Belfast Blitz
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The Belfast Blitz was an event that occurred on Easter Tuesday, April 15, 1941, when 200 German Luftwaffe bombers attacked Belfast, Northern Ireland. 1,000 died. More were injured. Half of the houses in the city were destroyed. Outside of London, this was the greatest loss of life in a night raid during the Battle of Britain. 100,000 of the population of 415,000 became homeless.
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[edit] Background
Although the Republic of Ireland had declared its neutrality during World War II, Belfast, being part of Northern Ireland and therefore part of the United Kingdom, was at war.
Belfast had an enviable engineering tradition. As Britain was preparing for the conflict, the factories and shipyards of Belfast were gearing up. Belfast made a considerable contribution towards the Allied war effort.
[edit] Government
Unfortunately, the government of Northern Ireland lacked the will, energy and capacity to cope with a major crisis when it came.
James Craig, Lord Craigavon, was Prime Minister of Northern Ireland since is inception in 1921, until his death on November 24, 1940. Lady Londonderry confided to Sir Samuel Hoare, the Home Secretary, that Craigavon had become "ga-ga".
Richard Dawson Bates, was the Home Affairs Minister. According to Sir Wilfred Spender, the cabinet secretary, "incapable of giving his responsible officers coherent directions on policy" – actually, he was drunk for most of each day.1
It appears that Sir Basil Brooke, the Minister of Agriculture, was the only active minister. He successfully busied himself with the task of making Northern Ireland a major supplier of food to Britain in her time of need.
Mention must be made of John Clarke MacDermott, the Minister of Public Security, who, after the first bombing, initiated the “Hiram Plan” to evacuate the city and to return Belfast to 'normality' as quickly as possible. It was MacDermott who sent the telegram to deValera seeking assistance.
There was unease with the complacent attitude of the government, which led to resignations:
- John Edmond Warnock, the parliamentary secretary at the Ministry of Home Affairs, resigned from the Northern Ireland government on May 25, 1940. He said "I have heard speeches about Ulster pulling her weight but they have never carried conviction." and "the government has been slack, dilatory and apathetic."
- Lt. Col. Alexander Robert Gisborne Gordon, Parliamentary and Financial Secretary at the Ministry of Finance, resigned on June 13, 1940, explaining to the Commons that the government was "quite unfitted to sustain the people in the ordeal we have to face."
Craigavon died on Sunday, November 24, 1940. He was succeeded by the 70 year old, John Miller Andrews, who was no more capable of dealing with the situation than his predecessor. The minutes of his cabinet meetings show more discussion on protecting the bronze statue of Carson than the provision of air-raid shelters.
On April 28, 1943, six members of the Government threatened to resign, forcing him from office. He resigned on May 1.
[edit] Manufacturing facilities
- Harland and Wolff were one of the largest shipbuilding yards in the world. It is best known for the ill-fated RMS Titanic. Their yards constructed many ships for the Royal Navy, including aircraft carriers such as HMS Formidable and HMS Unicorn; the cruisers, HMS Belfast and HMS Penelope; and 131 other naval vessels. Up to 35,000 people were employed. [1]
- During the war years, Belfast yards built or converted over 3,000 naval vessels, repaired more than 22,000 vessels and launched over half a million tons of merchant shipping - over 140 merchant vessels.
- Short Brothers manufactured aircraft. They are best known for the Short Sunderland flying boat and the Short Stirling long-range heavy bomber. Up to 20,000 people were employed. They were re-equipping as early as 1936 for the manufacture of 189 Handley Page Hereford bombers
- James Mackie & Sons were re-equipped in 1938. They were the primary supplier of Bofors anti-aircraft shells.
- Harland’s Engineering works built tanks. They designed the Churchill tank.
- Aero linen for covering aircraft, such as the Hawker Hurricane, and glider frames was manufactured by a number of Belfast flax spinning mills, such as The York Street Flax Spinning Co.; Brookfield Spinning Co.; Wm. Ewart's Rosebank Weaving Co.; and the Linen Thread Co.
- Other Belfast factories manufactured gun mountings, ordnance pieces, aircraft parts and ammunition.
War materials and food was sent by sea from Belfast to Britain, some under the protection of the “neutral” Irish flag. The M.V. Munster, operated by the ‘Belfast SteamShip Company’ plyed between Belfast and Liverpool under the Irish flag, until she hit a mine and was sunk outside Liverpool. see picture
[edit] Preparation
[edit] Government Preparation
Unfortunately there was almost no preparation for the conflict with Germany.
James Craig, Lord Craigavon, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland since is inception in 1921, claimed; "Ulster is ready when we get the word and always will be." He was asked, in the N.I. parliament: “if the government realized 'that these fast bombers can come to Northern Ireland in two and three quarter hours'.” 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. There is no slacking in our loyalty.”
Richard Dawson Bates, the Home Affairs Minister, simply refused to reply to army correspondence and when the Ministry of Home Affairs was informed by imperial defence experts that Belfast was a certain Luftwaffe target, nothing was done.
[edit] Air-raid Shelters
Belfast, a city with the highest population density had the lowest proportion of air-raid shelters. Prior to the "Belfast Blitz" there were only 200 public shelters, although 4,000 households had built their own shelters. No searchlights set up, as they only arrived on April 10. There were no night-fighters. On the night of the raid, no RAF aircraft took to the air. There were only 22 anti-aircraft guns, six light, and sixteen heavy. On the night, only seven were operated for a short time. There was no smokescreen ability. There were some barrage balloons.
These air-raid shelters were Anderson shelters. They were just sheets of corrugated galvanised iron. Since most casualties were caused by falling masonry rather than by blast, these structures provided effective shelter for those who had them.
[edit] Children
Unlike other British cities, children had not been evacuated. There had been the "Hiram Plan" initiated by Richard Dawson Bates, the Home Affairs Minister, but it failed to materialise. Less than 4,000 women and children were evacuated. There were still 80,000 children in Belfast. Even the children of soldiers had not been evacuated, with calamitous results when the married quarters of Victoria barracks received a direct hit.
[edit] German Preparation
From papers recovered after the war, we know of a Luftwaffe reconnaissance flight over Belfast on November 30, 1940. The Germans established that Belfast, was defended by only seven anti-aircraft batteries, which made it the most undefended city in the United Kingdom. From their photographs, they identified suitable targets:
- Die Werft Harland and Wolff Ltd
- Die Tankstelle Conns Water
- Das Flugzeugwerk Short and Harland
- Das Kraftwerk Belfast
- Die Grossmühle Rank & Co
- Das Wasserwerk Belfast
- Die Kasernenlagen Victoria Barracks
[edit] Earlier Raids
There had been a number of small bombings, probably by planes that missed their targets over the Clyde or the cities of the north-west of England.
On March 24, 1941, John McDermott, Minister for Security, wrote to the Prime Minister, John Andrews expressing his concerns that Belfast was so poorly protected. "Up to now we have escaped attack. So had Clydeside until recently. Clydeside got its blitz during the period of the last moon. There [is] ground for thinking that the ... enemy could not easily reach Belfast in force except during a period of moonlight. The period of the next moon from say the 7th to the 16th of April may well bring our turn." Unfortunately, McDermott was proved right. On 7th April 1941 Belfast suffered the first of three air raids.
The first deliberate raid took place on the night of April 7. (Some authors count this as the second raid of four). It targeted the docks. Neighbouring residential areas were also hit. Six Heinkel He 111 bombers, from Kampfgruppe 26, flying at 7,000 feet, dropped incendiaries, high explosive and parachute-bombs. By British blitz experience, casualties were light. 13 lost their lives, including a soldier killed when an anti-aircraft battery, at the Balmoral show-grounds, misfired. The most significant loss was a 4½ acre factory floor for manufacturing the fuselages of Short Stirling bombers. The Royal Air Force announced that Squadron Leader J. W.C. Simpson shot down one of the Heinkels over Downpatrick.
The Luftwaffe crews returned to their base in Northern France and reported that Belfast's defences were, "inferior in quality, scanty and insufficient".
[edit] The "Easter Tuesday" Blitz
William Joyce (known as "Lord Haw-Haw"), announced in radio broadcasts from Hamburg that there will be “Easter eggs for Belfast”.
On Easter Tuesday, April 15, 1941, spectators watching a football match at Windsor Park noticed a lone Luftwaffe Junkers 107 circling overhead. There was no military response. Lisburn Distillery F.C. defeated Linfield F.C. by 3 goals to 1.
That evening up to 200 bombers left their bases in Northern France and the Low Countries and headed for Belfast. There were Heinkel He 111s, Junkers Ju 88s and Dorniers.
At 10:40PM the air raid sirens sounded. Accounts differ as to when flares were dropped to light up the city.
The first attack was against the city's waterworks, which had been attacked in the previous raid. High explosives were dropped. 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. However that attack was not an error. When incendiaries were dropped and the city burned, the water pressure was too low for fire-fighting.
Wave after wave of bombers dropped their incendiaries, high explosives and land-mines. Altogether 203 metric tons of high explosives bombs, 80 landmines attached to parachutes, and 800 firebomb canisters containing 96,000 incendiary bombs were dropped on the city.
There was no opposition. In the mistaken belief that they might damage RAF fighters, the 7 anti-aircraft batteries, ceased firing. But, the RAF had not responded. The bombs continued to fall until 5AM.
About 1,000 died. 56,000 houses (more than half of the city's housing stock) were damaged leaving 100,000 temporarily homeless. Outside of London, this was the greatest loss of life in a night raid during the Battle of Britain.
A stray bomber attacked Derry killing 15. Another attacked Bangor killing 5.
By 4AM the entire city seemed to be in flames. At 4:15AM John MacDermot, the Minister of Security managed to contact Basil Brooke (then Agriculture Minister), seeking permission to seek help from Éire ("southern" Ireland). Brooke noted in his diary "I gave him authority as it is obviously a question of expediency". Since 1:45AM all telephones had been cut. Fortunately, the railway telegram from Belfast to Dublin was still operational. The telegram was sent at 4:35AM, asking the Irish Premier, de Valera for assistance.
[edit] Human Cost
Over 900 lives were lost, 1,500 were injured, 400 of them seriously. 35, 000 houses, more than half the houses in the city are damaged. 11 churches, 2 hospitals, and 2 schools were destroyed
There are many accounts of the Blitz. They rely on newspaper reports of the time, personal recollections and other primary sources, such as Jimmy Doherty, an air raid warden, (and later served in London during the V1 and V2 blitz), who wrote a book on the blitz; Emma Duffin, a nurse at the Queen’s University Hospital, (who previously served during the Great War), who kept a diary; and Major Seán O’Sullivan, who produced a detailed report for the Dublin government. There are other diarists and narratives.
[edit] Instructions
When the bombs fell, the population did not know what to do. There were few bomb shelters. An air raid shelter on the Hallidays Road received a direct hit killing all those taking shelter within it. Many people who were dug out of the rubble alive had taken shelter underneath their stairs and were fortunate enough that their homes had not received a direct hit or had even caught on fire.
The population did not know whether to run, hide or stay in their beds.
In the New Lodge area people had taken refuge in a Mill, which presumably appeared to them to be a sturdy building. Tragically 35 were crushed to death when the mill wall collapsed. In another mill, the York Street Mill, one of its massive sidewalls collapsed on to Sussex and Vere Streets killing all those who still remained in their homes.
Major O’Sullivan reported "In the heavily ‘blitzed’ areas people ran panic-stricken into the streets and made for the open country. As many were caught in the open by blast and secondary missiles, the enormous number of casualties can be readily accounted for. It is perhaps true that many saved their lives running but I am afraid a much greater number lost them or became casualties."
That night almost 300 people, many from the Shankill, took refuge in Clonard Monastery in the Falls Road. The crypt under the sanctuary and the cellar under the working sacristy, had been fitted out and opened to the people, as an air-raid shelter. Prayers are said and hymns sung by the, mainly Protestant women and children, during the bombing.
[edit] Mortuary
The mortuary services had emergency plans to deal with only 200 bodies. In the event, the public baths on the Falls Road and on Peter’s Hill, and the large fruit market, Saint George’s market, were used as mortuaries. 150 corpses remained in The Falls Road baths for three days. Then they were buried in a mass grave, 123 were still unidentified. There were a further 255 corpses were laid out in St. George’s Market. Many bodies and parts of bodies could not be identified
Mass graves were dug in the Milltown and City Cemeteries where the unclaimed bodies of those who died on that Easter Tuesday are buried.
[edit] Nurse Emma Duffin
Nurse Emma Duffin, who had served in the Great War, contrasted death in that conflict with what she saw:
- “ (Great War casualties) had died in hospital beds, their eyes had been reverently closed, their hands crossed to their breasts. Death had to a certain extent been...made decent. It was solemn, tragic, dignified, but here it was grotesque, repulsive, horrible. No attendant nurse had soothed the last moments of these victims; no gentle reverent hand had closed their eyes or crossed their hands. 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. Death should be dignified, peaceful; Hitler had made even death grotesque. I felt outraged, I should have felt sympathy, grief, but instead feelings of revulsion and disgust assailed me.”
[edit] Major Seán O’Sullivan
Major Seán O’Sullivan, reported on the intensity of the bombing in some areas, such as the Antrim Road, where bombs “fell within fifteen to twenty yards of one another.” The most heavily-bombed area was that which lay between York Street and the Antrim Road..
His opinion was that the whole civil defence sector was utterly overwhelmed. Heavy jacks were unavailable. He described some distressing consequences, such as how “in one case the leg and arm of a child had to be amputated before it could be extricated.”
In his opinion, the greatest want was the lack of hospital facilities. He went to the Mater Hospital at 2PM in the afternoon, 9 hours after the raid ended, to find the street with a traffic jam of ambulances waiting to admit their casualties. He spoke with Professor Flynn, (Thomas Flynn an Australian based at the Mater hospital and father of Errol Flynn of Hollywood fame) 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.” 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”. His report concluded with: “a second Belfast would be too horrible to contemplate’.
[edit] Gasworks Vacuum
To a Dún Laoghaire fireman the most haunting sight were not the horribly wounded dead, but those without a blemish. When the city’s gasworks exploded, there was a temporary vacuum. This smothered all fires and all life. Windows, slates, and all loose material were sucked from the houses. Those inside, mostly still lying in their beds, were lifeless, their eyes wide open with fright, and their mouths wide open seeking a breath.
[edit] Refugees
220,000 fled from the city. Many “arrived in Fermanagh having nothing with them only night shirts”. 10,000 “officially” crossed the border. Over 500 received care from the Irish Red Cross in Dublin. The town of Dromara saw its population increase from 500 to 2,500. In Newtownards, Bangor, Larne, Carrickfergus, Lisburn and Antrim many thousands of Belfast citizens took refuge either with friends or strangers
Major O’Sullivan reported on a
- “continuous trek to railway stations. 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. Train after train and bus after bus were filled with those next in line. 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. On the 17th I heard that hundreds who either could not get away or could not leave for other reasons simply went out into the fields and remained in the open all night with whatever they could take in the way of covering.”
- Moya Woodside noted in her diary: “Evacuation is taking on panic proportions. Roads out of town are still one stream of cars, with mattresses and bedding tied on top. Everything on wheels is being pressed into service. People are leaving from all parts of town and not only from the bombed areas. Where they are going, what they will find to eat when they get there, nobody knows.”
Regrettably, there were those who took advantage of the misfortune of others. Cabinet Minister Richard Dawson Bates informed the cabinet of rack-renting of barns, and over thirty people per house in some areas.
[edit] Newspaper reaction
The Irish Times editorial on April 17:
- “Humanity knows no borders, no politics, no differences of religious belief. Yesterday for once the people of Ireland were united under the shadow of a national blow. 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? Yesterday the hand of good-fellowship was reached across the Border. Men from the South worked with men from the North in the universal cause of the relief of suffering.
[edit] Aftermath
[edit] Southern reaction
By 6AM; within two hours of the request for assistance, 71 fire men with 13 fire tenders from Dundalk, Drogheda, Dublin, and Dún Laoghaire were on their way to cross the Irish border to assist their Belfast colleagues. In each station volunteers were asked for, as it was beyond their normal duties. In every instance, all volunteered. They remained for three days, until they were sent back by the Northern Ireland government. By then 250 fire men from Clydeside had arrived. (See: Clydeside's Ordeal by Fire by M. Chadwick)
De Valera formally protested to Berlin. He followed up with his "they are our people" speech.
- “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 Minister for Defence was in Boston, Massachusetts at the time. He gave an interview to the press there, saying: “the people of Belfast are Irish people too”.
[edit] German response
Initial German radio broadcasts celebrated the raid. Luftwaffe pilot gave this description "We were in exceptional good humour knowing that we were going for a new target, one of England's last hiding places. Wherever Churchill is hiding his war material we will go…Belfast is as worthy a target as Coventry, Birmingham, Bristol or Glasgow." William Joyce "Lord Haw-Haw" announced that "The Fuhrer will give you time to bury your dead before the next attack … ….Tuesday was only a sample."
However it was not mentioned again. Instructions from Joseph Goebbels discovered after the war told them not to mention it. Adolf Hitler was astonished at the attitude of Eamon de Valera. Hitler did not want de Valera and Irish American politicians to encourage the United States to enter the war.
Eduard Hempel, the German ambassador called to the Irish Ministry for External Affairs, to offer sympathy and attempt an explanation. J.P. Walshe, assistant secretary, recorded that the German was "clearly distressed by the news of the severe raid on Belfast and especially of the number of civilian casualties". 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. 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".
[edit] Recriminations
Among the people of Northern Ireland, reactions tended to blame their government for inadequate precautions. Tommy Henderson, an Independent Unionist MP in the House of Commons of Northern Ireland, summed up their feelings 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. They are sleeping in the same sheugh, below the same tree or in the same barn. They all say the same thing, that the government is no good."
There were those who sought to attribute blame for the calamity.
One claim was that the Germans located Belfast by heading for Dublin, which was not observing a blackout and following the railway lines north. In "The Blitz: Belfast in the war years", Dr Brian Barton writes "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." Dr Barton insists that Belfast was "too far north" to use radio guidance.
Other writers, such as Tony Gray in "The Lost Years" say that the Germans did follow their radio guidance beams. It seems strange that the railway line, and the railway telegraph wire which was used to call Dublin for help, remained intact if they were following it. Several accounts point out that Belfast, standing at the end of the long inlet of Belfast Lough, would be easily located.
Another claim was that the Catholic population in general and the IRA in particular guided the bombers. Dr Barton writes: "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. It is true that the bulk of the damage caused by the raids was in Protestant areas.", and "The police, at the time reported seeing lights shining from the hills surrounding the city and thought it suspicious."
He is correct to say that the bulk of the damage caused by the raids was in Protestant areas. However many of the industries attacked, such as the Harland and Wolff Shipyards, mainly employed Protestants. The areas adjoining these industries were largely Protestant.
This view was probably influenced by the decision of the IRA Army Council to support Germany. However they were not in a position to communicate with the Germans. Information recovered from Germany after the war showed that the planning of the blitz was based entirely on their own aerial reconnaissance. See also IRA Abwehr WW2.
[edit] Firemen Return South
After three days, sometime after 6pm the fire crews from south of the border began making up their hose and ladders to head for home. By then most of the major fires were under control and the firemen from Clydeside and other British cities were arriving. Some had received food, others were famished. All were exhausted. Two of the crews received refreshments in Banbridge; others were entertained in the Ancient Order of Hibernians hall in Newry.
Belatedly in 1995 on the fiftieth anniversary of the ending of the Second World War an invitation was received by the Dublin Fire Brigade, addressed to any survivors of those historic days, to attend a function at Hillsborough Castle and meet Prince Charles. Only four of those who were there were still known to be alive at that time, one Tom Coleman, travelled north to receive some recognition for his colleagues' solidarity at such a critical time.
[edit] Later Raids
There was a later raid on Belfast on May 4; it was confined to the docks and shipyards. Again the Irish emergency services crossed the border, this time without an invitation.
Information about a subsequent air raid on Dublin, on May 30, may be found in the article The Emergency.
[edit] Anecdote
Most civilian deaths during bombing raids are caused by falling masonry. The advice for those unable to use a bomb shelter was to go under their stairs. A staircase is the strongest internal structure. Many lives were saved by this advice. In the aftermath of a raid, bricks and debris from collapsed houses had to be removed to release those buried below under their staircase. One particular family were trapped in this way. They had been calling for assistance for some time. Eventually, to their relief, they heard digging overhead. They shouted for help. The replies were reassuring, even though they were in a strange accent. The family were perplexed. The conversation continued. In time, a brick was removed, they could see out. Looking up, they saw men in a strange uniform. “Who are you?” they enquired. “We are the Dublin fire-brigade” was the reply. “That must have been a mighty bomb – we have been blown all the way from Belfast to Dublin!”
[edit] Footnotes
Note 1: Richard Bates was drunk for most of each day. Source: The Belfast Blitz, 1941, Jonathan Bardon, Lecturer of History, Queens University, Belfast.
[edit] See also
- The Blitz
- Aerial bombing of cities
- Harland and Wolff
- Belfast
- The Emergency- Lufwaffe bombing in Dublin
- Ulster Defence Volunteers
[edit] External links
- History Ireland
- BBC
- Extracts from an article on The Belfast Blitz, 1941. By Jonathan Bardon. Lecturer of History, Queens University, Belfast
Account of the Belfast Blitz from a history of "THE DUBLIN FIRE BRIGADE." By Tom Geraghty & Trevor Whitehead. - Clydeside's Ordeal by Fire by M. Chadwick
- The Government of Northern Ireland
[edit] References
- B. Barton, The Blitz: Belfast in the war years (Belfast 1989).
- Tony Gray, The Lost Years: The Emergency in Ireland 1939-1945. ISBN 0-7515-2333-X
- R. Fisk, In Time of War: Ireland, Ulster and the price of neutrality 1939-45 (Dublin 1983).
- R.S. Davison, ‘The Belfast Blitz’, The Irish Sword, Vol. XVI, No.63 (1985)
