0:00:00 > 0:00:05BRASS BAND PLAYS "ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT"
0:00:05 > 0:00:10The sky was clearing in Belfast on Easter Tuesday, 15th April 1941,
0:00:10 > 0:00:16as 180 German bombers took off from aerodromes in Northern France.
0:00:16 > 0:00:19Flying over Cherbourg and Cardigan Bay,
0:00:19 > 0:00:24the raiders dropped to 7,000ft as they approached the Ards Peninsula.
0:00:25 > 0:00:30At 10.40pm, the sirens in Belfast began to wail.
0:00:30 > 0:00:31AIR-RAID SIRENS
0:00:31 > 0:00:35The elite pathfinder squadron Kampfgruppe 100
0:00:35 > 0:00:37led in the first wave of bombers.
0:00:37 > 0:00:41Casting intense light, hundreds of flares drifted down.
0:00:41 > 0:00:44Incendiaries and explosives followed,
0:00:44 > 0:00:47including 76 land mines.
0:00:47 > 0:00:50Designed to rend apart the reinforced concrete
0:00:50 > 0:00:55and steel of factories, they floated down on silky green parachutes
0:00:55 > 0:00:58over the congested housing north of the city centre.
0:00:58 > 0:01:01Perhaps the Belfast Waterworks at the foot of the Cave Hill
0:01:01 > 0:01:03had been mistaken for the harbour.
0:01:03 > 0:01:07The result was a fearful carnage in the New Lodge, the Lower Shankill
0:01:07 > 0:01:08and the Antrim Road.
0:01:08 > 0:01:10In the Ulster Hall,
0:01:10 > 0:01:14the popular singer Delia Murphy kept singing through the raid.
0:01:14 > 0:01:17Some of her audience were later forced to take refuge
0:01:17 > 0:01:19and shelter in Percy Street,
0:01:19 > 0:01:23When a parachute mine fell next to it, 30 people were killed.
0:01:23 > 0:01:26HMS Furious was the only vessel in port
0:01:26 > 0:01:28to add to the anti-aircraft barrage,
0:01:28 > 0:01:31but she sheared loose from the recoil of her guns.
0:01:31 > 0:01:36At 1.45am, a bomb wrecked the central telephone exchange.
0:01:36 > 0:01:39All contact with Britain
0:01:39 > 0:01:43and Belfast's anti-aircraft operations control room was cut off.
0:01:43 > 0:01:47The defending guns on the ground now fell silent
0:01:47 > 0:01:51for fear of shooting down the RAF's Hurricane fighters, which,
0:01:51 > 0:01:56with cruel irony, had been withdrawn shortly before by Fighter Command.
0:01:56 > 0:01:57For another two hours,
0:01:57 > 0:02:02the Luftwaffe attacked Belfast completely unopposed.
0:02:02 > 0:02:06Around 145 fires now raged in the city.
0:02:06 > 0:02:10Just as the auxiliary fire service arrived to fight the great infernos
0:02:10 > 0:02:13sweeping across the Antrim Road, the water pressure fell away.
0:02:13 > 0:02:17The mains had been cracked in 30 places.
0:02:17 > 0:02:21At 4.35am, a plea for help was telegrammed to Dublin.
0:02:21 > 0:02:24Eamon de Valera, the Taoiseach, was awakened.
0:02:24 > 0:02:27He agreed without hesitation to send aid.
0:02:27 > 0:02:30Fire engines from Dublin, Dun Laoghaire,
0:02:30 > 0:02:33Drogheda and Dundalk spread northwards.
0:02:33 > 0:02:35Horrified at the carnage,
0:02:35 > 0:02:38John Smith, Belfast's chief fire officer, was found beneath a table
0:02:38 > 0:02:43in Chichester Street fire station weeping and refusing to come out.
0:02:44 > 0:02:48At 4.55am on 16th April, the all-clear sounded.
0:02:48 > 0:02:52The writer Joseph Tomelty remembered...