{"id":1541,"date":"2022-03-31T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-31T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drtomstours.com\/?p=1541"},"modified":"2022-12-15T15:39:15","modified_gmt":"2022-12-15T15:39:15","slug":"31-march-1941-monday-belfast-1941-blitz-diary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drtomstours.com\/index.php\/2022\/03\/31\/31-march-1941-monday-belfast-1941-blitz-diary\/","title":{"rendered":"31 March 1941 (Monday) \u2013 Belfast 1941 Blitz Diary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Elisabeth McCullough was a Belfast school girl aged 13 living in East Belfast. During 1941, she kept a diary of events. On 31 March 1941, she wrote a short entry: \u2018Did lessons We sunk three Italian cruisers and two destroyers \u2013 Good!\u2019. She was referring British victory at the Battle of Cape Matapan, fought south of the island of Crete in the Mediterranean. It was a British victory in which the Regia Marina, the Italian Navy, lost five warships. This diary was printed along with her memoir and she noted that this entry in her diary was the \u2018first mention of war\u2019 in her diary.<a href=\"#_ftn1\" id=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a> She commented that \u2018I knew little or nothing of politics, or indeed what the war was about\u2019.<a href=\"#_ftn2\" id=\"_ftnref2\">[2]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div id=\"section-g10fe01\" class=\"wp-block-gutentor-e6 section-g10fe01 gutentor-element gutentor-element-image\"><div class=\"gutentor-element-image-box\"><div class=\"gutentor-image-thumb\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"normal-image\" src=\"https:\/\/drtomstours.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Square-peg.jpg\" \/><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She was not alone, many adults in Northern Ireland also knew or cared little about the war feeling that it was not something that involved them. Moya Woodside, a member of a wealthy Belfast mercantile family and reporter for the Mass Observation project, noted in 1940 that \u2018all sorts of rot are going on here. Air raid warnings and blackouts! As if anyone care or wished to bomb Belfast\u2019. She further said that she sought \u2018only comply with the bare minimum\u2026to from any conviction\u2026but because I shall be fined if I don\u2019t.\u2019<a href=\"#_ftn3\" id=\"_ftnref3\">[3]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">G.T. Harris, part of Coastal Command based in Newtonards, noted in his diary in August 1940, that \u2018in Ireland, we find ourselves in the fortunate position of being spectators. I wonder how long this state of affairs will last? Belfast will make a good target. You can\u2019t miss it. And they don\u2019t trouble about blackout much in Northern Ireland\u2019. In October, he added \u2018I, for my part, would like Belfast shook up by a good heavy bombardment\u2019. <a href=\"#_ftn4\" id=\"_ftnref4\">[4]<\/a> His wish was to come true five months later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" id=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a> Elizabeth McCullough, <em>A Square Peg <\/em>(Dublin: Marino Books, 1997), p.139.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a id=\"_ftn2\" href=\"#_ftnref2\">[2]<\/a> Ibid, p.133.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref3\" id=\"_ftn3\">[3]<\/a> Cited in Brian Barton, <em>Belfast in the War Years, Belfast in the War Years<\/em> (Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1989), pp.52-53.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref4\" id=\"_ftn4\">[4]<\/a> Cited in Stephen Douds, <em>The Belfast Blitz, The People\u2019s Story<\/em> (Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 2011), pp.10, 11.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elisabeth McCullough was a Belfast school girl aged 13 living in East Belfast. During 1941, she kept a diary of events. On 31 March 1941, she wrote a short entry: \u2018Did lessons We sunk three Italian cruisers and two destroyers \u2013 Good!\u2019. She was referring British victory at the Battle of Cape Matapan, fought south [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-34"],"blocksy_meta":[],"gutentor_comment":0,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drtomstours.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drtomstours.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drtomstours.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drtomstours.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drtomstours.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drtomstours.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1541\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drtomstours.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drtomstours.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drtomstours.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}