Northern Ireland Sources Question

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2. Source A suggests that the air raid on the 7/8 of April 1941 had little effect on Belfast. It tells of few causalities and fires but it does not give specifics. It says how the ground defences maintained a high standard of antiaircraft fire. It tells us that the fire services and the civil defence services coped well and 'displayed a high standard of training and conduct'. All in all it is a censored piece of writing produce by the government to make them look good.

3. -1 There is many ways in which these sources tell different accounts on the air raids on Belfast. The first main obvious one is that source 'A' is about the first raid while the others are about the second raid. Sources 'A' and source 'B' were released to the public by the government while the source 'C' and source 'D' were confidential accurate reports, which were not intended for the public's eyes. Sources 'A' and 'B' are vague they are none specific and are here to raise moral of the people. 'A' and 'B' make the raids sound like they had little effect on Belfast while in Brian Barton says that in total over one thousand were killed or injured during these attacks this is hardly a small number of lives effected unlike what it says in source 'A' 'the number of casualties was small'. Sources 'C' and 'D' are factual and contain figures, places and dates. These two sources show the extent of the raids. Source 'B' suggests that only a few districts were affected while source 'C' gives tells specific details on the areas and areas damaged. Source 'C' says how the fires were big and how the damage was far greater than it makes out in the two previous sources. Sources 'A' and 'B' mention unspecific small numbers while the others mention big specific big numbers. Source 'A' says that the fire service was good while in sources 'D' it says completely opposite. Sources 'A' and 'B' give the impression of calm while the others give the impression of chaos.

2- If you look at the origin of the sources it clearly explain why the account of these raids are different both 'C' and 'D' were official government documents they were top-secret and were not for the publics eyes while 'A' and 'B' were released by the by the government to the public. In 'A' and 'B' they wanted to maintain public morale they did not want the public to panic. They also did not want to be seen in a bad light this is why they said the fire service coped well while we know that from source 'D' that the fire service were completely inadequate for the task that faced them. It was also discovered that before these raids fire-fighting equipment was sent over to the main land it was during the summer of 1940 that the newly appointed minister John MacDermott was trying to improve the defences of the city, during this time he discover about the fire fighting equipment being sent to England and by this stage it was to late to get any more equipment as there was a general shortage. The government also didn't want the public to know about the shortage of domestic shelters, I know that the government didn't think that peoples lives were more important than money they also covered up the fact that there wasn't enough antiaircraft guns to cover the city. All in all the first two were intended to raise morale and keep the government on the good side of the public while the second two are internal documents which were never intended to bee seen by the public. The comparison of these pieces just shows the extent of censorship the government went to to keep the people of the city happy.

3. Source 'D' is very useful in supporting the evidence in source 'E'. Source D's origin is a confidential report using official figures and is an accurate and reliable source. It gives conclusive evidence of the impact of the bombings. It highlights that there were bombings, it also highlights that there were deaths and damage yet it is not specific. Source 'D' doesn't hide the fact that the city wasn't prepared for the attacks in fact it looks at specific areas which weren't up to scratch it also mentions the lack of shelters. But source 'D' doesn't blame any one for this but we have to remember that source 'D' is a government report and therefore isn't likely to be openly critical. The number of shelters is the key element into understanding why Belfast suffered so much damage in so little attacks.

Source 'E' is comparison between Belfast and other cities it shows how Belfast suffered to such an extent compared with other cities like Portsmouth in 67 raids it only had 13 thousand houses damaged while Belfast had Belfast had nearly 57 thousand damaged. Source 'F' is also useful in explaining why Belfast suffered so much damage even though this source refers to 1939 and 1941 when the attacks where it is still helpful. It shows that at the start of the war Belfast was so unprotected it shows that Belfast had only 16 antiaircraft guns unlike Liverpool, which had 96 guns and this easily explains why Belfast done so badly. All these sources 'D' and 'F' do help me explain the evidence in source 'E'. They help explain about the amount killed injured and houses damaged. The source also shows how Belfast had a massive population density.

4. Source 'G' is very useful in understanding the effects of the raids had on Belfast it is likely to be accurate and reliable as it was top secret. The document covered a specific time period and it gives precise figures. There is a possibility that these figures may have been inaccurate due to the panic and ciaos following the raid however it wasn't the intention of the report to deceive as it was intended for the government. It could be argued that this is information is not reliable to show the effect of the bombing compared to the view of the time. Source 'H' despite its weaknesses it is also very useful as it is an interview from an eyewitness account of the blitz first hand and lived through the impact. Such an account gives an insight into how the people were affected. The content of the source does concur with the content of source 'G' which shows that relatively high numbers died. However source 'H' is not as specific as source 'G'. ************************************************ Source 'H' is also useful very useful in giving us an insight into how the people were affected by the blitz, 'people lives were upturned overnight'. In this source we see peoples feelings with stats as in source 'G' we are unable to do this. However we must treat this source with some caution since Mr McFall was only a child when the blitz occurred also this interview was carried out after the war but we do not know exactly when he also talks about the numbers dead yet he gives it to a round number, 'I think a hundred were killed'. Source 'J' is also useful since it shows us exactly what the damage was like. It is referring to the shelter in which Mr McFall talked about he claimed that at least one hundred died and source 'J' we can see that there was nothing left of the shelter, we see that severe damage was inflicted and it may have been a different shelter there is also the fact that all the newspapers were censored by the government during war time. It was obviously intended to boast morale of the people of Belfast. In this photograph houses were still standing there is no effect of the bombing, there is no dead bodies or no fire service no big problems in this picture. Since this was censored it clearly doesn't show the full impact of the raid and is therefore is less useful than source 'G' which gives accurate uncensored on the raid.
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5. Source 'A' is an official statement realised via the governments the press about the first raid. Information was censored for many various reasons to stop the information getting into enemy hands to maintain a high sense of morale and public sprit one of the main reasons was to keep the public on the governments side. This is a censored source this source has limited content. It gives no specifics barely mentions areas of damage and plays down numbers of causalities describing them as small. However McGimpsey states that 13 were killed 23 were severely injured and 58 ...

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