Air raids on Italy
1940–1945: Air raids on Italy
1940: Attack on Taranto
1943: Operation Husky - Invasion of Italy ( Baytown , Avalanche , Slapstick ) - Armistice of Cassibile - Fall of the Axis
1944: Battle of Monte Cassino - Operation Shingle - Position of Goth
1945: Spring Offensive
Air raids on Italy during the Second World War actually took place from the time the Italian entered the war until the last days of the war in May 1945, first by the British Royal Air Force , later also by the United States Army Air Forces, and after Italy converted to the Allies in 1943 also by the German Air Force . The attacks killed at least 60,000 people, and the number of seriously injured people was never precisely determined. The first attacks on the northern industrial regions in 1940/41 were followed by heavy Allied attacks from 1942 on all parts of the country with the aim of preparing for the invasion of the country and weakening the fascist regime. They were one of the decisive factors for a change of mood in the Italian population in favor of leaving the war and can therefore be counted among the most successful Allied bombing campaigns. After the armistice of Cassibile in September 1943, there were also isolated German bombings on targets in southern Italy. Two thirds of all bomb casualties in Italy were between the armistice and the end of the war.
background
The Kingdom of Italy , ruled by the fascist National Fascist Party (PNF) under Benito Mussolini , entered the war against France and Great Britain on the side of the Nazi German Reich in June 1940 , after the campaign in the west had been decided in favor of Germany. It was linked to the hope of expanding its sphere of influence in the Mediterranean and in Africa at the expense of the two countries , after it was considered to have lost the Versailles peace order after the First World War .
It soon became apparent that these expectations were far overstretched: Neither the invasion of Egypt (September 1940) nor the war against Greece (from October 1940) were successful, and East Africa soon found itself on the defensive. Only with German help could an early loss of Italian Libya be prevented and Greece was defeated in April 1941 . This did not prevent the Italian leadership from declaring war on the Soviet Union in June 1941 and on the United States in December 1941 . The result was the loss of the colonies in Africa (1942/43), later the invasion of Sicily (July 1943) and finally the Italian mainland (September 1943) by the Allies. At the latter point in time, Italy temporarily withdrew from the war due to the armistice of Cassibile, and the northern part of the country was occupied by the Wehrmacht . On October 13, the Badoglio government declared war on the German Reich, while Mussolini had proclaimed the Italian Social Republic in the north a few weeks earlier , whose armed forces continued the fight on the side of Germany. During the Italian campaign , the Allies only succeeded in penetrating the Po Valley in April 1945 and ending the war on Italian territory. The German partial capitulation in Italy came into effect on May 2, 1945.
course
Pre-war plans
The planning staff of the Royal Air Force (RAF) had already drawn up plans for the conduct of a strategic air war against Italy since the beginning of 1940 . Italy was believed to be one of the potential enemy countries most likely to collapse as a result of continuous air strikes on industry and workers. It was assumed that among the Italian population and even among the northern Italian industrialists there was an opposition to the war plans of the fascist regime that should not be underestimated and that it should be mobilized. In addition, the air defense and civil air defense are much weaker than in the German Reich, for example, which would make the attacks much more effective.
First attacks
At the end of April, the Commander-in-Chief of the British Air Force in France, Air Marshal Arthur Barratt , proposed that air strikes from southern France on northern Italian industrial targets should be planned in the event that Italy entered the war. After consultation with the Anglo-French Supreme War Council, these were approved on May 31, while the British ground forces in northern France were already being evacuated in Operation Dynamo . However, the French withdrew their consent after the Italian entry into the war on June 10th, as they feared Italian retaliatory attacks. The so-called " Haddock Force " received the order nevertheless. After they were initially prevented from starting by the French, some attacks were flown from Salon-de-Provence against Genoa from June 15 . Earlier, Armstrong Whitworth Whitley , who had started from Great Britain on June 11 and refueled in the British Channel Islands , bombed Genoa and Turin . The target was the Turin Fiat factories, 17 civilians were killed. In the following days there were further attacks on oil tanks in the ports of Genoa and Savona . Milan was bombed for the first time on June 15th and 16th , missing the target, the Caproni , Macchi and Savoia-Marchetti factories. The Haddock Force was withdrawn after the French entered into armistice negotiations. On 23/24 In June, shortly before the Compiègne armistice came into force , the French Armée de l'air flew a series of attacks on Italian targets.
Phase until September 1942
In the first phase of the aerial warfare against Italy, southern Italian areas were primarily attacked, while northern Italy was bombed to a lesser extent and central Italy was practically not bombed at all. The destinations included port cities such as Genoa, Livorno , Cagliari , Palermo , Naples and Taranto . The attacks on southern Italy came mainly from Malta , those on northern Italy from Great Britain. Most of the attacks were purely disruptive actions, and numerous leaflet missions were flown.
Phase until September 1943
On 22./23. October 1942, on the eve of the Second Battle of El Alamein in Egypt, the RAF Bomber Command opened a major air offensive against the northern Italian industrial areas with an attack on Genoa. The main targets of the attacks, in which more than 100 heavy four-engine bombers took part, were Genoa, Turin and Milan. The offensive continued until mid-December 1942. On December 4th, the American Ninth Air Force flew its first attack on Italy with 20 bombers from North Africa, targeting Naples. Attacks by US bombers from North Africa on Naples and Sicilian cities continued through the first half of 1943. The first effects of the bombing became apparent in March and April 1943, when strikes broke out in northern Italy, involving around 100,000 people.
In the summer of 1943, after the Anglo-American invasion of Sicily (July 10th), there was a series of area bombings against Italian population centers with the aim of overthrowing the fascist regime and ultimately bringing Italy out of the war. In the heaviest attack to date against Turin on July 12th, 792 civilians were killed. On July 19, the first attack of the war on Rome took place , in which over 500 bombers were involved. Mussolini fell six days later. The Allies then considered, at least temporarily, to forego further bombardments. But when it became clear that the new Italian government would remain loyal to the Axis alliance, the bombing resumed and continued through August to early September. One of the most heavily bombed locations was Foggia , where 75 percent of residential buildings were destroyed or badly damaged. On September 8, the day the Cassibile armistice was announced, US bombers launched a heavy attack on Frascati , where the headquarters of the German Wehrmacht was in Italy, killing around 500 civilians. During this time, numerous leaflets were dropped in order to influence public opinion in Italy in the interests of the Allies. It was repeatedly emphasized that the air strikes were a consequence of the alliance with Germany and that they would cease after it abandoned it.
In December 1943, Arthur Tedders and Dwight D. Eisenhowers ' advisor , Solly Zuckerman , completed a study evaluating the Allied bomber attacks on southern Italian railway facilities and concluding that this type of attack was the most effective in assisting Landing operations. The southern Italian railway network was completely paralyzed by attacks on only six centers during the Husky (Sicily) and Avalanche (near Salerno ) operations. Tedder and Eisenhower, who were transferred to England at the turn of 1943/44 to prepare for Operation Overlord , used Zuckerman's results in planning the invasion of France.
Phase until June 1944
In this phase attacks were primarily flown to disrupt the supply of the German troops in Italy and to support the ground troops. The ground fighting during this period mainly took place on the Gustav Line , around 100 kilometers south of Rome. During the Battle of Monte Cassino on February 15, 1944, the abbey of Montecassino was destroyed to the ground by an attack by over 400 bombers . The Allies assumed that it would be used by the Germans as an observation point. Central Italy was the most bombed part of the country at this time. But attacks continued to be carried out on industrial centers in northern Italy. The American Fifteenth Air Force under Nathan F. Twining , set up in Tunis at the end of October 1943 and equipped with four-engine long-range bombers of the B-17 and B-24 types , also used the airfields around Foggia, which it captured at the end of 1943, for attacks from the south German Empire and the Balkans. The Twelfth Air Force under John K. Cannon was responsible for tactical bombing . The British created a smaller strategic bomber force, No. 205 Group , equipped with the older twin-engined Vickers Wellington . Intensive air strikes on supply lines took place as part of Operation Strangle from March 19 until the eve of the decisive Operation Diadem . This phase of the war ended with the capture of Rome on June 4, 1944.
Phase until the end of the war
After the fall of Rome, the German troops withdrew to the Gothic position north of Florence . Air strikes on large population centers were now rarer, but smaller cities that served as traffic centers were attacked more and more. One of the most heavily bombed cities during this period was Bologna , which was hit 94 times between summer 1944 and winter 1944/45 alone, killing around 2500 civilians.
Towards the end of the war there were hardly any un-bombed targets left for the large Allied bomber fleets. Of 4,300 heavy US bombers in Europe in 1945, 1,900 were stationed in the Mediterranean area. Large air raids by hundreds of bombers took place in preparation for the Allied spring offensive in April 1945. The last attacks of the war were aimed at the retreating German ground troops in the Alps on the Brenner Pass .
Effects
Victim
According to a 1957 calculation by the Istituto Nazionale di Statistica (ISTAT), 64,354 people were killed in air raids on Italy during World War II, of which 4,558 were military losses. There is evidence that these numbers are underestimated. Under the war conditions, it was often difficult to precisely record the victims of the bombs, especially since the public administration in Italy was not particularly efficient. Evacuees, who numbered in the millions, were often not recorded as bomb victims by the local authorities. The number of 60,000 civilian bomb deaths is therefore the lower limit, a number of 80,000 is more likely.
Cultural assets
There was some disagreement among the Allied leadership as to which Italian targets should be excluded from heavy bombing because of their cultural and historical value. While the British did not want any restrictions, the Americans, with the approval of President Roosevelt , created a commission on August 20, 1943 for the protection and rescue of artistic and historical monuments in Europe. Using the Baedeker for Italy, 160 detailed plans of Italian cities were drawn up, which were used in the instructions for the American bomber crews. The cities were divided into three categories: Category 1 included Rome, Florence, Venice and Torcello , which could only be bombed after special instructions from the high command. Category 2 comprised 19 cities of cultural and historical importance that could only be bombed when circumstances made it necessary, including Ravenna , Assisi , Pavia , Parma and Montepulciano . Category 3 comprised 24 cities that had a significant city center but were near military installations. The cities in this category could be bombed without restrictions. Often, Category 1 targets were still bombed, sometimes intentionally, sometimes through crew mistakes. Rome was bombed 51 times before it was liberated in June 1944, with an estimated loss of 7,000 people.
Production losses
Production losses in war industries were investigated by the Allies after the war in northern Italy and by ISTAT in southern Italy. It turned out that the failures caused by bombing raids were difficult to distinguish from those caused by sabotage by the Resistance or strikes. Overall, the failures in war-important industries could amount to 30%, on average for all industries about 10%. In shipbuilding even 50% was achieved. The Italian national income fell to half of its 1938 level.
moral
It is difficult to quantify the effects on the morale of the Italian population. There is no doubt, however, that the bombings of 1942/43 that preceded the capitulation had at least a share in the emergence of war fatigue, even if they cannot be directly blamed for the fall of Mussolini. Air raids were frequent, planned and unplanned evacuations reached large proportions. The fascist state was largely overwhelmed by the challenges of the bombing war.
After the armistice of September 1943, morale was no longer a primary target. Difficulties arose for the Allies, as they did not want to alienate the Resistance in northern Italy by bombing, but on the other hand they did not want to forego bombings that were considered militarily necessary. The attempts to increasingly rely on precision attacks were largely unsuccessful because the crews were not adequately trained for this.
See also
literature
- Claudia Baldoli, Andrew Knapp: Forgotten Blitzes : France and Italy Under Allied Air Attack, 1940–1945. Bloomsbury, 2012.
- Richard Overy: The Bomb War. Europe 1939–1945. Rowohlt, 2014.
Web links
- University of Exeter, Center for the Study of War, State and Society: Bombing, States and Peoples in Western Europe 1940–1945. The Bombing of Italy 1940-1945.