As well as photographs, the Luftwaffe gathered information on landmarks, potential targets and defences or lack thereof. Once more, London was targeted and children were victims. So had Clydeside until recently. 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 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. After a brief lull, the Luftwaffe returned in force on February 17. The famous places damaged include the palace of Westminster and Westminster hall, the County hall, the Public Record office, the Law Courts, the Temple and the Inner Temple library; Somerset house, Burlington house, the tower of London, Greenwich observatory, Hogarths house; the Carlton, Reform, American, Savage, Arts and Orleans clubs; the Royal College of Surgeons, University college and its library, Stationers hall, the Y.M.C.A. Because basements, a logical destination in the event of an air raid, were a relative rarity in Britain, the A.R.P. Also, on Queens Island, stood the Short and Harland Ltd. Aircraft Factory. This amounted to nearly half of Britains total civilian deaths for the whole war. At 10:40pm the air raid sirens sounded. In early 1941 the Germans launched another wave of attacks, this time focusing on ports. Very early in the German bombing campaign, it became clear that the preparationshowever extensive they seemed to have beenwere inadequate. Fiber-optic cables are made from thin strings of glass and are generally about one-tenth the width of a . Video, 00:01:38, At least 17 dead in Jakarta fuel storage depot fire, Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine. Interesting facts about Belfast. However they were not in a position to communicate with the Germans, and information recovered from Germany after the war showed that the planning of the blitz was based entirely on German aerial reconnaissance. I was definitely one of the first over the target and as I flew in there was no great defence because there were not a great many aircraft over the target at that point, recalled Becker. But these people all had families and friends and they had to deal with their loss for the rest of their lives.". 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. He believed that key targets identified across the city were hit. 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 . 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. 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. For 57 nightsuntil November 2more than 1 million bombs were dropped on the capital city. By then 250 firemen from Clydeside had arrived. 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. The offensive came to be called the Blitz after the German word blitzkrieg (lightning war). The shipyard was among the largest in the world, producing merchant vessels and military shipping. But the authorities were afraid that bombs might not be the. I felt outraged, I should have felt sympathy, grief, but instead feelings of revulsion and disgust assailed me. 55,000 houses were damaged leaving 100,000 temporarily homeless. Later, guided by the raging fires caused by the first attack, a second group of planes began another assault that lasted until 4:30 the following morning. So had Clydeside until recently. On July 16, 1940, Hitler issued a directive ordering the preparation and, if necessary, execution of Operation Sea Lion, the amphibious invasion of Great Britain. Fortunately, the railway telegraphy link between Belfast and Dublin was still operational. St George's Church in High Street was damaged by fire. About 1,000 people were killed during the Belfast Blitz of 1941, with Harland and Wolff among the buildings that were hit by the Luftwaffe. 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. But Mr Freeburn's research casts doubt on this. 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. Some 900 people died as a result of the bombing and 1,500 were injured. The Blitz was devastating for the people of London and other cities. "But there is no such equivalent in Belfast. By the end of the attacks, between 900 and 1,000 people were dead and thousands more were injured, homeless and displaced. 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. In every instance, all stepped forward. Burke Street which ran between Annadale and Dawson streets in the New Lodge area, was completely wiped off the map with all its 20 houses flattened and all of the occupants killed.[16]. The Luftwaffe crews returned to their base in Northern France and reported that Belfast's defences were, "inferior in quality, scanty and insufficient". 11 churches, two hospitals and two schools were destroyed. 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. On September 1, 1939, the day World War II began with Germanys invasion of Poland, the British government implemented a massive evacuation plan. 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. Video, 00:00:46, Hong Kong skyscraper fire seen on city's skyline, Watch: Matt Hancock message row in 83 seconds. It targeted the docks. 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. In Newtownards, Bangor, Larne, Carrickfergus, Lisburn and Antrim many thousands of Belfast citizens took refuge either with friends or strangers. When a bombing raid was imminent, air-raid sirens were set off to sound a warning. The Battle of Britain By British mainland blitz standards, casualties were light. devised the Morrison shelter (named for Home Secretary Herbert Stanley Morrison) as an alternative to the Anderson shelter. There is no slacking in our loyalty. Video, 00:01:41, The German bombing of Coventry. [citation needed]. The creeping TikTok bans. The seeming normality of life on the Home Front was shattered in 1944 when the first of the V1's landed. Singer-songwriter Van Morrison was born here. The Belfast Blitz consisted of four German air raids on strategic targets in the city of Belfast in Northern Ireland, in April and May 1941 during World War II, causing high casualties. 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. During the first year of the war, behind-the-lines conditions prevailed in London. Humanity knows no borders, no politics, no differences of religious belief. Over 100 German planes made contact with barrage balloon cables during the Blitz, and two-thirds of them crashed or made forced landings on British soil. Video, 00:02:54Living through the London Blitz, At least 17 dead in Jakarta fuel storage depot fire. Heavy jacks were unavailable. Wherever Churchill is hiding his war material we will go. This option had been forbidden by city officials, who feared that once people began sleeping in Underground stations, they would be reluctant to return to the surface and resume daily life. Given Belfast's geographic position, it was considered to be at the fringe of the operational range of German bombers and hence there was no provision for night-fighter aerial cover. Read about our approach to external linking. 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. Morale did suffer amid the death and devastation, but there were few calls for surrender. Belfast was largely unprepared for an attack of such a scale as 200 German bombers shelled the city on 15 April 1941. The higher the German planes had to fly to avoid the balloons, the less accurate they were when dropping their bombs. Beginning on Black Saturday, London was attacked on 57 straight nights. 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. These private air-raid shelters were Anderson shelters, constructed of sheets of corrugated galvanised iron covered in earth. He successfully busied himself with the task of making Northern Ireland a major supplier of food to Britain in her time of need.[5]. From their photographs, they identified suitable targets: There had been a number of small bombings, probably by planes that missed their targets over the River Clyde in Glasgow or the cities of the northwest of England. In total over 1,300 houses were demolished, some 5,000 badly damaged, nearly 30,000 slightly damaged while 20,000 required "first aid repairs".[3]. His death (along with preceding ill-health) came at a bad time and arguably inadvertently caused a leadership vacuum. [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. along with England, Scotland, and Wales. Another large-scale attack followed on March 19, when hundreds of houses and shops, many churches, six hospitals, and other public buildings were destroyed or seriously damaged. Fewer than 4,000 women and children were evacuated. Despite the military and industrial importance of the city, the Luftwaffe described the defences asweak, scanty, insufficient. The first deliberate raid took place on the night of 7 April. Belfast made a considerable contribution towards the Allied war effort, producing many naval ships, aircraft and munitions; therefore, the city was deemed a suitable bombing target by the Luftwaffe. In the eight months of attacks, some 43,000 civilians were killed. 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.

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