[26], Initial German radio broadcasts celebrated the raid. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Instead of pressing his advantage, however, Hitler abruptly changed his strategy. 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. Wave after wave of bombers dropped their incendiaries, high explosives and land-mines. Because basements, a logical destination in the event of an air raid, were a relative rarity in Britain, the A.R.P. In every instance, all stepped forward. When the house was hit William, Harriette, Dorothy, 36-year-old Dot and 41-year-old Isa were all killed. After the war, when the first girl from the home got married Billy gave her away, having lost his only daughter. Here are 10 facts about both the German Blitzkrieg and the Allied bombing of Germany. 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. In his interview, Becker stated that only military objectives were aimed for. Blitz, The - Kids | Britannica Kids | Homework Help 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? 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. 2. But the RAF had not responded. The district of Belfast has an area of 44 square miles (115 square km). Read about our approach to external linking. 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. 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. 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. The period of the next moon from say the 7th to the 16th of April may well bring our turn.. The bombs caused death and destruction across the city, affecting those of all religions and political backgrounds. The raid so infuriated Hitler that he ordered the Luftwaffe to shift its attacks from RAF sites to London and other cities. By Jonathan Bardon. In Bristol, the bombed-out ruins of St Peter's Church were left standing with added memorial plaques to the civilians who were killed. Video, 00:00:46, Hong Kong skyscraper fire seen on city's skyline, Watch: Matt Hancock message row in 83 seconds. About 1,000 people were killed and bombs hit half of the houses in the city, leaving 100,000. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of any material on this site without expressand written permission from the author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. 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. Belfast is famous for being the birthplace of the Titanic. Please select which sections you would like to print: Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. On August 2, Luftwaffe commander Hermann Gring issued his Eagle Day directive, laying down a plan of attack in which a few massive blows from the air were to destroy British air power and so open the way for the invasion. 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; Other targets included Sheffield, Manchester, Coventry, and Southampton. KS3 History (Environment and society) The Belfast Blitz learning resources for adults, children, parents and teachers. That contrasts with the figure that is often given of more than 900 killed on Easter Tuesday alone. [4], The Government of Northern Ireland lacked the will, energy and capacity to cope with a major crisis when it came. Prior to the "Belfast Blitz" there were only 200 public shelters in the city, although around 4,000 households had built their own private shelters. . London was bombed for 57 consecutive nights from 7 September 1940 8. [citation needed]. The offensive came to be called the Blitz after the German word blitzkrieg (lightning war). Fighter Commands efforts were greatly aided by the lack of any consistent plan of action on the part of the Germans. The mortuary services had emergency plans to deal with only 200 bodies. 2. Clydeside got its blitz during the period of the last moon. 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. Yesterday the hand of good-fellowship was reached across the Border. The Belfast blitz. The winter of 193940 was severe, but the summer was pleasant, and in their leisure hours Londoners thronged the parks or worked in their gardens. Read about our approach to external linking. On 24 March 1941, John MacDermott, Minister for Security, wrote to Prime Minister John Andrews, expressing his concerns that Belfast was so poorly protected: "Up to now we have escaped attack. The first was on the night of 78 April 1941, a small attack which probably took place only to test Belfast's defences. C.S Lewis was born in Belfast, and the nearby countryside helped inspire The Chronicles of Narnia. Roads out of town are still one stream of cars, with mattresses and bedding tied on top. 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.. Simpson shot down one of the Heinkels over Downpatrick. 13 Facts You Didn't Know About Belfast Since 1:45am all telephones had been cut. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. The Belfast Blitz was a series of devastating Luftwaffe air raids that took place in Northern Ireland during the Second World War. It targeted the docks. Incendiary bombs predominated in this raid. Over 500 received care from the Irish Red Cross in Dublin. 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). [citation needed] However on 20 October 1941 the Garda Sochna captured a comprehensive IRA report on captured member Helena Kelly giving a detailed analysis of damage inflicted on Belfast and highlighting prime targets such as Shortt and Harland aircraft factory and RAF Sydenham, describing them as 'the remaining and most outstanding objects of military significance, as yet unblitzed' and suggesting they should be 'bombed by the Luftwaffe as thoroughly as other areas in recent raids'[28][29], After three days, sometime after 6pm, the fire crews from south of the border began taking up their hoses and ladders to head for home. After a brief lull, the Luftwaffe returned in force on February 17. 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. On November 14, 1940, a German force of more than 500 bombers destroyed much of the old city centre and killed more than 550 people. The most heavily bombed cities outside London were Liverpool and Birmingham. On 28 April 1943, six members of the Government threatened to resign, forcing him from office. 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. Belfast is as worthy a target as Coventry, Birmingham, Bristol or Glasgow.. Unlike N Ireland, the Irish Free State was no longer part of the UK. At the core of this book is a compelling account of the Luftwaffe's blitz on Belfast in April-May 1941. They are sleeping in the same sheugh (ditch), below the same tree or in the same barn. Dissatisfaction with public shelters also led to another notable development in the East EndMickeys Shelter. Yesterday for once the people of Ireland were united under the shadow of a national blow. "They have never been published before, never seen the light of day.". When the war began, Belfast, like many other cities, adopted the wartime practices of rationing and blackouts. 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. continuous trek to railway stations. At 4:15am John MacDermott, the Minister of Public Security, managed to contact Basil Brooke (then Agriculture Minister), seeking permission to seek help from the Irish government. Belfast is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland . The first was on the night of 7-8 April 1941, a small attack which probably took place only to test Belfast's defences. "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. "A lot of the people I spoke to were relatives who ended up donating images and handwritten letters from before and after the Blitz. Video, 00:01:03One-minute World News, Isabel Oakeshott: Why I leaked Hancock's messages. That evening over 150 bombers left their bases in northern France and the Netherlands and headed for Belfast. 55,000 British civilian casualties were sustained through German bombing before the end of 1940 This included 23,000 deaths. The devastation was so great that the Germans coined a new verb, to coventrate, to describe it. 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. 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. His death (along with preceding ill-health) came at a bad time and arguably inadvertently caused a leadership vacuum. Nevertheless, through sheer weight of numbers, the Germans were on the brink of victory in late August 1940. Revised estimates made decades later indicated that close to 600 men, women, and children had been killed in the bombing. Again the Irish emergency services crossed the border, this time without waiting for an invitation. Over 150 people died in what became known as the 'Fire 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. Although there were some comparatively slight raids later in 1941, the most notable one on July 27, the May 1011 attack marked the conclusion of the Blitz. From papers recovered after the war, we know of a Luftwaffe reconnaissance flight over Belfast on 30 November 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. Video, 00:01:37, Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off, Tear gas fired at Greece train crash protesters. Also, on Queens Island, stood the Short and Harland Ltd. Aircraft Factory. Nine were registered on three separate occasions, and from the start of the Blitz until November 30 there were more than 350 alerts. These balloons, the largest of which were some 60 feet (18 metres) long, were essentially an airspace denial tool. Even the children of soldiers had not been evacuated, with calamitous results when the married quarters of Victoria Barracks received a direct hit. 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. THE BELFAST BLITZ was a series of four air raids over Northern Ireland during the spring of 1941. 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. More than 1,000 people were killed, and the damage was more widespread than on any previous occasion. 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. The Titanic was built in Belfast. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. 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. So had Clydeside until recently. Brooke noted in his diary "I gave him authority as it is obviously a question of expediency". Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). For eight months the Luftwaffe dropped bombs on London and other strategic cities across Britain. Other Belfast factories manufactured gun mountings. 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. . ", Mapping the lives lost in the Belfast Blitz. Updates? Your donations help keep MHN afloat. Added to this was the repair and refitting of 22,000 more vessels. A Raid From Above But the authorities were afraid that bombs might not be the. Belfast has the world's largest dry dock. Maps and documents uncovered at Gatow Airfield near Berlin in 1945 showed the level of detail involved. [13] However at the time Lord Craigavon, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland since its inception in 1921, said: "Ulster is ready when we get the word and always will be." In the New Lodge area people had taken refuge in a mill. The raids hurt Britains war production, but they also killed many civilians and left many others homeless. 15 Powerful Photos Of The WW2 Blitz | Imperial War Museums Up to now, we have escaped an attack, said John MacDermott, the Minister for Security, Belfast, on March 24, 1941. In just these few hours, 430 people were killed and 1,600 were badly injured. 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 . "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. It is situated at on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. Singer-songwriter Van Morrison was born here. At the time of the first attack in April 1941, there were no operational searchlights, too few anti-aircraft batteries and scarcely enough public air raid shelters for a quarter of the population. 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. The couple, who ran a children's home, stayed with Anna's parents, William and Harriette Denby, and her sisters, Dot and Isa, at Evelyn Gardens, off the Cavehill Road, in the north of the city. An air raid shelter on Hallidays Road received a direct hit, killing all those in it. Wherever Churchill is hiding his war material we will go Belfast is as worthy a target as Coventry, Birmingham, Bristol or Glasgow." Most of the objectives laid out by the reconnaissance crews were of either military or industrial importance. Churches destroyed or wrecked included Macrory Memorial Presbyterian in Duncairn Gardens; Duncairn Methodist, Castleton Presbyterian on York Road; St Silas's on the Oldpark Road; St James's on the Antrim Road; Newington Presbyterian on Limestone Road; Crumlin Road Presbyterian; Holy Trinity on Clifton Street and Clifton Street Presbyterian; York Street Presbyterian and York Street Non-Subscribing Presbyterian; Newtownards Road Methodist and Rosemary Street Presbyterian (the last of which was not rebuilt). The city covers a total area of 132.5 square kilometers (51 square miles). The first attack was against the city's waterworks, which had been attacked in the previous raid. 29 interesting facts about Belfast you never knew - BeeLoved City London seemed ablaze from the docks to Westminster, much damage was done, and casualties were high. Video, 00:00:51, Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine, Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off. 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. 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. TOP 10: Facts About Belfast You Didn't Know - Ireland Before You Die workers. 255 corpses were laid out in St George's Market. [citation needed], Other writers, such as Tony Gray in The Lost Years state that the Germans did follow their radio guidance beams. Video, 00:01:09The Spitfire turns 80, The German bombing of Coventry. 10 fascinating facts about Belfast that you probably didn't know [18], Over 900 people died, 1,500 people were injured, 400 of them seriously. Wherever Churchill is hiding his war material we will go. In many cases the daily life of the city was able to resume with delays of only hours. 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. 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. John Wood Dunlop invented the pneumatic tyre in Belfast in 1887. 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. Air power alone had failed to knock the United Kingdom out of the war. The government was blamed by some for inadequate precautions. The Blitz began at about 4:00 in the afternoon on September 7, 1940, when German planes appeared over London. Published: September 7, 2020 at 12:00 pm. 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. Anna and Billy were buried up their necks in sewage but were rescued and survived. and Major Sen O'Sullivan, who produced a detailed report for the Dublin government. Gring had insisted that such an attack was an impossibility, because of the citys formidable air defense network. Belfast's Albert Clock tower is sinking - it leans by four feet. Apart from those on London, this was the greatest loss of life in any night raid during the Blitz. In clear weather, targets were easily identifiable. The Luftwaffe crews returned to their base in Northern France and reported that Belfast's defences were, "inferior in quality, scanty and insufficient". Video, 00:02:12, Isabel Oakeshott: Why I leaked Hancock's messages, Tears of relief after man found in Amazon jungle. Weighing 46,328 tonnes, Titanic was to be the largest manmade moveable object the world had ever seen. After the war, instructions from Joseph Goebbels were discovered ordering it not to be mentioned.