Northern Ireland How We Won the War

September 3rd, 1939, and families all over the country flock to their radios.

ARCHIVE: I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received,

and that, consequently, this country is at war with Germany.

In that brief moment, life in our country changed forever.

World War II had begun,

but victory wouldn't be assured by military might alone.

The Blitz, evacuation, rationing, the loss of loved ones -

the war on the home front meant that everyone had to do their bit.

From the country's women, who took on everything -

farming, factory work, even flying Spitfires -

to the nation's auxiliary firemen who worked through the terror of countless air raids,

this is the story of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

This is How We Won The War.

For the next two weeks, I'll be criss-crossing the UK.

Region by region, I'll be exploring how different parts of the country

made unique contributions to the war effort here at home.

I'll be looking at the lives of ordinary citizens

and the incredible efforts they went to to help us win the War.

I'm starting here in Northern Ireland.

It's a part of the country that's often overlooked,

yet a place of vital importance to our eventual victory in World War II.

On today's programme, devastated by the Blitz,

the people of Belfast unite as one...

Their mother and I lay under the table,

and the wee girl lay with her arms around her mammy and me.

We had a community spirit because we all became like a big family.

..the traditional techniques used to produce materials

for hundreds of thousands of British uniforms in the War...

That looks absolutely terrifying, Eugene.

I'm amazed that you haven't lost any fingers over the years.

..and a Spitfire a day keeps the Nazis away -

how the people of Northern Ireland raised enough money

to build 17 of the iconic fighters.

The Spitfire captured the imagination.

They were queuing up on Royal Avenue waiting to come in

and deposit their contributions to the fund.

When war broke out in September 1939, most people living here

thought they would be an unlikely target for Hitler.

And it is easy to see why.

To the south was the Republic of Ireland -

they, of course, were neutral -

and to the east, well, the rest of Great Britain,

with its army and anti-aircraft defences.

The idea the German air force would even get this far seemed pretty unlikely.

The theory was simple - if you were in Northern Ireland, you were safe.

But it was an assumption that was to cost the people of Belfast dearly.

AIR RAID SIREN

A year after war broke out, Germany began a relentless bombardment

of industrial and civilian centres across the UK.

In just nine months, the Blitz claimed 60,000 British lives.

London, Coventry, Birmingham, Manchester, and Liverpool -

just some of the cities targeted by the Luftwaffe because of their

industrial importance, devastated by ruthless bombing campaigns.

But despite the fact Belfast was also a hub of industry,

producing 140 warships and millions of shells for the war,

Northern Ireland failed to grasp the scale of the threat.

A failure historian Brian Barton has looked at in detail.

Now, Brian, tell me, how prepared was Belfast

for the onset of the War?

Well, it was probably the least well-prepared major city

or port in the United Kingdom.

Very few people had been evacuated out of the city,

80,000 children were still there at the time of the Blitz.

It had 22 anti-aircraft guns -

Liverpool had over 100 at the time of the Blitz.

It had one fighter squadron, based at Aldergrove airport,

of Hurricane fighters, only equipped, however,

for daytime fighting, not for night time-operations.

There was an assumption that Belfast would never be attacked -

too far away, too remote, too insignificant.

Belfast had been hit once before, when bombs fell on the docks

and industrial targets, killing 13 people.

But on the night of 15th April, 1941,

the first of three devastating attacks struck the city.

It was to become known as The Easter Raid,

and some of the details of the tragedy are held here at the Linenhall library.

So, Brian, what are we looking at here?

Well, this is an ARP message book kept at a control centre -

the control centre in this case was for D District.

It covers the night of the Easter Tuesday raid, 15th and 16th of April.

Here we are, look, "Fire reported at Hanover Street - HQ fire brigade have arrived."

These are little moments in time that these messages

have captured, aren't they? Endless, endless entries.

You get a sense of the pattern of the raid -

the early reports are of incendiary bombs

and the first part of the raid was mainly incendiary bombs, the first 20-25 minutes.

Then subsequent to that it's high explosives,

then later on, about two o'clock, a further wave of incendiaries.

'It's estimated that between 800 and 1,000 people

'were killed in that raid.'

It's believed no other city apart from London,

lost as many people in one single night

as Belfast did on that night.

The main weight of the bombings - something like 200 tonnes of bombs,

30,000 incendiaries - fell almost exclusively on working class,

densely populated, poorly constructed terraced housing.

10.25, and it says, "Rescue squad military,

"in Strathdene Street, entrance by Halliday's Road,

"two dead taken away, two injured to hospital.

"One dead (?) in debris, warden still digging,

"one ambulance required in half an hour."

I mean, there is a snapshot of what was happening

to try and resolve another terrible situation in this location.

It's just one of thousands.

What was the overall effect on this city, on this population of 400,000?

I think the main effect was one which was totally unforeseen

by the government, that there was a crash evacuation across the city,

people in fear and panic fleeing from the city.

They did so because they were now aware that Belfast was a target.

They did so because they recognised,

they appreciated just how utterly undefended they were.

Those written reports of the fire and bomb damage

are a very graphic reminder of the horrors

that the people of Belfast had to face here over 70 years ago.

But they are a list of events, and no matter how tragic,

they can never get you quite as close to the truth

as an account from somebody who was actually there.

Emily McGill from West Belfast was 31 years old when the attacks started.

She vividly remembers how the raids affected everyone's lives.

Before the raids started,

the Shankill Road would have been empty,

people were all in their house for the night,

and as soon as the sirens went there was hundreds

coming up the Shankill Road to go to the hills.

Cos you were safe there.

And when we got up to the mountains we lay in close to the mountains.

One night we were there and the Germans came in,

and Belfast just went up in fire.

Like thousands of men all over the UK, Emily's husband Bertie

had joined the Auxiliary Fire Service.

He drove the fire engine, you know, from work if there was fires.

One night my husband was going out as usual

and I say to him, "I wish you didn't go tonight."

He says, "Why? That's not like you."

"There's just this feeling over me, I just don't want you to go out."

"Ach," he says, "don't be ridiculous."

He says, "Come on and I'll leave you round to the air raid shelter."

Belfast had air raid shelters for only a quarter of the population.

Emily and her husband found their local one full to capacity.

When we got there, there was so many people outside it

he said to me, "It's no use standing here."

So him and I went up to the park,

which was just across the road, and he said to me, "Lie face down."

And we heard the German airplanes coming over,

and the next thing I was hit.

You know, just like as if a ton of bricks had fallen on you,

and I said to my husband, "I'm hit."

He says, "No, you're not, it was just the vibration of the ground."

But I said, "No, I feel the blood."

I felt the blood running down my back and down my arm.

The shrapnel came through the park and went through my back.

He said he thought he was going to lose me,

and I didn't think I would live myself, so I prepared myself to die.

Elsewhere in the city, Moya Woodside kept a diary

of her Blitz experiences.

The wife of a Belfast surgeon, she was also part

of a unique experiment called "Mass Observation".

Set up two years before the War, the project asked hundreds

of members of the public to keep records of their day-to-day lives.

An archive of almost 300,000 pages of personal writings

are held here at the University of Sussex.

Today, diaries like Moya's provide a unique insight

into the wartime lives of everyday citizens.

"The bombs started falling at 10.45.

"I went to bed, tried to sleep, but this proved impossible."

"Nazi planes kept coming back and coming back,

"for all the world like some giant swarm of insects

"whose drone was only ineffectually interrupted by bangs and crashes."

"This was civilisation in 1941 - sitting shivering,

"bored and frightened in a cubby hole at 3.30am."

But in the face of such terror, the people of Northern Ireland were pulling together.

We had a community spirit because we all became like a big family.

There was an air raid, and the man two doors up,

he came to my house and I was on my own and he took me with them.

They had a little girl, and their mother and I lay under the table,

and the wee girl lay with her arms around her mammie and me,

and she sang, "When they sound the last all-clear,

"how happy, my darling, we'll be.

"When they turn on the lights, those dark lonely nights,

"will just be a memory.

"No more we'll be apart, always together, sweetheart,

"for the peace bells will ring, and the whole world will sing,

"when they sound the last all-clear."

While millions of men were away fighting,

those left behind tried to carry on with life as best they could.

But the impact of the War was felt everywhere, in all sorts of ways.

The story of Belfast during the War -

like so many other towns and cities across the UK -

is of a community really pulling together for the common good.

I'm on my way to the zoo here to find out a little bit more

about one such story that involved a rescue -

with a difference.

Now, it's not every day that you get to drive through a zoo,

looking for a bloke called Alyn.

What have we got there, monkeys?

Oh, there are the gorillas.

It's a nice zoo, this.

There are the chimpanzees.

Now, somebody said go right at the penguins -

there's the penguins.

What a great place to navigate round.

'After a few wrong turns, I finally track down my quarry -

'curator of elephants Alyn Cairns.'

Alyn, how long has the zoo been here in Belfast?

Well, the zoo was built in 1934,

and it was built as part of a pleasure complex,

and it was one of the most modern zoos of that time.

So, five years after it opens the War comes along and things change.

What happened was, at that time it wasn't the MOD,

it was the Public Ministry of Security,

and they actually gave us orders to destroy some of the animals,

actually quite a lot of the animals - 33 animals in total.

'The order was designed to deal with the wartime cost

'of food for the zoo and the fear that bomb damage might allow

'dangerous animals to escape into the city.'

As a zookeeper yourself, Alyn, the idea of putting down

the animals in your care is probably impossible to imagine?

Absolutely horrendous to think if I was faced with that decision,

and also for all of our staff here I think it would just be

so difficult, and actually at the time we do know

from records that we have that Dick Foster was the head keeper,

and indeed he had to stay there while the Ministry were doing this,

and he was in tears, you know, and it took a lot of consoling for him.

And I think it actually had quite an effect on him,

because not long after the War he actually left the zoo.

During the war a volunteer at the zoo, Denise Austen,

took unusual steps to ensure a baby elephant was saved from the cull list.

Alyn took me to meet her relative, David Ramsey.

It was a baby elephant called Sheila.

She and Sheila were very great friends

and I think the two of them had bonded.

And, really, Denise became the surrogate mother for Sheila.

Denise was worried, I think,

that the elephant would be upset by the anti-aircraft gun fire

that was being generated round the Cave hill here,

worried about the raids and that the animal might become nervous, etc,

and become mentally upset and have to be put down.

Initially, when the air raid sirens came on she'd would've come up

from her home to the zoo to be with Sheila to comfort her,

but that was a lot of effort, getting out at maybe one or two

in the morning to come up here, so Denise, being a very pragmatic woman,

just decided the much easier option - why not take the elephant home with you?

It would be pretty unusual.

A cocker spaniel in the back garden might be more normal,

but they had a fairly big coachhouse just adjoining the house,

and the elephant only had a few hundred yards to walk

from the main gate here down through my grandfather's farm

to the back of Denise's house.

And then, if the air raid sirens went out,

Denise just got out of bed, walked out the back door

into the coachhouse and stood with Sheila, stroking her ear

and talking to her, massaging her trunk until the all clear was sounded.

And how long did it go on for before she got rumbled?

Quite a long period of time, probably around 18 months

or two years before the incident where the elephant actually chased a small dog.

It chased a small dog through a number of boundary fences of local householders,

and it was only when they approached the zoo to be compensated

for the damage to their property that the head zookeeper, Mr Foster, realised.

How would you summarise Denise's actions?

I think she was a remarkable woman.

I think to be able to spirit an animal weighing over a ton

out of the zoo at night under the watchful eyes of the head keeper, Dick Foster,

and get it away and back each day without anybody saying to her,

"Denise, what are you doing?"

Just remarkable. Couldn't be done. I think she's a form of magician.

All over the country, incredible stories like Denise and Sheila's

encapsulate the sense of spirit that got us through the Blitz.

And as the RAF battled to prevent Germany dominating the skies,

the Spitfire - perhaps one of the most important aircraft of World War II -

earned a special place in the hearts of Northern Ireland.

In August 1940, The Belfast Telegraph - the voice of the city -

launched the 100,000 Shillings Fund,

a donation scheme to fund the purchase of a Spitfire.

But the people of Northern Ireland weren't happy with just one.

The heroism of our troops on the front lines is well-documented,

but as a young reporter with the paper, Malcolm Brodie's job

was to capture the incredible stories of those making donations to the Fund here at home.

The Spitfire captured the imagination.

They were queuing up on Royal Avenue

waiting to come in and deposit their contribution to the Fund.

The stories that they brought with them were, invariably,

one relating to their efforts to raise this money.

One guy, I understood, sold his donkey to get money for it.

Kids who knew nothing about war

decided to stage street parties, all for the Spitfire Fund.

And a lot of catchphrases, like "A Spitfire a day keeps the Nazis away."

I remember on one particular occasion a woman came in and she had this parcel.

And she opened it up and in it were her son's effects.

He had been killed just before the evacuation at Dunkirk,

and in it was his wallet with two fivers in it,

and she said, "I'm giving that to the Fund,

"I'm giving that in memory of my boy."

There was a fascination amongst the public as to the amount the Fund was raising

and our billboards gave the figure every night.

And we had a huge tobacco factory, Gallagher's,

and the staff would pour up Royal Avenue from work,

and you would see them stopping and looking just to say,

"Right, what is it tonight there?"

In coming together as they did, the people of Northern Ireland

smashed the original 100,000 shillings target,

raising almost £3 million in today's money - enough to buy 17 Spitfires.

They were named after the areas and businesses that donated the cash.

This, of course, is what the Fund was all about -

some lovely black and white photographs of just some of the Telegraph Spitfires.

Belfast itself, Armagh, Harlandic -

Harland and Wolff's very own one - and Londonderry's.

And in amongst all this is just some more information

as to how the money was raised.

This is amazing, the headline here reads, "Pensioner's self-denial."

"Pensioner gives up a shilling a week." How about that?

This one - "30 shillings raised from the sale of a wedding ring from a woman in Newry."

I mean, generosity that's hard to fathom these days.

And this is lovely - this is the story of two boys in Ballymena.

They created a machine made out of Meccano parts that contained

an image of Hitler and Churchill, and if you put a penny in the slot

Churchill would kick Hitler up the backside.

Northern Ireland felt this was part of their war effort,

and they had so many people killed in the War, killed in action.

And they felt Northern Ireland is playing its part,

and they were proud of it.

The aircraft went on to play an invaluable role

in the Battle of Britain, and one of the legendary fighters

was piloted by Londonderry-born Cecil Austin,

who put Spitfires above all the other planes he flew in the War.

He said there was nothing like flying the Spitfires.

He said it was just the most exhilarating thing he had ever done.

They were much lighter to the touch and much quicker to respond,

I think they were faster, as well.

After flying missions all over the UK,

he eventually ended up stationed back at home in Northern Ireland.

Ballyhalbert's on the Atlantic, really, or on the coast,

and a big priority at that time was protecting the Atlantic convoys.

And he was very proud of the fact that, among the many Spitfires

that he flew out of Ballyhalbert, one of them was the Down Spitfire.

It was one of the 17 Spitfires that were bought through

the Belfast Telegraph Fund and it was named after County Down.

I actually found the flight that he made in the Down Spitfire.

P7823, it says, "December 9th, convoy patrol."

And that's the very plane and the very convoy

that is actually captured in the painting of the Down Spitfire,

and that's my dad flying it.

I'm very proud of him.

They were just boys, really, but they...

I don't know what it was that drove them to do it,

but they had a real determination, and I think they were a very special generation, too.

I don't think that our generation - even those of us here

in Northern Ireland who have lived through a 35-year war,

as many people would describe it - it's still not the same.

They had real steel and grit, and something that set them aside.

I think they really were "the few".

And in 1994, a refurbished plane was renamed the Enniskillen

to mark the contribution the Belfast Spitfires made to the War.

But it wasn't just money to pay for the planes the people of Belfast contributed.

It was the very materials used to build them, as well.

The wings of Spitfires were sometimes covered in linen -

a material derived from a traditional Northern Irish crop.

Flax was an essential ingredient to the already established textile business here,

and I'm looking for McConville's Mill.

Here we are, right here.

There we are, McConville's Flax Mill and Museum.

It's home to brothers Eugene and Felix,

whose passion for flax has given them a detailed knowledge

of how ancient techniques were adapted for the war effort.

It is a pretty tough crop.

Now, you couldn't process that there now as you see it now.

That has to be stopped in water for nine to 14 nights to soften the fibre.

Now, this is it here after it's dried.

Now, this looks like hay, doesn't it?

Yes, not unlike hay.

Now, if you compare them, first thing you'll notice

is the two different colours.

Now this is pretty tough, this is soft and limber.

Oh, you're right, look at that - I can wrap that round my finger.

That is ready for scutching.

By soaking the crop in water, the flax becomes soft enough

for the fibres to be extracted from the tough stalks.

This is done through a process called scutching.

This is industrialised scutching.

We'll just jump over the bench and put a bit through

and let you see how it used to be done in the olden days, during the War days.

Let's have a look then, guys. I've certainly come to the right place.

Well, there's six blades on cast-iron stocks,

and they're flying round at high speed.

That looks absolutely terrifying, Eugene.

I'm amazed you haven't lost any fingers over the years.

Have you finished yours, Felix?

HE LAUGHS

Are you slacking with your scutching?

Lovely. Let's have a look at it. Where's the finished article?

That's the finished article there, Jules.

Millions of men went into battle wearing clothes made from this raw product,

but first it had to spun into linen, ready to be stitched.

Valerie Wilson, curator of textiles at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum,

has a wealth of stories from the sewing front lines.

Valerie, hello. How are you?

It's nice to meet you, how are you?

-Well, this certainly sets the scene.

-Yes, well, welcome to the drapers.

Now, the statistics that surround textile production

here in Northern Ireland when we think about the War are staggering.

Well, they are. Even just before the War

it was estimated that one in five people in Northern Ireland

were working in the linen industry,

either in the growing of flax or the finishing off of the actual fabrics.

We had a very trained, very able workforce here,

we had all the facilities, all of the factories

and also the right climate for flax production.

-LAUGHING:

-It likes it wet, does it?

Wet and damp, sort of constantly.

Ulster Linen was used in everything

from parachute harnesses to military bootlaces,

but the industry's adoption of other fabrics meant Northern Ireland

provided the bulk of Britain's uniforms during the War.

There were so many different roles,

and every different role needed its own uniform,

so the factories in Ulster that had previously been making

linen sheeting, linen tablecloths, household goods, and shirts

switched production to all the uniform fabrics

because the skills were there,

and the women who had previously been making up shirts

found themselves making battle dress blouses - same skills, really.

In 1940, the Ministry of Commerce were placing orders

for up to 60,000 denim overalls a week, 60,000 shirts,

30,000 battle dress shirts,

and 100,000 gas haversacks per year.

So the statistics are incredible.

Now, I gather there's a very human side to this production story.

It's not just about volume and uniforms.

Within the shirts, is it true that love letters were stashed away?

Oh yes, I have this on good authority -

the good authority being my late mother.

She started work in a shirt factory in Ballymena

about the same week that war broke out in 1939.

She was a 14-year-old girl, and she assured me that only the older girls

on the production line put their names and addresses and little notes

into the pockets in the hope that they'd get a penpal out of it.

ARCHIVE: Here's a Sister Susie sending a message to a soldier,

"This shirt was made by an Ulster lass

"whose lips were made for kissing,

"so hurry up and win the war, you don't know what you're missing."

During the War, the Belfast Civil Defence Authority

issued a publication called the Belfast Citizens' Handbook.

It said that the good citizen was one who realised that

the only way victory would be achieved is that if every man,

every woman, every boy, every girl,

gave every ounce, every day, in every way.

And, certainly, from what I've seen here,

the people of Northern Ireland did that admirably.

Next time, I'm in Scotland

enjoying a taste of the food dished up during the War...

..and revealing the mysteries of a field in East Kilbride.

This marker here is where a well-known aviator landed.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd