The Ligurian capital was the first city during the Second World War to experience indiscriminate destruction to bend the morale of the population
They have almost passed eighty years after the terrible cycle of bombings carried out by the British air force RAF (Royal Air Force) on the city of Genoa in the autumn of 1942. A merciless campaign whose disastrous effects were evoked by the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in his speech to the Chamber of Deputies, and then remembered consequently by the mayor of the Ligurian capital Marco Bucci.
We are in the middle of the Second World War. Genoa has long been a target of the British Air Force due to the port and the important industrial plants of Ansaldo and Piaggio. February 9, 1941 it was also shelled by enemy ships from Gibraltar. But she has not yet experienced the deadly technique ofarea bombing, that is the massive and indiscriminate attacks directed on inhabited centers to weaken the morale of the population. It will be there first Italian city to undergo that treatment. In the autumn of 1942 the time was ripe: with the entry into the war of the United States the Allied air superiority became overwhelming. Furthermore, they identified Italy as the soft underbelly of the Axis, to be hit decisively to provoke its surrender and leave Germany alone in the struggle.
The first attack is triggered on the night of 22-23 October: a hundred Lancaster four-engined boats arrive and drop 179 tons of explosive devices and incendiary pieces. The raid produces serious damage even to historic buildings such as Palazzo Ducale, Palazzo Spinola, Palazzo Tursi, Palazzo San Giorgio. The devastated historic center, with fires that last a very long time. The day after the king Vittorio Emanuele III and Queen Elena visit the city wound. But only the beginning. The gravest tragedy occurs the following evening, October 23-24, when the alarm for a new raid causes a huge crowd to rush to the Galleria delle Grazie in order to find shelter. The chaotic influx provokes a tremendous crowd and panic worsens the situation. Officially 354 were crushed and suffocatedwhile the bombing, paradoxically, produces much less damage than the previous one.
The ordeal of Genoa continues in November, with the raids of 6-7, 7-8, 13-14 and 15-16. The heaviest is the fourth (November 7-8) in which 176 bombers take part, of which 143 hit the target. The Italian anti-aircraft defense proves to be absolutely ineffective: throughout the cycle of attacks the RAF loses only nine aircraft, including two flying over the city. From a final estimate, in the six raids they come 7683 houses damaged, of which more than three thousand destroyed or made uninhabitable. In some areas over a third of the buildings damaged. The deadcounting the victims of the Galleria delle Grazie, I’m officially 451, but the figure appears largely underestimated. The last blanket raid on Genoa took place several months later, on 7-8 August 1943. At the time Mussolini has already fallen and the Allies hit the cities of Northern Italy to induce the new government led by Pietro Badoglio to surrender. Genoa also pays the price, with Turin and Milan. It adds to an already tragic balance sheet another hundred victims killed by bombs dropped by 72 enemy aircraft on the Ligurian city.
March 22, 2022 (change March 22, 2022 | 15:52)
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