Air Campaign 017 - The Italian Blitz 1940-43. Bomber Command’s War against Mussolini (2020).pdf

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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

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.

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

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