10 facts about the belfast blitz

At nightfall the Northern Counties Station was packed from platform gates to entrance gates and still refugees were coming along in a steady stream from the surrounding streets Open military lorries were finally put into service and even expectant mothers and mothers with young children were put into these in the rather heavy drizzle that lasted throughout the evening. continuous trek to railway stations. The RAFs Spitfire was a superlative fighter, and it was not always easy for the Germans to distinguish it from the slightly less maneuverable but much more numerous Hurricanes. Air power alone had failed to knock the United Kingdom out of the war. For two hours on the first day, 348 German bombers and 617 fighters blasted London. 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. 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. 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. [citation needed], Casualties were lower than at Easter, partly because the sirens had sounded at 11.45pm while the Luftwaffe attacked more cautiously from a greater height. Beginning in September 1940, the Blitz was an aerial bombing campaign conducted by the Luftwaffe against British cities. No attendant nurse had soothed the last moments of these victims; no gentle reverent hand had closed their eyes or crossed their hands. 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. James Craig, Lord Craigavon, had been Prime Minister of Northern Ireland since its inception in 1921 up until his death in 1940. Brian Barton of Queen's University, Belfast, has written most on this topic.[19]. As the UK was preparing for the conflict, the factories and shipyards of Belfast were gearing up. Over a period of nine months, over 43,500 civilians were killed in the raids, which focused on major cities and industrial centres. The higher the German planes had to fly to avoid the balloons, the less accurate they were when dropping their bombs. He was asked, in the N.I. Apart from one or two false alarms in the early days of the war, no sirens wailed in London until June 25. 19.99. Similar initiatives bearing the same name were ordered in the past decade by former mayors Libby . Emma Duffin, a nurse at the Queen's University Hospital, (who previously served during the Great War), who kept a diary; 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. Hundreds of incendiary and many high-explosive bombs were dropped, doing little material damage but causing many casualties. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Train after train and bus after bus were filled with those next in line. The area included the Harland and Wolff Ltd. Shipyard, the Short and Harland Ltd. Aircraft Factory, and the airfield at RAF Sydenham. There [is] ground for thinking that the enemy could not easily reach Belfast in force except during a period of moonlight. 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. An air raid shelter on Hallidays Road received a direct hit, killing all those in it. 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. Learn how your comment data is processed. The refugees looked dazed and horror stricken and many had neglected to bring more than a few belongings Any and every means of exit from the city was availed of and the final destination appeared to be a matter of indifference. He was succeeded by J. M. Andrews, then 69 years old, who was no more capable of dealing with the situation than his predecessor. In the first days of the Blitz, a tragic incident in the East End stoked public anger over the governments shelter policy. He successfully busied himself with the task of making Northern Ireland a major supplier of food to Britain in her time of need.[5]. Video, 00:01:41NI WW2 veterans honoured by France, The Spitfire turns 80. From papers recovered after the war, we know of a Luftwaffe reconnaissance flight over Belfast on 30 November 1940. A Raid From Above No significant cut was made in necessary social services, and public and private premises, except when irreparably damaged, were repaired as speedily as possible. (Some authors count this as the second raid of four). Morale did suffer amid the death and devastation, but there were few calls for surrender. Video, 00:00:46, Hong Kong skyscraper fire seen on city's skyline, Watch: Matt Hancock message row in 83 seconds. Under the leadership of amon de Valera it had declared its neutrality during the Second World War. 55,000 British civilian casualties were sustained through German bombing before the end of 1940 This included 23,000 deaths. 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. Barton insisted that Belfast was "too far north" to use radio guidance. Added to this was the repair and refitting of 22,000 more vessels. "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. Belfast's Albert Clock tower is sinking - it leans by four feet. Roads out of town are still one stream of cars, with mattresses and bedding tied on top. Over 150 people died in what became known as the 'Fire 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. 10 Facts About the Blitz and the Bombing of Germany They remained for three days, until they were sent back by the Northern Ireland government. 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. Munster, for example, operated by the Belfast Steamship Company, plied between Belfast and Liverpool under the tricolour, until she hit a mine and was sunk outside Liverpool. 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. William Joyce (known as "Lord Haw-Haw") announced in radio broadcasts from Hamburg that there will be "Easter eggs for Belfast". The mortuary services had emergency plans to deal with only 200 bodies. Van Morrison is from the east part of the city. The "Hiram Plan" initiated by Dawson Bates, the Home Affairs Minister, had failed to materialise. In just these few hours, 430 people were killed and 1,600 were badly injured. The Belfast Blitz: April-May 1941 - History Ireland 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. Read about our approach to external linking. There was no opposition. 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. The government was blamed by some for inadequate precautions. Anna and Billy returned to England and continued running the children's home. Unlike N Ireland, the Irish Free State was no longer part of the UK. So had Clydeside until recently. Video, 00:01:15The Belfast blitz, Up Next. 3. 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. The Belfast Blitz: the city in the war years - History Ireland But the RAF had not responded. Gring had insisted that such an attack was an impossibility, because of the citys formidable air defense network. Lecturer of History, Queens University, Belfast, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Belfast_Blitz&oldid=1136721396, During the war years, Belfast shipyards built or converted over 3,000 navy vessels, repaired more than 22,000 others and launched over half a million tons of merchant shipping over 140. Belfast is as worthy a target as Coventry, Birmingham, Bristol or Glasgow.. Eduard Hempel, the German Minister to Ireland, visited the Irish Ministry for External Affairs to offer sympathy and attempt an explanation. ", Dawson Bates, the Home Affairs Minister, apparently refused to reply to army correspondence and when the Ministry of Home Affairs was informed by imperial defence experts in 1939 that Belfast was regarded as "a very definite German objective", little was done outside providing shelters in the Harbour area.[14]. The British government had anticipated air attacks on its population centres, and it had predicted catastrophic casualties. The sense of relative calm was abruptly shattered in the first week of September 1940, when the war came to London in earnest. After the passing of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, it became the seat of the government of Northern Ireland. The creeping TikTok bans. When the bombing began, 76-year-old William and 72-year-old Harriette took refuge under the stairs along with Dorothy, Dot and Isa. When Germany bombed Belfast as part of the Blitz during World War Two, the massive air raids left more than a thousand people dead. [9], War materials and food were sent by sea from Belfast to Great Britain, some under the protection of the neutral Irish tricolour. Belfast | History, Population, Map, Landmarks, & Facts 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. Video, 00:02:54Living through the London Blitz, At least 17 dead in Jakarta fuel storage depot fire. Outside of London, with some 900 dead, this was the greatest loss of life in a night raid during the Blitz. 10 Awesome Facts About Fibre - linkedin.com The first was on the night of 78 April 1941, a small attack which probably took place only to test Belfast's defences. Belfast Blitz: Facts In total there were four attacks on the County Antrim city. 10 fascinating facts about Belfast that you probably didn't know [citation needed], Other writers, such as Tony Gray in The Lost Years state that the Germans did follow their radio guidance beams. 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'. 29 interesting facts about Belfast you never knew - BeeLoved City 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. In the eight months of attacks, some 43,000 civilians were killed. These figures are based on newspaper reports of the time, personal recollections and other primary sources, such as:- The Belfast Blitz was a series of devastating Luftwaffe air raids that took place in Northern Ireland during the Second World War. 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. Still, many in Northern Ireland believed no Luftwaffe attack would come. These shelters, made of corrugated steel, were designed to be dug into a garden and then covered with dirt. The raids on London primarily targeted the Docklands area of the East End. 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". Reviewed by: Geoffrey Roberts. Indeed, on the night of the first raid, no Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft took to the air to intercept German planes. Nevertheless, through sheer weight of numbers, the Germans were on the brink of victory in late August 1940. The nights of November 3 and 28 were the only occasions during this period in which Londons peace was unbroken by siren or bomb. 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." About 1,000 people were killed and bombs hit half of the houses in the city, leaving 100,000. WW2: How did an elephant beat the Belfast Blitz? - BBC Teach 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." "These people are often seen as a statistic but they were human beings, people who lived and grew up in - or moved to - Belfast and died in Belfast," Mr Freeburn, the museum's collections officer, says. Because basements, a logical destination in the event of an air raid, were a relative rarity in Britain, the A.R.P. 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.. workers. [citation needed]. Instead of pressing his advantage, however, Hitler abruptly changed his strategy. Many of the surface shelters built by local authorities were flimsy and provided little protection from bombs, falling debris, and fire. Nurse Emma Duffin, who had served in World War I, contrasted death in that conflict with what she saw:.mw-parser-output .templatequote{overflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 40px}.mw-parser-output .templatequote .templatequotecite{line-height:1.5em;text-align:left;padding-left:1.6em;margin-top:0}. The bombs caused death and destruction across the city, affecting those of all religions and political backgrounds. In his interview, Becker stated that only military objectives were aimed for. Anna and Billy were buried up their necks in sewage but were rescued and survived. 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.

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