The raids hurt Britains war production, but they also killed many civilians and left many others homeless. In his interview, Becker stated that only military objectives were aimed for. Learn how your comment data is processed. The Belfast blitz devastated a city that up until 1941 had remained unscathed during World War Two. It is perhaps true that many saved their lives running but I am afraid a much greater number lost them or became casualties."[20]. 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. Belfast was largely unprepared for an attack of such a scale as 200 German bombers shelled the city on 15 April 1941. Death had to a certain extent been made decent. Nevertheless, for all the hardship it caused, the campaign proved to be a strategic mistake by the Germans. A force of 180 bombers dropped 750 bombs - including 203 tonnes of high explosives - and 29,000 incendiaries over a five-hour period. Belfast Blitz: Marking the lost lives 80 years on. The success of Mickeys Shelter was another factor that urged the government to improve existing deep shelters and to create new ones. 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. "[22], In his opinion, the greatest want was the lack of hospital facilities. 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. Instead of pressing his advantage, however, Hitler abruptly changed his strategy. In the eight months of attacks, some 43,000 civilians were killed. The Titanic was built in Belfast. By the end of the attacks, between 900 and 1,000 people were dead and thousands more were injured, homeless and displaced. 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." Brooke noted in his diary "I gave him authority as it is obviously a question of expediency". 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 BELFAST BLITZ was a series of four air raids over Northern Ireland during the spring of 1941. 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. Another claim was that the Catholic population in general and the IRA in particular guided the bombers. KS3 History (Environment and society) The Belfast Blitz learning resources for adults, children, parents and teachers. In early 1941 the Germans launched another wave of attacks, this time focusing on ports. In each station volunteers were asked for, as it was beyond their normal duties. sprang into action, and Londoners, while maintaining the work, business, and efficiency of their city, displayed remarkable fortitude. The creeping TikTok bans. Video, 00:01:37, Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off, Tear gas fired at Greece train crash protesters. On August 25 the British retaliated by launching a bombing raid on Berlin. 2023 BBC. Protection of the city fell to seven anti-aircraft batteries of 16 heavy guns and six light guns. [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." People hung black curtains in their windows so that no lights showed outside their houses. The most heavily bombed cities outside London were Liverpool and Birmingham. 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. By mid-September 1940 the RAF had won the Battle of Britain, and the invasion was postponed indefinitely. "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. Taoiseach amon de Valera formally protested to Berlin. Belfast is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland . At the core of this book is a compelling account of the Luftwaffe's blitz on Belfast in April-May 1941. Richard Dawson Bates was the Home Affairs Minister. Video, 00:01:23Watch: Matt Hancock message row in 83 seconds, One-minute World News. By 1940, Short and Harland could shelter its entire workforce and Harland and Wolff had provision to shelter 16,000 workers. Even the children of soldiers had not been evacuated, with calamitous results when the married quarters of Victoria Barracks received a direct hit. The M.V. He was asked, in the N.I. The Royal Air Force announced that Squadron Leader J.W.C. parliament: "if the government realized 'that these fast bombers can come to Northern Ireland in two and three quarter hours'". Both planes quickly proved their mettle against German bombers, and Germanys best fighter, the Bf 109, was of limited use as an escort due to its relatively short operating range. 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. 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. Video, 00:02:12, Isabel Oakeshott: Why I leaked Hancock's messages, Tears of relief after man found in Amazon jungle. Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window), Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window), Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window), Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window), The Belfast Blitz Inside the Deadly 1941 Luftwaffe Raids on Northern Ireland, Dutch Weapons and American Independence How the United Provinces Made a Fortune Supplying Muskets in the Revolutionary War , USS Devilfish The Curious Case of the Only U.S. Navy Submarine to be Attacked by a Kamikaze, The Chinchas War Inside the Little-Known Conflict Between Peru and Spain Over Animal Turds, The Battle for Nassau Inside the First Overseas Mission for Americas Marines, Mustang vs. Corsair Inside the U.S. Navys 1944 Match-Up Between the Two Fighters, Stickin It To Em The Last of the Great Bayonet Charges, Bloody First Contact When Vikings Clashed with Native North Americans, Battlefield Stalingrad Four Maps That Tell the Story of World War Twos Pivotal Struggle. In clear weather, targets were easily identifiable. 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. 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. While some of the poorer and more crowded suburban areas suffered severely, the mansions of Mayfair, the luxury flats of Kensington, and Buckingham Palace itselfwhich was bombed four separate timesfared little better. Video, 00:00:51Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine, Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off. "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.". Sixty years after the Germans bombed Belfast in World War II BBC News Online looks back and remembers the anniversary of the blitz. Here are 10 facts about both the German Blitzkrieg and the Allied bombing of Germany. You can see the difference in those letters - post-Blitz is very much a grieving tone. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. After his optician business was destroyed by a bomb, Mickey Davies led an effort to organize the Spitalfield Shelter. Video, 00:00:26, Living through the London Blitz. 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. 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 modern bomb census has attempted to pinpoint the location of every bomb dropped on London during the Blitz, and the visualization of that data makes clear how thoroughly the Luftwaffe saturated the city. Video, 00:01:23, Watch: Matt Hancock message row in 83 seconds, Isabel Oakeshott: Why I leaked Hancock's messages. The government announced that 77 people had died, but for years local residents insisted the toll was much higher. Clydeside got its blitz during the period of the last moon. 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. The higher the German planes had to fly to avoid the balloons, the less accurate they were when dropping their bombs. Belfast is as worthy a target as Coventry, Birmingham, Bristol or Glasgow.. 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. Read about our approach to external linking. Under the leadership of Prime Minister John Miller Andrews, Northern Ireland remained unprepared. Belfast was not properly prepared for the attacks, with too few shelters and not enough anti-aircraft guns. The crypt under the sanctuary and the cellar under the working sacristy had been fitted out and opened to the public as an air-raid shelter. Can Nigeria's election result be overturned? For more than six months, German planes had flown reconnaissance flights over Belfast. A charitable relief fund for the people of London was opened September 10. 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. The nights of November 3 and 28 were the only occasions during this period in which Londons peace was unbroken by siren or bomb. 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".
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