“What happened in 1941 changed the city forever. Many of those who died as a result of enemy action lived in tightly packed, poorly constructed, terraced housing.”

Re-printed with permission from WartimeNI.com

THE BELFAST BLITZ was a series of four air raids over Northern Ireland during the spring of 1941.

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. By the end of the attacks, between 900 and 1,000 people were dead and thousands more were injured, homeless and displaced.

Government apathy, a lack of leadership and a belief the Luftwaffe could not reach Belfast lead to the city lagging behind in terms of basic defences. At the time of the first attack in April 1941, there were no operational searchlights, too few anti-aircraft batteries and scarcely enough public air raid shelters for a quarter of the population.

The fall of France in June, 1940, enabled the Luftwaffe to establish airfields across the north of the country, leaving Ulster within reach of bombers. Still, many in Northern Ireland believed no Luftwaffe attack would come. Under the leadership of Prime Minister John Miller Andrews, Northern Ireland remained unprepared. But the Luftwaffe was ready.

For more than six months, German planes had flown reconnaissance flights over Belfast. Heinkel He 111 and Dornier Do 17 planes fitted with Zeiss cameras captured high-quality aerial imagery. As well as photographs, the Luftwaffe gathered information on landmarks, potential targets and defences or lack thereof.

On Nov. 30, 1940, a lone Luftwaffe plane flew across the Ards Peninsula unobserved and reported back to Berlin. An earlier flight on Oct. 18 allowed the crew to plot several targets in the city. Maps and documents uncovered at Gatow Airfield near Berlin in 1945 showed the level of detail involved. Targets identified included:

the Harland and Wolff Ltd. Shipyard;

the Short and Harland Ltd. Aircraft Factory;

the Belfast power station and waterworks;

the Connswater Fuel Depot;

the Rank and Co. Flour Mill; and

the Victoria Barracks.

Other maps uncovered following the Second World War also showed the parliament and city hall, Belfast gasworks, a rope factory and the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. Most of the objectives laid out by the reconnaissance crews were of either military or industrial importance.

Government ministers in Northern Ireland began to realise the Luftwaffe may launch an attack, but it was too little, too late.

“Up to now, we have escaped an attack,” said John MacDermott, the Minister for Security, Belfast, on March 24, 1941. “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.”

Authorities had noted Queen’s Island in the city as a vulnerable point as early as 1929. The area included the Harland and Wolff Ltd. Shipyard, the Short and Harland Ltd. Aircraft Factory, and the airfield at RAF Sydenham. Nearby were the city’s main power station, gasworks, telephone house and the Sirocco Engineering works.

The shipyard was among the largest in the world, producing merchant vessels and military shipping. The wartime output of the yard included aircraft carriers HMS Formidable and HMS Unicorn, cruisers such as HMS Belfast and more than 130 other vessels used by the Royal Navy. Added to this was the repair and refitting of 22,000 more vessels.

Also, on Queens Island, stood the Short and Harland Ltd. Aircraft Factory. The firm had produced Handley Page Hereford bombers since 1936. By 1941, production of the Short Stirling Bomber and the Short Sunderland Flying Boat was underway. Around 20,000 people were employed on the site with 35,000 further along in the shipyard.

This part of Belfast was the only one required to provide air raid shelters for workers. And even then, Westminster stated it was not ample provision; Stormont still worried about the costs to industry. By 1940, Short and Harland could shelter its entire workforce and Harland and Wolff had provision to shelter 16,000 workers. These shelters were vital as these factories had many employees working late at night and early in the morning when Luftwaffe attacks were likely.

As well as these two major targets, other firms in Belfast produced valuable materials for the war effort including munitions, linen, ropes, food supplies and, of course, cigarettes.

Despite the military and industrial importance of the city, the Luftwaffe described the defences as “weak, scanty, insufficient”.

“We were in exceptional good humour knowing that we were going for a new target, one of England’s last hiding places,” said one pilot of the raid. “Wherever Churchill is hiding his war material we will go. Belfast is as worthy a target as Coventry, Birmingham, Bristol or Glasgow.”

Protection of the city fell to seven anti-aircraft batteries of 16 heavy guns and six light guns. Compared to other cities, Belfast was virtually undefended. Liverpool, for example, protected by 100 guns.

On the 60th anniversary of the Belfast Blitz, Luftwaffe Pilot Gerhardt Becker spoke to BBC Northern Ireland about his mission over Belfast in 1941.

“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. “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.”

In his interview, Becker stated that only military objectives were aimed for. He believed that key targets identified across the city were hit. In clear weather, targets were easily identifiable. Looking back on the Belfast Blitz, Oberleutnant Becker signed off with the following words:

“A war is the worst thing that can happen to Mankind. The past doesn’t change, it’s just over.”

What happened in 1941 changed the city forever. Many of those who died as a result of enemy action lived in tightly packed, poorly constructed, terraced housing. The working-class living close to industrial centres suffered more than anyone over the course of the four raids.

Despite the attacks, Belfast continued to contribute to the war effort, and within less than a year the city witnessed the arrival of thousands of American troops. 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.