They are sleeping in the same sheugh (ditch), below the same tree or in the same barn. There wasn't enough room for Anna or Billy, so they sheltered elsewhere, a twist of fate that would save their lives. These shelters, made of corrugated steel, were designed to be dug into a garden and then covered with dirt. Everything on wheels is being pressed into service. 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. 4. Blitz Fibre UK Blitz Fibre UK Published Mar 1, 2023 + Follow Fact 1- Small but Mighty . Oakland plans to unleash 'pothole blitz' to fix notorious street damage Many "arrived in Fermanagh having nothing with them only night shirts". Under the leadership of Prime Minister John Miller Andrews, Northern Ireland remained unprepared. People are leaving from all parts of town and not only from the bombed areas. Video, 00:00:51Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine, Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off. The working-class living close to industrial centres suffered more than anyone over the course of the four raids. NI WW2 veterans honoured by France. [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. 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 '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. [citation needed], Other writers, such as Tony Gray in The Lost Years state that the Germans did follow their radio guidance beams. Air power alone had failed to knock the United Kingdom out of the war. London was bombed for 57 consecutive nights from 7 September 1940 This part of Belfast was the only one required to provide air raid shelters for workers. The "Hiram Plan" initiated by Dawson Bates, the Home Affairs Minister, had failed to materialise. As many as 5,000 people had packed into this network of underground tunnels, which was dangerously overcrowded, dirty, and dark. [citation needed], There was a second massive air raid on Belfast on Sunday 45 May 1941, three weeks after that of Easter Tuesday. 10 fascinating facts about Belfast that you probably didn't know Since 1:45am all telephones had been cut. 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. Nearby residential areas in east Belfast were also hit when "203 metric tonnes of high explosive bombs, 80 land mines attached to parachutes, and 800 firebomb canisters containing 96,000 incendiary bombs"[16] were dropped. "But there is no such equivalent in Belfast. A force of 180 bombers dropped 750 bombs - including 203 tonnes of high explosives - and 29,000 incendiaries over a five-hour period. When a bombing raid was imminent, air-raid sirens were set off to sound a warning. The British thus fought with the advantage of superior equipment and undivided aim against an enemy with inconsistent objectives. 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." What happened in 1941 changed the city forever. 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. Unlike N Ireland, the Irish Free State was no longer part of the UK. By British mainland blitz standards, casualties were light. The A.R.P. [26], Initial German radio broadcasts celebrated the raid. Since most casualties were caused by falling masonry rather than by blast, they provided effective shelter for those who had them. Ulster Historical Foundation. However Belfast was not mentioned again by the Nazis. His report concluded with: "a second Belfast would be too horrible to contemplate". 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. About 1,000 people were killed and bombs hit half of the houses in the city, leaving 100,000 people homeless. Belfast has the world's largest dry dock. Some are a total loss; others are already under repair with little outward sign of the damage sustained: Besides Buckingham palace, the chapel of which was wrecked, and Guildhall (the six-centuries old centre of London civic ceremonies and of great architectural beauty), which was destroyed by fire, Kensington palace (the London home of the earl of Athlone, governor general of Canada, and the birthplace of Queen Mary and Queen Victoria), the banqueting hall of Eltham palace (dating from King Johns time and long a royal residence), Lambeth palace (the archbishop of Canterbury), and Holland house (famous for its 17th century domestic architecture, its political associations, and its art treasures), suffered, the latter severely. The Luftwaffe never attacked the city after May 1941, but it would be many years before life returned to normal for many in the 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; Brooke noted in his diary "I gave him authority as it is obviously a question of expediency". 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.. He gave an interview saying: "the people of Belfast are Irish people too". Added to this was the repair and refitting of 22,000 more vessels. 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. Elsewhere in the skies over Britain, Nazi official Rudolph Hess chose that same evening to parachute into Scotland on a quixotic and wholly unauthorized peace mission. Belfast | History, Population, Map, Landmarks, & Facts They prevented low-flying aircraft from approaching their targets at optimal altitudes and angles of attack. parliament: "if the government realized 'that these fast bombers can come to Northern Ireland in two and three quarter hours'". The first (April 7 -8), a small attack, was most likely carried out to test the city's defenses. 6. It is perhaps true that many saved their lives running but I am afraid a much greater number lost them or became casualties."[20]. 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. [18], Over 900 people died, 1,500 people were injured, 400 of them seriously. In late August the Germans dropped some bombs, apparently by accident, on civilian areas in London. Eduard Hempel, the German Minister to Ireland, visited the Irish Ministry for External Affairs to offer sympathy and attempt an explanation. The raids hurt Britains war production, but they also killed many civilians and left many others homeless. Belfast confetti," said one archive news report. Other targets included Sheffield, Manchester, Coventry, and Southampton. "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. [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. 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During the first year of the war, behind-the-lines conditions prevailed in London. [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."