On the evening of the 4th May 1941 and in the early hours of the following morning, the lives of the people who make up the community which exists around the home of Glentoran Football Club, The Oval, the Harland and Wolff shipyard, and Short and Harland aircraft factory in the east of the city, were about to change forever.
At around 21.45 hours on the 4th May, 204 German bombers carrying 96,000 incendiary devices and 200 tonnes of high explosives, left their bases in Northern France … their destination … Belfast.
The city had already suffered heavily during the Easter raids, and on the next perfect bomber’s moon the Luftwaffe would return in an attempt to obliterate the industrial infrastructure so vitally important to the war effort.
Heinkel and Junkers bombers poured death and destruction onto the city in a frenzied attack that lasted for hours. East Belfast felt the full brunt of the Blitz that evening, with almost every street touched by the deathly spectre of a war many believed could never reach these shores.
On Wednesday 4th May 2016, exactly 75 years to the very night the Oval and the city was bombed, the Glentoran Community Trust, in association with Spar and Glentoran Football Club, would like to invite you to join us at the Oval in an evening of dignified reflection and commemoration.
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