Figure 1.--The Royal Air Force bombed Copparo, lovely town in northern Italy abiut 35 miles niortheast of Bolonia (January 30, 1945). The town had many historic medieval buildings. We are not sure why Copparo was targeted, but suspect it was to interdict the supply lines to the German forces in northern Italy. One of the buildings destroyed was the meduieval church. there were 93 people killed in the church. Here we see three g boys reading a street poster condemning the bombing. Surely it was taken somewhere in niorthern Italy still occuopied by the Germans, possibly in Copparo or somewhere close to it. It would have been taken in February 1945 or at most in March just before the Germans surrendered.

After seizing Naples and southern Italy, the Allied move north was held up by a series of very effdective defensive lines and the Allied decision demanded by the Americans to focus in the Cross XChannel invasion--Operation Ovrlord. This left the Allied forces in Italy without the strength needed for such a major successful effort. And the German commander, Field Marshall Kesserling proved highly adept at using the rugged Italian terraine to best effectv for defensive opertions. The Allied encountered substantial casualtues in cracking through the German defenses. The Allies turned to their advantage in air power to dislodge the Germans. Woke idealists criticise the Allies for using air pwer in such as way that sunstantial civilian casualties occur. 【Evangelista】 Unlike the bombing of Germany, area bombing was not used. The primasry focus of the Allied bombing in Italy was two fold. First to destroy German positions and second to sever German supplyn lines. But thousands of Italians were killed in the Allied bombing. Italy did not have major war industries like the Germans had, but Italian cities were major tranport nodes with marshalling yards in city centers. A woke historian asks, why "two-thirds of the 60,000 Italian civilian victims of Allied bombing were killed after the armistice signed in September 1943, when Italy was no longer an enemy. Hundreds of thousands of homes in more than 60 towns and cities – including Rome ..." He complains that much of the bombing was done by B-24 heavy bombers mamed 'Liberators'. War is a terrible thing and people get klled. Neither America or Britain started the War. The War was started by the Germans and Italy wanted to be part of it, anxious to share in the loot. And of course, never asked is, Without the Allies, just how were the Italians going to drive the NAZIs out of Italy, stop the German astrocitides, and liberate the Italians sized and transported to the Reich for slave labor under brutal conditions? In addition how ethical is it for Italians to expect young Americans and Brits to take heavy casualties to liberate Italy when it was the Italians who played such an imprtant role in starting the War? The same connumdrum existed in France, but there after the Allied breakout from Normandy, the Germans were in full retrerat untikl reach the borders of the Reich. France did not oprivide the samde rugged terraine that could be used for defense.

Sources

Evangelista, Matthew. Allied Air Attacks and Civilian Harm in Italy, 1940-1945: Bombing Among Friends

Created: 4:31 PM 2/18/2023
Last updated: 4:31 PM 2/18/2023