NORTHERN IRELAND DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR



NORTHERN IRELAND DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR

WWII was a turning point in Northern Ireland's history. Aspects which need to be considered are:

1. The economic contribution of Northern Ireland and the impact of war on the economy.

2. The strategic importance of the region and the consequences of this in political and social terms.

3. The experience of war - the Belfast Blitz and everyday life.

ECONOMY

In terms of the economy, the north prospered. It took a while for the economy to adapt to the demands of wartime production; existing industries and agriculture prospered and new industries were located there, beyond the range of German bombers.

Industry:

• The shipyards produced 140 warships, including six aircraft carriers, as well as 123 merchant ships.

• Harland and Wolff also produced tanks and aircraft parts.

• Shorts, the aircraft firm set up in 1938, made 1,200 Stirling bombers.

• The linen industry revived after a campaign to get farmers to grow flax - producing tents, parachutes, uniforms etc.

• Engineering works made guns.

• The number of jobs in shipbuilding increased to almost 21,000, while the aircraft industry employed 20,000.

• Thousands of jobs were created when the North became a base for the US Navy and for training American soldiers.

• Unemployment fell from an average of 30% in the 1930s to 5% in the period 1942-5. Wages rose: before the war average wages were 60% of the British average and by 1945 it was 75%.

Agriculture:

• The North supplied food to the British market; there were guaranteed prices for farm produce and production trebled.

• Compulsory tillage increased the acreage under tillage and the major crops were oats, flax and potatoes.

• By 1948 there were over 30,000 extra agricultural workers.

• The number of tractors increased from 550 in 1938 to over 7,000 in 1945.

The war brought prosperity to the workers who had plentiful work and good wages; this widened the experience between the two parts of the island.

THE STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF NORTHERN IRELAND

Patrols which would protect ships carrying vital supplies across the Atlantic were based in Northern Ireland, as the southern ports were no longer available. A huge naval harbour was built at Derry to provide a base for the Royal Navy. Airfields were built and RAF planes flew across Donegal in search of German U-boats.

When the US entered the war in 1941 American soldiers began to arrive in Derry to build and maintain the airfields and the harbour. The north was also used to train 30,000 troops for the North Africa campaign and 250,000 were trained for the Normandy landings. The arrival of so many troops had a big impact on northern society. The soldiers had chocolate and nylons and other luxuries and they brought racist attitudes etc.

In recognition of the strategic importance of Derry, the German U-boat fleet surrendered there in 1945.

SOCIETY: THE WARTIME EXPERIENCE

Northern Ireland was involved in the war from the beginning as a part of the UK. The Unionist government did little to prepare for war and was complacent. The pace of life was much the same for the first two years of the war. Although rationing, censorship, identity cards and travel restrictions had been introduced, food was still plentiful, there was no conscription and one commentator noted that it was “probably the pleasantest place in Europe”.

Conscription and recruitment:

Conscription was never introduced and recruitment was very slow to the British forces. Altogether 38,000 men and women joined the British forces (about half came from the south). Sir Basil Brooke was in charge of recruitment and he based his recruitment drive around Unionist party branches and the civil defence force - the LVF - was based on the B Specials. Nationalists were ambivalent about the war seeing it as 'England's war' and the IRA was more active in the north than the south.

Northern industry was centred on Belfast:

• Harland and Wolff produced warships, aircraft carriers, merchant ships and tanks.

• Short Brothers produced aircraft.

• Engineering industries produced armaments.

• The linen industry produced parachutes, uniforms and tents.

Preparations for war:

These were inadequate. The government was complacent, believing that the north was too remote from the action and reluctant to expend resources on protection. The PM James Craig was old and ill. The lack of urgency was demonstrated by the modest levels of recruitment, recurrent labour disputes, low productivity by the munitions firms and apathy towards the blackout, the wearing of gas masks etc. Craig died in November 1940 and John Andrews. aged 70, took over; the Northern Ireland government became even more incompetent as the lack of preparations to counter an aerial attack demonstrated:

• There were only 24 anti-aircraft guns.

• There were no searchlights.

• The Hurricane fighters based at Aldegrove could only fly during daylight conditions.

• There were no public air raid shelters.

• There was no provision to deal with large numbers of injured and dead civilians or adequate fire-fighting equipment.

• The schemes to evacuate women and children from Belfast were described as a 'fiasco' and by April 1941 only 4,000 had left.

• There was no smokescreen over the vulnerable docks area.

THE BELFAST BLITZ

The fall of France meant that Belfast was within the range of the Luftwaffe and its munitions industries meant that it would be a target. The fact that Northern Ireland had strategically significant ports increased the likelihood as did the intensification of the blitz of British cities.

• In April 1941 Belfast experienced a light raid over the dock area and 13 were killed.

• A much more serious raid took place on 15 April. 180 aircraft participated in this assault, which lasted over 5 hours when bombs fell at a rate of 2 per minute.

• Most of the bombs did not fall on the dockland area but on the densely packed working class areas of the city.

• The official history says of this attack: “Belfast was sorely tried, no other city in the UK, save London, had lost so many of her citizens in one night's raid”. About 900 people had died and about half were women and children. 600 were seriously injured.

• Help came from the south in the form of 70 fire fighters from Dublin, Drogheda and Dundalk, but found that the water mains had been cut and there was little they could do.

• About 100,000 left the city each night fearing a repetition of the raid.

• There was another raid on 5 May when 95,000 incendiary bombs and 237 tons of high explosives were dropped. Most fell on the harbour and dock lands and two thirds of Harland and Wolff was destroyed (the bill for damages was the highest submitted by any British firm).

The results of the blitz:

• 1,100 people were killed.

• 56,000 houses destroyed.

• 100,000 people were homeless.

• £20m of damage.

• There was public anger over the lack of preparation and Stormont took the blame - Hitler's invasion of the USSR put an end to the threat of more bombing.

The experience of war in the North was very different from that of the South and this copper-fastened partition:

• By neutrality the south distance itself from Britain whereas the north strengthened its links with Britain. Churchill said: “But for the loyalty of Northern Ireland and its devotion to what has now become the cause of thirty governments or nations, we should have been confronted with slavery and death, and the light which now shines so brightly throughout the world would have been quenched”. The shared experience of blitz and war intensified the British connection.

• In the north the war brought jobs and relative prosperity whereas it brought stagnation to the south.

• In the north the arrival of foreign troops brought contact with a wider world; the south had no such experience.

• The north suffered horrific bombing: the south experienced only minor damage.

In the post-war period the establishment of the Welfare State in GB meant that the north shared these benefits which were far in excess of anything available in the south and this reinforced partition.

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