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.
- 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.
- 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 slightly injured this is from an external source ‘Bombs on Belfast’. His statistics are very different than source ‘A’ were it says only a few were fatal. A few means only 1 or 2 not 13 the source was so general in content to ensure that panic was not a result it also means to me that it was used to maintain high morale among the public. The language of the source was aiming to maintain a high standard of morale, calm and reinsurance this source shows a sense and calm and good work throughout the attack. This source praises the fire service, claims that Belfast stood up to the enemy however it doesn’t mention to us hoe accurate the bombing had been. It also doesn’t mention if they manage to hit any planes or take them down, this is very unlikely as they had so few guns so predictably they didn’t mention this as if they did hit any they would surely mention this to say how great the marksmen were. Belfast also didn’t have any search lights and had been described as the most unprotected city in the U.K. such information would certainly not of been given to the public as it would have been far to sensitive to the publics eyes. It would have damaged the cities morale greatly. Source ‘L’ was clearly intended to raise morale. It was printed in a censored and yet again contained few sensitive facts. This source is clearly a patriotic one, one in which it praises the courage and strength of the people in Belfast. This may have been part of the British propaganda program intended to show that all was well. This source justifies the cause for the sacrifice. It praise the character of the people ‘growing courage’ and ‘stout hearts’ all saying how the people of Belfast stood up to the enemy. There is no mention of the damage caused or the high levels of fatalities in this attack. The tone of both sources clearly shows that they were intended to boost morale they reassure people that the authorities had no difficulty coping with the German raids. While in source ‘L’ they talk of determination and ‘growing courage’ the tone and language are clearly intended to raise morale and to ensure the publics support for the war effort. Both of these source show typical forms of public control they simple yet effective they talk about how Belfast has great morale and how the fire service did show marvellously well.
- There are many reasons why it is difficult to get an accurate reconstruction of an event that took place 60 years ago. Other problems which historian faces is that it took place during chaos and strict government censorship. There was a deliberate attempt by the government to conceal the true impact of the raids because information was highly sensitive and clearly shows that the government of Northern Ireland had been complacent during the preparation and left Belfast as ‘the most unprotected major city in the U.K.’ obviously the government didn’t want the public to know that the fire fighting equipment had been sent over to the mainland on the grounds that it would not be needed. We must remember that the media was censored during the war and this explains why there are not many specifics in sources ‘A’ and ‘B’. Source ‘B’ plays down the second raid ‘small number of people were killed’ however Dr Brian Barton says of this rate ‘the statistics were harrowing…3500 houses were damaged’ this needed to be top secret as it would damage the publics vision of the government. Sources ‘C’ and ‘D’ are top-secret reports that contain sensitive information which would have been very damaging to morale. Source ‘C’ shows how strictly the media was controlled as it gives areas and what happened. Source ‘D’ was still confidential it was compiled for the government. It clearly highlights how bad the raid was. If this information was made public it would be very damaging to the government especially on the issue of Anderson shelters ‘ Belfast gad the lowest shelter provision of any comparable city in the United Kingdom-a particularly dangerous situation for the city with the greatest density of population’ this is my own knowledge. The government paid for Anderson air raid shelters in England. The government decided not to fund them in Northern Ireland. All of these things make it difficult to construct an accurate figure for the dead. There is a clear difference between those controlled by the government and those that are confidential therefore it is difficult to decide which can be used with the greatest degree of reliability. There is a clear show of government control of the media for its own purposes. This can be seen in source ‘B’ and ‘L’ were the government tried to conceal the impact of the raid. There are various numbers placed on the dead source ‘B’ puts it at 500 Brian Barton puts it at 745 while McGimpsey puts it at 900 all these figures make it even more difficult to get an accurate number dead. Source ‘L’ talks about ‘a spirit of quiet determination ‘ after the raid, but it doesn’t mention that some 10,000 people walk to the country side every night and slept in the open air rather than face another blitz. Source ‘D’ does mention this but also tells us nothing about the scale of the exodus. Inconsisities may appear in the sources such as in source ‘G’ which says that 500 were dead and latest figures say that around 745 were dead. A further problem which occurs when using anecdotal evidence such as that in source ‘H’. It is a first hand account of the blitz but he was only a child when it happened. The interview was carried out after the war yet we are not given a specific date this means that he could still be a child or he could be a fully-grown adult. Memory lapse, exaggeration, hindsight and adding in thing or leaving out things all this could of occur between the dates he talks about and when he is interviewed. He talks about the collapse of the Percy street shelter and claims than 100 were dead. Source ‘I’ is looking at the same incident and comes up with a different figure but it is still unsure about the figure. McGimpsey puts the figure at 60 bodies found form the shelter we still can’t be sure he doesn’t give an exact figure. such contradictions make it difficult to construct a figure. Sources them selves contradict each other. Source ‘A’ describes the first raid it suggest that the people coped well with the attack however sources ‘D’ and ‘F’ suggest that they did not cope well with the attack since ‘D’ is a confidential report it is likely to be accurate. Source ‘d’ says that the fire fighters were good yet other sources such as Brian Barton show that this is not the case.
‘ in all 140 fires were started, 4 of them conflagrations and many of them were not even under control until 12 hours after the raid had ended. All the fires engines in the province were called in to help and at 4.30a.m the Dublin government was approached for help-possibly Cardinal MacRory acted as an intermediary between the northern government and de valera’
The reason that fire fighters did so badly was because all equipment sent away by Mac Dermott
The raid mentioned in source ‘A’ is the first one and the raid in ‘B’ is the second one the first time it wasn’t prepared so the second time it was even less prepared. Only after the second blitz that the government supplemented the fire fighting equipment from the mainland. We see the same problem in other sources, source ‘F’ shows that September 1939 Belfast had only 16 antiaircraft guns. MacGimpsey in Bombs on Belfast says that ‘the defences of the city without search lights and with few antiaircraft guns offered little resistance’. However in source ‘A’ the official statement says that ‘heavy barrage of antiaircraft fire was maintained by the ground defences’ such obvious contradictions make it difficult to compile an accurate picture
Sources ‘A’ and ‘B’ hide the true impact of the raid due to censorship it talks about ‘some districts suffering some damage’ in fact the damage was wide spread with some streets completely obliterated source ‘C’ ‘D’ ‘G’ and ‘H’ show the true impact of the second raid those first 3 sources were secret government documents and are likely to be accurate.
One of the greatest problems in constructing and accurate picture has to be the problem of reliability in other word knowing which source we can trust and those which we cannot. Government are not openly critical, source D’ explains a shortage of shelters and doesn’t explain the full situation. All the same sources which we hoped would be accurate may not be as they may not disclose all the facts. It is difficult to interoperate events from the past or to understand them. With out having a wide range of sources avadible. It is difficult to produce a full and accurate reconstruction when all the facts are no known. added to this problem of reliability there are others such as bias, exaggeration, censorship, hindsight and memory lose however it is possible to build up an accurate picture via cross-referencing sources and by using a mixture of primary and secondary sources; you always have to be aware of strengths and weaknesses within each source
