Alessandro Bellomo
1943 - The Martyrdom of an island
The air war over Sicily in the diaries USAAF, RAF, Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica
General George S. Patton wrote in his notebook daily July 23, 1943, the day after the capture of Palermo:
[...] the port is not much damaged, but the destruction on the coast are really scary. For about two blocks deep, almost every house is a pile of rubble. Some ships, small fishing boats, motor were raised in the air and hurled on the docks, or at least tell me I do not know how else to be over there. Several small boats were sunk in the harbor, and several are broken in two [...]
But even more telling were his comments on arrival in the city of Messina Strait August 17, 1943:
do not believe that the indiscriminate shelling of the city justifies the use of these munitions and is an unnecessary cruelty to civilians.
The population had been folded, hungry and terrified by the bombings. The social fabric, bewildered by grief and a continuation of the economic crisis Allied conquest, would have long struggled to recover, no longer able to reproduce the economic and intellectual vitality of the early 1900s, which led to the level of central Europe Sicilian society.
The ruins of the bombing, which still can be glimpsed in the cities of Sicily, remain as a sad monument in memory of the war.
F.to 17x24, 340 pages completely ill., Paperback, Euro 36.00
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