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ITALIAN SOCIETY UNDER ANGLO-AMERICAN BOMBS: PROPAGANDA, EXPERIENCE, AND LEGEND, 1940–1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 November 2009

CLAUDIA BALDOLI  and
MARCO FINCARDI
CLAUDIA BALDOLI*
Affiliation:
Newcastle University
MARCO FINCARDI*
Affiliation:
University of Venice
*
School of Historical Studies, Armstrong Building, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RUclaudia.baldoli@ncl.ac.uk
Dipartimento di Studi Storici, Malcanton Marcorà, Università di Venezia, Dorsoduro3484/D, 30123 Veneziafincardi@unive.it
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Abstract

The Italian experience of being bombed has been neglected in the historiography of the Second World War, especially in English. This marginalization is not justified by the record of events; according to official estimates, Italian civilian victims of bombing numbered around 60,000. The reaction of the Italian population to air raids was carefully evaluated and discussed by the Allies, who decided to hit civilians living near industrial areas with a view to testing their psychological resistance. The article focuses on the civilians' reactions to death coming from the sky, by examining their response to both Anglo-American and Fascist propaganda, and to the experience of the raids at different stages of the war. It analyses the ways in which civilians coped with the collapse of state defences (including the creation of legends and the spreading of rumours independent of state propaganda), and the psychologically complex and shifting response to bombers who introduced themselves as liberators. The research presented is based on archival sources, particularly prefects' reports from different parts of Italy to the Ministry of Interior, on both Anglo-American and Fascist propaganda, newspaper articles, and civilians' diaries.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 52 , Issue 4 , December 2009 , pp. 1017 - 1038
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

1 For example Hermann Knell's To destroy a city: strategic bombing and its human consequences in world war II (Cambridge, MA, 2003); A. C. Grayling's Among the dead cities (London, 2006).

2 See Gavin Mortimer, The longest night (London, 2005); Angus Calder, Myth of the blitz (London, 1991).

3 Giorgio Bonacina, Obiettivo: Italia. I bombardamenti aerei delle città italiane dal 1940 al 1945 (Milan, 1970); Marco Gioannini and Giulio Massobrio, Bombardate l'Italia: storia della guerra di distruzione aerea, 1940–1945 (Milan, 2007); Marco Patricelli, L'Italia sotto le bombe (Rome and Bari, 2007). The best account is by Gabriella Gribaudi, Guerra totale: tra bombe alleate e violenze naziste. Napoli e il fronte meridionale, 1940–1944 (Turin, 2005); a recent book by Umberto Gentiloni Silveri and Maddalena Carli, Bombardare Roma: gli alleati e la città aperta, 1940–1944 (Bologna, 2007), analyses the Allied discussion about the bombing of Rome.

4 After September 1943, industrial and communications objectives in northern Italy and immediate tactical objectives on or near the front were paramount. See Lutz Klinkhammer, L'occupazione tedesca in Italia, 1943–1945 (Turin, 2007; 1st edn 1993).

5 During the course of the war RAF Bomber Command and the VII and XV US Army Air Forces dropped a total of 2,697,473 tons of bombs in the European theatre, 1,235,609 by Bomber Command and 1,461,864 by the American bomber forces. Of this total quantity some 50·3 per cent (1,356,829 tons) were dropped on Germany and 13·7 per cent (369,554 tons) were dropped on Italy. See United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Over-all report (European war), Washington, DC, 30 Sept. 1945; Richard Overy, Bomber Command, 1939–1945 (London, 1997), p. 209; Arthur Tedder, Air power in war, Air Ministry Pamphlet 235, Sept. 1947, Diagram 5.

6 Gioannini and Massobrio, Bombardate l'Italia, p. 11.

7 Harvey, Stephen, ‘The Italian war effort and the strategic bombing of Italy’, History, 70 (1985), pp. 44–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a summary of Italian secondary sources on the subject, see also Philip Morgan, The fall of Mussolini (Oxford, 2007); and Tobias Abse, ‘Italy’, in Jeremy Noakes, ed., The civilian in war: the home front in Europe, Japan and the USA in World War II (Exeter, 1992), pp. 104–25.

8 Dodd, Lindsey and Knapp, Andrew, ‘“How many Frenchmen did you kill?” British bombing policy towards France (1940–1945)’, French History, 22 (2008), pp. 469–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Gribaudi, Guerra totale, p. 48.

10 Memorandum of the foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, 20 Nov. 1942, The National Archives (TNA), Kew, Foreign Office (FO) 371/33228, cited in Gribaudi, Guerra totale, p. 79.

11 ‘Extract from D.O. (43) 6th meeting’, 28 July 1943, TNA, Kew, AIR 20–2565.

12 ‘Most secret – secretary of state’, 31 July 1943, TNA, Kew, AIR 20–2565.

13 Gribaudi, Guerra totale, p. 80.

14 Miriam Mafai, Pane nero: donne e vita quotidiana nella seconda guerra mondiale (Milan, 1987), p. 123.

15 In particular the papers of Ministero dell'Interno, A5G, Seconda Guerra Mondiale, in the Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome.

16 The work presented here is part of a collective research project sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Research Council on ‘Bombing, states and peoples in western Europe, 1940–1945’, www.centres.ex.ac.uk/wss/bombing. Thanks to Andrew Knapp, MacGregor Knox, and Richard Overy for their comments on the article and to the rest of the team for many stimulating discussions.

17 On radio listening during the war, see Maura Piccialuti Caprioli, Radio Londra, 1939–1945 (Rome and Bari, 1979); Gianni Isola, Abbassa la tua radio per favore … Storia dell'ascolto radiofonico nell'Italia fascista (Scandicci, 1990); Lamberto Mercuri, Guerra psicologica: la propaganda anglo-americana in Italia, 1942–1946 (Rome, 1983).

18 See Simona Colarizi, L'opinione degli italiani sotto il regime, 1929–1943 (Rome and Bari, 1991). On these phenomena see also Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, voice and loyalty: responses to decline in firms, organizations and states (Cambridge, MA, 1970).

19 For a brief but co-ordinated analysis, resting on primary material on both elite and popular opinion, see Knox, MacGregor, ‘Das faschistische Italien und die “Endlösung”, 1942/1943’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 54 (2007), pp. 83–6Google Scholar.

20 Emanuele Artom, Diari di un partigiano ebreo: gennaio 1940–febbraio 1944, ed. Guri Schwarz (Turin, 2008), p. 32.

21 ‘Opuscoli inglesi di propaganda antigermanica’, prefect of Como to Ministry of Interior, 29 Aug. 1940, Archivio Centrale dello Stato (ACS), Ministero dell'Interno (MI), Direzione Generale Pubblica Sicurezza (DGPS), IIGuerra Mondiale (IIGM), A5G, b. 20.

22 1 Feb. 1941, ACS, MI, DGPS, IIGM, A5G, b. 20.

23 ‘Volantini lanciati su Addis Abeba da aerei nemici durante l'incursione del giorno 11/2/1941’: ‘La verità’, 6 Feb. 1941, ACS, MI, DGPS, IIGM, A5G, b. 20.

24 ‘La verità’, 1 Feb. 1941, ACS, MI, DGPS, IIGM, A5G, b. 20.

25 ‘Volantino lanciato su Chismaio il 15 gennaio 1941’, in ACS, MI, DGPS, IIGM, A5G, b. 20.

26 Ibid.

27 Legione territoriale Carabinieri di Soave, 30 Dec. 1942, and prefect of Bari to Ministry of Interior, 6 Aug. 1942, ACS, MI, DGPS, IIGM, A5G, b. 21.

28 British leaflet dropped on Italian cities in 1941, in ACS, MI, DGPS, IIGM, A5G, b. 20.

29 In ACS, MI, DGPS, IIGM, A5G, b. 23, n.d., probably 1942.

30 Ibid.

31 Dropped on Naples and the surrounding province in July 1941; Commissario di PS to Ministry of Interior, Genoa, 4 Oct. 1941, ACS, MI, DGPS, IIGM, A5G, b. 20. ‘Manifestini di propaganda antifascista’: ‘Bilancio del primo anno di guerra fascista’. Prefect of Palermo to Ministry of Interior, 5 Oct. 1941, ibid.

32 ‘C.A.S. to Air Chief Marshal Tedder’, 30 July 1943, TNA, Kew, AIR 8–777.

33 In ACS, MI, DGPS, IIGM, A5G, b. 21.

34 ‘Provincia di Potenza’, police general inspector to the head of police, 27 May 1940, ACS, MI, DGPS, IIGM, A5G, b. 25.

35 Prefect of Caltanissetta to Ministry of Interior, 10 Aug. 1940, and police general inspector of Bari to the head of police, 15 July 1940, ACS, MI, DGPS, IIGM, A5G, b. 25.

36 Ibid.

37 Area inspector of Naples to Ministry of Interior and the head of police, 29 June 1940, ACS, MI, DGPS, IIGM, A5G, b. 25.

38 ‘Relazione sullo spirito pubblico in Puglia’, area general inspector to Ministry of Interior and to the head of police, 29 June 1940, ACS, MI, DGPS, IIGM, A5G, b. 25.

39 Questore (police chief) of Ancona to Ministry of Interior, 19 June and 16 Nov. 1940, ACS, MI, DGPS, IIGM, A5G, b. 25.

40 ‘Operazioni belliche e spirito pubblico’, prefect of La Spezia to Ministry of Interior, 15 Nov. 1940, ACS, MI, DGPS, IIGM, A5G, b. 25.

41 Overy, Bomber Command, 1939–1945, p. 86.

42 ‘Milano. Troppi contravventori alle norme sull'oscuramento’, Il Popolo d'Italia, 4 Nov. 1941.

43 ‘Contro un malinteso ottimismo – una più stretta osservanza alle norme sull'oscuramento’, Il Resto del Carlino, 23 Apr. 1941.

44 Ministry of War, Ufficio Protezione Anti Aerea, to the prefects and regional military authorities, 10 June 1940, ACS, Ministero dell'Aeronautica (MA), Gabinetto (Gab), Affari Generali (AG), 1940, b. 82.

45 Ministry of War, Ufficio Protezione Anti Aerea, to the prefects, 13 Nov. 1940, ACS, MA, Gab, AG, 1940, b. 82.

46 ‘Oscuramento’, from questore to prefect of Rome, 27 Nov. 1940, ACS, MI, DGPS, IIGM, A5G, b. 62.

47 Italian radar research, mostly by the navy, was by the late 1930s quite advanced by international standards, but procurement and production lagged.

48 Prefect of Naples to Ministry of Interior, 4 Jan. 1941, and police informer to head of police, 25 Apr. 1941, ACS, MI, DGPS, IIGM, A5G, b. 62.

49 Help never came from the head of police, Carmine Senise, who later recalled in a memoir of those years that all Italians were already against the war and hostile to the regime in 1940, and he simply tried to avoid excessive damage to the nation (Carmine Senise, Quando ero capo della polizia, 1940–1943 (Rome, 1946).

50 For women's protests in 1942, see the reports of local authorities of the Milan province in Archivio di Stato di Milano, Gabinetto della Prefettura, C267.

51 Prefect of Milan to Ministry of Interior, 12 July 1941, 21 Oct. 1942, 21 Nov. 1942, ACS, MI, DGPS, IIGM, A5G, b. 62.

52 Prefect of Genoa to Ministry of Interior, 20 Sept. 1941, 20 and 26 Oct. 1941, ACS, MI, DGPS, IIGM, A5G, b. 62.

53 Prefect of Genoa to head of police, 15 Dec. 1942, ACS, MI, DGPS, IIGM, A5G, b. 62.

54 PNF – Federazione dei Fasci di Combattimento di Genova, Genova 1942 (1942).

55 ‘Un gruppo di famiglie abitanti nella zona di Porta Susa’, 26 June 1943, and prefect of Turin to Ministry of Interior, 17 July 1943, ACS, MI, DGPS, IIGM, A5G, b. 62.

56 Legion of Carabinieri in Rome (area of Porta Appia) to Ministry of Interior, 14 May 1943, ACS, MI, DGPS, IIGM, A5G, b. 62.

57 Artom, Diari di un partigiano ebreo, p. 48.

58 ‘Promemoria per il Duce’, 17 May 1943, ACS, MI, DGPS, IIGM, A5G, b. 60.

59 Moreover, none of Italy's semi-obsolete aircraft ever made it as far as London. See the detailed listings of CAI's (Corpo Aereo Italiano) bombing and fighter patrol missions over Kent, Sussex, and Suffolk in Nino Arena, La regia aeronautica. 1939–1943, i (Rome, 1981), pp. 228–32.

60 Churchill to the House of Commons, 30 Sept. 1941: ‘We have as much right to bomb Rome as the Italians had to bomb London last year, when they thought we were going to collapse’ (TNA, Kew, AIR 20-2565).

61 Report by a PNF informer from Sesto San Giovanni (industrial periphery of Milan), 26 Jan. 1943, ACS, MI, DGPS, Polizia politica, 1927–45, b. 238, cited in Simona Colarizi, La seconda guerra mondiale e la Repubblica (Turin, 1984), p. 180.

62 Report by a PNF informer from Rome, 7 June 1943, ACS, MI, DGPS, Polizia politica, 1927–45, b. 239, cited in Colarizi, La seconda guerra mondiale, p. 177.

63 Giorgio Corona (army officer), ‘Sicilia ’43. Frammenti di taccuino', Nuovi argomenti, 5 (1957), pp. 141–2.

64 Giovanni De Luna, ‘La televisione e la “nazionalizzazione” della memoria’, in Peppino Ortoleva and Chiara Ottaviano, eds., Guerra e mass media (Naples, 1994), pp. 212–13; Cesare Bermani, Spegni la luce che passa Pippo (Rome, 1996), pp. 160–6.

65 Cesare Bermani, ‘L'immaginario collettivo di guerra: il mito di “Pippo”’, in Paolo Ferrari, ed., L'aeronautica italiana (Milan, 2004), pp. 238, 251.

66 See also Perry, Alan R., ‘Pippo: an Italian folklore mystery of World War II’, Journal of Folklore Research, 40 (2003), pp. 115–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

67 Maria Carazzolo, Più forte della paura: diario di guerra e dopoguerra (1938–1947) (Sommacampagna, 2007), p. 204. See Bermani, ‘L'immaginario collettivo di guerra’, pp. 245, 250–1.

68 Perry, Alan R., ‘“Era il nostro terrore”: Un'indagine sul mito di Pippo’, Italia contemporanea, 225 (2001), pp. 599–600Google Scholar.

69 Ibid., pp. 600–1; Patricelli, L'Italia sotto le bombe, pp. 302–7.

70 ‘It is an endless stream of rumours, news, information, to the point that sometimes you cannot stand it any more’, wrote a student from Padua in her diary on 20 Aug. 1944 (Carazzolo, Più forte della paura, p. 201). See Marc Bloch, Réfléxions d'un historien sur les fausses nouvelles de guerre (1921), in Bloch, Mélanges historiques (Paris, 1963), ii; Marie Bonaparte, Mythes de guerre (Paris, 1950); Paul Fussel, Wartime: understanding and behavior in the Second World War (Oxford, 1989); Pietro Cavallo, Italiani in Guerra: sentimenti e immagini dal 1940 al 1945 (Bologna, 1997).

71 In one version from a Venetian witness, ‘the famous plane Pippo’ was shot down towards the end of 1943, but the parachute which saved the life of the pilot, taken in an adventurous manner from the Germans, continued to have beneficial effects, allowing the manufacture of silk shirts for an entire family of extremely poor boatsmen (interview by Giorgio Crovato to Luciano D'Este, 16 July 2003).

72 Text of leaflet in Alfredo Cucco, Non volevamo perdere (Bologna, 1950), p. 26.

73 Gaetano Zingali, L'invasione della Sicilia (1943) (Catania, 1962), p. 103. See Zincone, Vittorio, ‘Note e discussioni: stampa e propaganda in tempo di guerra’, Critica fascista, 10 (1943), pp. 526–33Google Scholar.

74 ‘Le matite e le stilografiche esplosive’, L'Avvenire d'Italia, 7 May 1943; ‘Il barbaro nemico’, La Domenica del Corriere, 16 May 1943.

75 Il Travaso delle idee, in particular the issue of 16 May 1943, but see also the following issues.

76 Secret telegram from Air Ministry to headquarters of Mediterranean Air Command, 3 May 1943, TNA, Kew, AIR 20-5304.

77 Giuseppe Bottai, Diario, 1935–1944, entry of 1 June 1943 (Milan, 2001), p. 380; Alberto Pirelli, Taccuini, 1922/1943 (Bologna, 1984), p. 434.

78 Iris Origo, War in Val d'Orcia: an Italian war diary, 1943–1944 (London, 2005; 1st edn 1947), p. 47. The author, born to an American mother and British father, was married to a Tuscan aristocrat.

79 Fausto Coen, Tre anni di bugie (Milan, 1978), pp. 152–3.

80 Anonymous report from Rome, 31 July 1943, ACS, MI, DGPS, Polizia politica, Materia, b. 239.

81 See Bermani, Spegni la luce che passa Pippo, pp. 159–60; Carazzolo, Più forte della paura, p. 237.

82 During the war, the Germans did drop cluster anti-personnel bombs, which in England were called ‘butterfly bombs’, and exploded once they were picked up. However, they were not disguised as toys or created with the intent of killing children. Propaganda to demonize the enemy and popular imagery developed the stereotype of a criminal project to capture children's attention and to slaughter them.

83 Salvatore Satta, De profundis (Milan, 1980; 1st edn 1948), pp. 64–80.

84 Silveri and Carli, Bombardare Roma.

85 Dino Grandi, 25 luglio 1943 (Bologna, 2003; 1st edn 1983), pp. 314–20.

86 See Arthur Harris, Despatch on war operations: 23rd February 1942 to 8th May 1945 (London, 1995).

87 Anna Garofalo, In guerra si muore (Rome, 1945), p. 8.

88 Jolanda Di Benigno, Occasioni mancate: Roma in un diario segreto, 1943–1944 (Rome, 1945), p. 95.

89 Achille Rastelli, Bombe sulla città: gli attacchi aerei alleati: le vittime civili a Milano (Milan, 2000); Luisa Tosi, ed., Testimoni loro malgrado: memorie del bombardamento del 7 aprile 1944 (Treviso, 2006).

90 Grazia Pagliaro, Giorni di guerra in Sicilia: diario per la nonna, 9 maggio–8 agosto 1943 (Palermo, 1993), pp. 26, 53.

91 Nicola Gallerano, ‘L'arrivo degli alleati’, in Mario Isnenghi, ed., I luoghi della memoria: strutture ed eventi dell'Italia unita (Rome and Bari, 997), p. 459.

92 Grazia Alfieri Tarentino, La festa di Muncalè: storia minore della gente di Milano che qualcuno vorrebbe mettere nella zona grigia senza averne conosciuta la vera natura (Genoa, 2005), pp. 117, 176.

93 Arthur Harris, Bomber offensive (London, 1990; 1st edn 1947), p. 140.

94 Benito Mussolini, Opera Omnia, xxxi: Dal discorso al direttorio nazionale del P.N.F. del 3 gennaio 1942 alla liberazione di Mussolini: 4 gennaio 1942–12 settembre 1943 (Florence, 1960), pp. 118–33.

95 Harris, Bomber offensive, p. 141.

96 Benito Mussolini, Opera omnia, xxxii: Dalla liberazione di Mussolini all'epilogo: la Repubblica sociale italiana: 13 settembre 1943–28 aprile 1945 (Florence, 1960), pp. 126–39.