Unlike N Ireland, the Irish Free State was no longer part of the UK. Your donations help keep MHN afloat. At 10:40pm the air raid sirens sounded. ", Dawson Bates informed the Cabinet of rack-renting of barns, and over thirty people per house in some areas.[24]. (Great War casualties) had died in hospital beds, their eyes had been reverently closed, their hands crossed to their breasts. After his optician business was destroyed by a bomb, Mickey Davies led an effort to organize the Spitalfield Shelter. A Raid From Above 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. There [is] ground for thinking that the enemy could not easily reach Belfast in force except during a period of moonlight. The nights of November 3 and 28 were the only occasions during this period in which Londons peace was unbroken by siren or bomb. One, Tom Coleman, attended to receive recognition for his colleagues' solidarity at such a critical time. The World's Most-Famous Ship, The Titanic, was constructed here. He believed that key targets identified across the city were hit. They all say the same thing, that the government is no good. [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. O'Sullivan reported: "There were many terrible mutilations among both living and dead heads crushed, ghastly abdominal and face wounds, penetration by beams, mangled and crushed limbs etc.". He spoke with Professor Flynn, (Theodore Thomson Flynn, an Australian based at the Mater Hospital and father of actor Errol Flynn), head of the casualty service for the city, who told him of "casualties due to shock, blast and secondary missiles, such as glass, stones, pieces of piping, etc." Belfast is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland . No significant cut was made in necessary social services, and public and private premises, except when irreparably damaged, were repaired as speedily as possible. The Belfast Blitz: April-May 1941 - History Ireland 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. Major O'Sullivan reported that "In the heavily 'blitzed' areas people ran panic-stricken into the streets and made for the open country. In the New Lodge area people had taken refuge in a mill. Tragically 35 were crushed to death when the mill wall collapsed. Incendiary bombs predominated in this raid. The firm had produced Handley Page Hereford bombers since 1936. Video, 00:00:36, Tears of relief after man found in Amazon jungle. [19], 220,000 people fled from the city. Video, 00:02:54, At least 17 dead in Jakarta fuel storage depot fire. The famous Harland and Wolff cranes are called Samson and Goliath. During the first year of the war, behind-the-lines conditions prevailed in London. Several theatres and many cinemas were open, and there were even a few sporting events. Three nights later (April 1920) London was again subjected to a seven-hour raid, and the loss of life was considerable, especially among firefighters and the A.R.P. [citation needed]. St. Giles, Cripplegate, and St. Mary Wolnooth, also in the city, were damaged, while the Dutch church in Austin Friars, dating from the 14th century and covering a larger area than any church in the city of London, St. Pauls alone excepted, was totally destroyed. Around 1am, Luftwaffe bombers flew over the city, concentrating their attack on the Harbour Estate and Queen's Island. While Anderson shelters offered good protection from bomb fragments and debris, they were cold and damp and generally ill-suited for prolonged occupancy. 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. An air raid shelter on Hallidays Road received a direct hit, killing all those in it. The city has been a leader in women's rights. Belfast's Albert Clock tower is sinking - it leans by four feet. 10 Awesome Facts About Fibre - linkedin.com [25] He followed up with his "they are our people" speech, made in Castlebar, County Mayo, on Sunday 20 April 1941 (Quoted in the Dundalk Democrat dated Saturday 26 April 1941): In the past, and probably in the present, too, a number of them did not see eye to eye with us politically, but they are our people we are one and the same people and their sorrows in the present instance are also our sorrows; and I want to say to them that any help we can give to them in the present time we will give to them whole-heartedly, believing that were the circumstances reversed they would also give us their help whole-heartedly Frank Aiken, the Irish Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures was in Boston, Massachusetts at the time. Beginning on Black Saturday, London was attacked on 57 straight nights. The higher the German planes had to fly to avoid the balloons, the less accurate they were when dropping their bombs. The bombing of British cities - Swansea, Belfast, Glasgow Van Morrison is from the east part of the city. More than 1,000 people were killed, and the damage was more widespread than on any previous occasion. . "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. The initial human cost of the Blitz was lower than the government had expected, but the level of destruction exceeded the governments dire predictions. 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. NI WW2 veterans honoured by France. The town of Dromara saw its population increase from 500 to 2,500. This view was probably influenced by the decision of the IRA Army Council to support Germany. Fighter Commands efforts were greatly aided by the lack of any consistent plan of action on the part of the Germans. 55,000 British civilian casualties were sustained through German bombing before the end of 1940 This included 23,000 deaths. When the war began, Belfast, like many other cities, adopted the wartime practices of rationing and blackouts. 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. Blitz, The - Kids | Britannica Kids | Homework Help From September 1940 until May 1941, Britain was subjected to sustained enemy bombing campaign, now known as the Blitz. By the. Belfast Blitz: Facts In total there were four attacks on the County Antrim city. Poor visibility on the night meant that the accuracy of the bombers was hampered and the explosives were dropped on densely populated areas of Belfast. 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. 10 Facts About the Blitz and the Bombing of Germany Neighbouring residential areas were also hit. The British, on the other hand, were supremely well prepared for the kind of battle in which they now found themselves. 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. Compared to other cities, Belfast was virtually undefended. 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. Video, 00:02:12Isabel Oakeshott: Why I leaked Hancock's messages, Tears of relief after man found in Amazon jungle. In the west and north of the city, streets heavily bombed included Percy Street, York Park, York Crescent, Eglinton Street, Carlisle Street, Ballyclare, Ballycastle and Ballynure Streets off the Oldpark Road; Southport Street, Walton Street, Antrim Road, Annadale Street, Cliftonville Road, Hillman Street, Atlantic Avenue, Hallidays Road, Hughenden Avenue, Sunningdale Park, Shandarragh Park, and Whitewell Road. 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. 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. Men from the South worked with men from the North in the universal cause of the relief of suffering. Nevertheless, for all the hardship it caused, the campaign proved to be a strategic mistake by the Germans. 13 Facts You Didn't Know About Belfast "Liverpool, Clydebank and Portsmouth all have a memorial to their victims of the Blitz. 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. 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. 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. Brooke noted in his diary "I gave him authority as it is obviously a question of expediency". 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. The creeping TikTok bans. The area included the Harland and Wolff Ltd. Shipyard, the Short and Harland Ltd. Aircraft Factory, and the airfield at RAF Sydenham. Authorities quickly implemented plans to protect Londoners from bombs and to house those left homeless by the attacks. For 57 nightsuntil November 2more than 1 million bombs were dropped on the capital city. 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; The attacks by both V1's and V2's only ended as the Allies advanced up through Western Europe . continuous trek to railway stations.