz devastated a city that up until 1941 had remained unscathed during World War Two. On August 25 the British retaliated by launching a bombing raid on Berlin. Just before Easter 1941, Anna and Billy Burdett and their 12-year-old daughter, Dorothy, returned to Belfast from England to visit Anna's family. 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. Over 500 received care from the Irish Red Cross in Dublin. 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. Outside of London, with some 900 dead, this was the greatest loss of life in a night raid during the Blitz. Anna and Billy were buried up their necks in sewage but were rescued and survived. 6. 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The period of the next moon from say the 7th to the 16th of April may well bring our turn.. 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. Mr Freeburn set out to find out more about those who died, their personal stories and the tales of those left behind. The M.V. 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 situated at on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. Train after train and bus after bus were filled with those next in line. Many of those who died as a result of enemy action lived in tightly packed, poorly constructed, terraced housing. 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. "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. Video, 00:02:54Living through the London Blitz, At least 17 dead in Jakarta fuel storage depot fire. 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. "They have never been published before, never seen the light of day.". "[22], In his opinion, the greatest want was the lack of hospital facilities. Barton insisted that Belfast was "too far north" to use radio guidance. 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. [19], 220,000 people fled from the city. 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. Belfast was not properly prepared for the attacks, with too few shelters and not enough anti-aircraft guns. Read about our approach to external linking. 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. IWM C 5424 1. Video, 00:01:38At least 17 dead in Jakarta fuel storage depot fire, Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine. 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 is remembered. However, the Docklands was also a densely populated and impoverished area where thousands of working-class Londoners lived in run-down housing. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. 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. ";s:7:"keyword";s:32:"10 facts about the belfast blitz";s:5:"links";s:334:"My Manager And I Discuss Or Discusses,
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