German air raids on Belfast in World War II
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. The first was on the night of 7–8 April 1941, a small attack which probably took place only to test Belfast's defences. The next took place on Easter Tuesday, 15 April 1941, when 200 "Luftwaffe" bombers attacked military and manufacturing targets in the city of Belfast. Some 900 people died as a result of the bombing and 1,500 were injured. High explosive bombs predominated in this raid. Apart from those on London, this was the greatest loss of life in any night raid during the Blitz.
The third raid on Belfast took place over the evening and morning of 4–5 May 1941; 150 were killed. Incendiary bombs predominated in this raid. The fourth and final Belfast raid took place on the following night, 5–6 May. 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".
Background.
As the UK was preparing for the conflict, the factories and shipyards of Belfast were gearing up. 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".
Unlike Northern Ireland, the Irish Free State was no longer part of the UK. Under the leadership of Éamon de Valera it had declared its neutrality during the Second World War. Although it arrested German spies that its police and military intelligence services caught, the state never broke off diplomatic relations with Axis nations: the German Legation in Dublin remained open throughout the war.
Government.
The Government of Northern Ireland lacked the will, energy and capacity to cope with a major crisis when it came. James Craig, Lord Craigavon, had been Prime Minister of Northern Ireland since its inception in 1921 up until his death in 1940. His death (along with preceding ill-health) came at a bad time and arguably inadvertently caused a leadership vacuum. Richard Dawson Bates was the Home Affairs Minister. 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.
John Clarke MacDermott, the Minister of Public Security, 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 a telegram to de Valera seeking assistance. There was unease with the complacent attitude of the government, which led to resignations:
Craigavon died on 24 November 1940. He was succeeded by J. M. Andrews, then 69 years old, who was no more capable of dealing with the situation than his predecessor. On 28 April 1943, six members of the Government threatened to resign, forcing him from office. He was replaced by 54-year-old Sir Basil Brooke on 1 May.
Manufacturing facilities.
War materials and food were sent by sea from Belfast to Great Britain, some under the protection of the neutral Irish tricolour. The M.V. "Munster", for example, operated by the Belfast Steamship Company, plied between Belfast and Liverpool under the tricolour, until she hit a mine and was sunk outside Liverpool.
British preparation.
Government preparation.
There was little preparation for the conflict with Germany. 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." 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."
Dawson Bates, the Home Affairs Minister, apparently refused to reply to army correspondence and when the Ministry of Home Affairs was informed by imperial defence experts in 1939 that Belfast was regarded as "a very definite German objective", little was done outside providing shelters in the Harbour area.
Air-raid shelters.
Belfast, the city with the highest population density in the UK at the time, also had the lowest proportion of public air-raid shelters. Prior to the "Belfast Blitz" there were only 200 public shelters in the city, although around 4,000 households had built their own private shelters. These private air-raid shelters were Anderson shelters, constructed of sheets of corrugated galvanised iron covered in earth. Since most casualties were caused by falling masonry rather than by blast, they provided effective shelter for those who had them.
No searchlights were set up in the city at the time, and these only arrived on 10 April. There was no smokescreen ability, however there were some barrage balloons positioned strategically for protection. 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. Indeed, on the night of the first raid, no Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft took to the air to intercept German planes. On the ground, there were only 22 anti-aircraft guns positioned around the city, six light and sixteen heavy, and on the first night only seven of these were manned and operational.
Children.
Few children had been successfully evacuated. The "Hiram Plan" initiated by Dawson Bates, the Home Affairs Minister, had failed to materialise. Fewer than 4,000 women and children were evacuated. There were still 80,000 more 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.
German preparation.
From papers recovered after the war, we know of a "Luftwaffe" reconnaissance flight over Belfast in November 1940. The Germans established that Belfast was defended by only seven anti-aircraft batteries, which made it the most poorly defended city in the United Kingdom. From their photographs, they identified suitable targets:
Earlier raids.
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.
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. 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." MacDermott would be proved right.
The first deliberate raid took place on the night of 7 April. (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 , dropped incendiaries, high explosive and parachute-mines. By British mainland blitz standards, casualties were light. 13 died, including a soldier killed when an anti-aircraft gun, at the Balmoral show-grounds, misfired. The most significant loss was a 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". This raid overall caused relatively little damage, but a lot was revealed about Belfast's inadequate defences.
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, 15 April 1941, spectators watching a football match at Windsor Park noticed a lone Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 88 aircraft circling overhead.
That evening over 150 bombers left their bases in northern France and the Netherlands and headed for Belfast. There were Heinkel He 111s, Junkers Ju 88s and Dornier Do 17s. At 10:40 pm 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. Three vessels nearing completion at Harland and Wolff's were hit as was its power station. Wave after wave of bombers dropped their incendiaries, high explosives and land-mines. When incendiaries were dropped, the city burned as water pressure was too low for effective firefighting.
Public buildings destroyed or badly damaged included Belfast City Hall's Banqueting Hall, the Ulster Hospital for Women and Children and Ballymacarrett library, (the last two being located on Templemore Avenue). Strand Public Elementary school, York Road railway station, the adjacent Midland Hotel on York Road, and Salisbury Avenue tram depot were all hit. Churches destroyed or wrecked included Macrory Memorial Presbyterian in Duncairn Gardens; Duncairn Methodist, Castleton Presbyterian on York Road; St Silas's on the Oldpark Road; St James's on the Antrim Road; Newington Presbyterian on Limestone Road; Crumlin Road Presbyterian; Holy Trinity on Clifton Street and Clifton Street Presbyterian; York Street Presbyterian and York Street Non-Subscribing Presbyterian; Newtownards Road Methodist and Rosemary Street Presbyterian (the last of which was not rebuilt).
Streets heavily bombed in the city centre included High Street, Ann Street, Callender Street, Chichester Street, Castle Street, Tomb Street, Bridge Street (effectively obliterated), Rosemary Street, Waring Street, North Street, Victoria Street, Donegall Street, York Street, Gloucester Street, and East Bridge Street. In the east of the city, Westbourne and Newcastle Streets on the Newtownards Road, Thorndyke Street off the Albertbridge Road and Ravenscroft Avenue were destroyed or damaged. 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. 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.
There was no opposition. In the mistaken belief that they might damage RAF fighters, the anti-aircraft batteries ceased firing. But the RAF had not responded. The bombs continued to fall until 5am.
55,000 houses were damaged leaving 100,000 temporarily homeless. Outside of London, with some 900 dead, this was the greatest loss of life in a night raid during the Blitz. A stray bomber attacked Derry, killing 15. Another attacked Bangor, killing five. By 4 am the entire city seemed to be in flames. 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. 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 telegraphy link between Belfast and Dublin was still operational. The telegram was sent at 4:35am, asking the Irish Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera for assistance.
Human cost.
Over 900 people died, 1,500 people were injured, 400 of them seriously. 50,000 houses, more than half the houses in the city, were damaged. 11 churches, two hospitals and two schools were destroyed. These figures are based on newspaper reports of the time, personal recollections and other primary sources, such as:- ;br ;
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; ;br ;
Emma Duffin, a nurse at the Queen's University Hospital, (who previously served during the Great War), who kept a diary; ;br ;
and Major Seán O'Sullivan, who produced a detailed report for the Dublin government. There are other diarists and narratives. Brian Barton of Queen's University, Belfast, has written most on this topic.
Instructions.
There were few bomb shelters. An air raid shelter on Hallidays Road received a