Gas Attacks in Second World War Belfast

1. Preparing for the Blitz

In the Second World War (1939-45), Éire remained neutral. Northern Ireland, formally part of the British jurisdiction, took to arms. Historians describe the conflict as ‘total war’, a type of warfare that targets and involves civilians, as well as soldiers. Since the First World War (1914-18), aircraft technologies had developed rapidly. By the 1930s, it was clear that aircraft would play a major role in future military activity. In cities including Belfast, concern arose that the German air force would drop gas and bombs on civilians from far above, while targeting key resources and amenities such as the ship-building and dock yards.

Between September 1940 and May 1941, the German army ‘blitzed’ industries, towns and cities across England, Wales and Scotland. Children were evacuated from major cities. London famously felt the brunt of the Blitz, but cities such as Coventry also suffered huge losses.[1] Six months into the Blitz, bombs had yet to fall on Belfast. Complacency prevailed, and many people doubted that Adolf Hitler was really considering Belfast, a city on the peripheries of conflict, as a serious target. They were wrong.

Child's Gas Mask. Courtesy of Northern Ireland War Memorial.

A child’s gas mask. In the build-up to the blitz, it was feared that the German air force would drop gas bombs. Courtesy of Northern Ireland War Memorial.

A major shipbuilding city, Belfast made a significant contribution to the Allied War effort by producing ships, aircraft and munitions, making it a suitable bombing target for the Luftwaffe. Northern Ireland also produced food for British markets at a time of shortages and rationing. Stormont was characteristically apathetic, ineffectual and unprepared, even despite having received several warnings from London about the likelihood of Belfast’s being targeted by the German air force.[2]

Belfast Air Raid Siren

An air raid siren used in Belfast. (Image source unknown).

Belfast had the highest population density in the United Kingdom, but the lowest proportion of air-raid shelters. By Spring 1941, only 700 shelters had been constructed in Belfast. Roughly 4,000 households had their own private ‘Anderson shelters’, two curved corrugated sheets of steel, bolted together, sunk three feet into the ground, and covered with eighteen inches of earth. Surprisingly, if correctly constructed, these could withstand the impact of a hundred-pound bomb falling six feet away. Initially, Belfast had no searchlights and only around 3,000 (out of 70,000) children were evacuated. The Belfast fire brigade was not up to scratch, even in normal times.[3]

[1] See, among many others, Angus Calder, The Myth of the Blitz (London: Pimlico, 2003); Joshua Levine, Forgotten Voices of the Blitz and the Battle for Britain (London: Ebury Press, 2006).

[2] Recent books include Philip Ollerenshaw, Northern Ireland in the Second World War: Politics, Economic Mobilisation and Society, 1939-45 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013); Guy Woodward, Culture, Northern Ireland and the Second World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); Doreen McBride, We Just Got On With It: Changes before, during and after the Second World War in Northern Ireland (Dublin: The History Press Ireland, 2022).

[3] Brian Barton, The Blitz: Belfast in the War Years (Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1989).