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C A M P A I G N
A I R
THE ITALIAN BLITZ
1940–43
Bomber Command’s war against
Mussolini’s cities, docks and factories
RICHARD WORRALL
|
I L LU S T R AT E D B Y G R A H A M T U R N E R
A I R C A M PA I G N
THE ITALIAN BLITZ
1940–43
Bomber Command’s war against Mussolini's cities, docks
and factories
RICHARD WORRALL |
I LLUS TR ATED BY GR AHAM T U RN ER
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHRONOLOGY
ATTACKER’S CAPABILITIES
DEFENDER’S CAPABILITIES
CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVES
THE CAMPAIGN
AFTERMATH AND ANALYSIS
FURTHER READING
INDEX
4
10
14
23
30
40
87
93
95
4
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
The crowd gathered at the
Palazzo Venezia in Rome
to hear Mussolini’s
declaration of war on
Britain and France on
10 June 1940. Launching
his ‘parallel war’ in the
Mediterranean, Italy’s war
required German
assistance from early
1941. (Getty Images)
This is a grave hour for our Fatherland. The hour [of] irrevocable decision.
The Declaration of War is already decided … We are going to war to break the
chains laid upon us and we shall defend our territories everywhere. Only thus
can a people of 52 millions remain free …
Benito Mussolini, 10 June 1940
After nine months of ‘belligerent neutrality’, Mussolini declared war on Britain and
France on 10 June 1940. Italy’s ‘parallel war’ thus began in the Mediterranean, a conflict
for dominance of the central sea in a war for empire: the maintenance of one and
acquisition of territory for the other. As the last British Ambassador to Rome, Sir Percy
Lorraine, wrote:
… one must win the other most lose. Our lengthwise communications in the Mediterranean
cannot co-exist with Italian north-south communications in the same sea in war.
Within hours, the Air Ministry in London had despatched a ‘Most Immediate’ telegram to
its Commands and establishment, both at home and abroad, that stated:
As from 0001 hours British summer time Tuesday 11th June a state of war will exist
with Italy.
One of the recipients was Air Marshal Sir Charles Portal, then head of RAF Bomber
Command. Right from the beginning, it would be involved in the war against Mussolini’s
Italy, and 4 Group’s Whitleys and 3 Group’s Wellingtons went into action that night or, in
the latter’s case, attempted to.
5
A forgotten air campaign
The strategic bombing of Italy has been, and continues to
be, a topic that has been examined by a considerable number
of Italian historians. Yet for English-speaking readers it has
been, and still remains, a neglected episode of the aerial
conflict during World War II. Whilst many volumes have
examined the combined bomber offensive against Germany
and the American air campaign against Japan (including the
atomic bomb attacks), the bombing offensive against
the third member of the Axis coalition has received little
coverage at all. Such an omission makes this volume unique,
with its detailed examination of Bomber Command’s
campaign against Italy, which lasted from June 1940 to
August 1943. Many titles on Bomber Command show this
tendency towards neglecting the campaign against Italy –
often covering it only in passing. This is perhaps no surprise
given that certain sources, used heavily by subsequent authors
on Bomber Command, say little about the bombing of Italy.
In his official
Despatch on War Operations,
Sir Arthur Harris,
C-in-C of Bomber Command, devoted little space to this
campaign, an indication that he remained unenthusiastic
– though certainly not obstructive – about it. The only
exception is the bold claim he made as to the outcome:
The last stages in the bombing of the industrial cities of Italy were extremely successful, both
in causing material damage and in finally destroying what little inclination remained in that
country to continue a disastrous war … The bombing produced quite hysterical accounts of
woe in the press and radio, and
there is little doubt that it was the principal factor contributing
to the downfall of Mussolini’s regime.
[my emphasis]
Italian dictator Benito
Mussolini. The Duce
believed that it was Italy’s
destiny to dominate the
Mediterranean by carving
out a New Roman Empire
in Africa and the Near
East. (Getty Images)
Such sentiments, overblown if not completely incorrect, were presented with little
additional detail, and were not critiqued by subsequent authors, apart from Richard
Overy and Claudia Baldoli. Harris’ memoirs followed a similar path, with only three
pages out of 288 covering Italy, and astonishingly only Bomber Command’s campaign
of autumn 1942 ‘to throw the Germans out of Africa’ was mentioned. Yet because his
book was written for public consumption, there was still sufficient space for the claims
to have got even bolder:
there is no doubt that the panic caused by Bomber Command’s attacks on industrial cities
in North Italy, though the weight of the attack was insignificant compared with that of the
offensive against Germany, did as much as any other single factor to bring about the downfall
of Fascism in that country.
Other memoirs by senior officers in Bomber Command, namely by Air Vice-Marshal Sir
Robert Saundby, Deputy C-in-C Bomber Command, or the commanding of the Pathfinder,
Air Vice-Marshal Donald Bennett, shed little light on the bombing of Italy, either. Indeed,
Bennett wrote that he perceived Bomber Command ‘as a mighty weapon for striking at the
heart of the enemy – that is to say, at Germany itself ’. Even Churchill – in many ways
the
central figure in directing the war in the Mediterranean – said little in his mammoth
history of World War II (12 volumes in paperback) about the bombing of Italy, despite his
pivotal role in ordering it.

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