Air raid on Bari

In early September 1943, coinciding with the Allied invasion of Italy, Italy surrendered to the Allies in the Armistice of Cassibile and changed sides, but the Italian Social Republic in central and northern Italy continued the war on the Axis side. On 11 September 1943, the port of Bari in southern Italy was taken unopposed by the British 1st Airborne Division. The port was used by the Allies to land ammunition, supplies and provisions from ships at the port for Allied forces advancing towards Rome and to push German forces out of the Italian peninsula.

Bari had inadequate air defences; no Royal Air Force (RAF) fighter aircraft squadrons were based there, and fighters within range were assigned to escort or offensive duties, not port defence. Ground defences were equally ineffective.[2]

Little thought was given to the possibility of a German air raid on Bari, because it was believed that the Luftwaffe in Italy was stretched too thin to mount a serious attack. On the afternoon of 2 December 1943, Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham, commander of the Northwest African Tactical Air Force, held a press conference where he stated that the Germans had lost the air war. "I would consider it as a personal insult if the enemy should send so much as one plane over the city".[3] That was despite the fact that German air raids by KG 54, KG 76, and other units, had hit the port area of Naples four times in the previous month, and attacked other Mediterranean targets.[2]

Thirty ships of American, British, Polish, Norwegian and Dutch registry were in Bari Harbour on 2 December. The adjoining port city held a civilian population of 250,000.[4] The port was lit on the night of the raid to expedite the unloading of supplies for the Battle of Monte Cassino and was working at full capacity.[4]

On the afternoon of 2 December, Luftwaffe pilot Werner Hahn made a reconnaissance flight over Bari in an Me 210. His report resulted in Albert Kesselring ordering the raid; Kesselring and his staff had earlier considered Allied airfields at Foggia as targets but the Luftwaffe lacked the resources for such an attack.[3] Generalfeldmarschall Wolfram von Richthofen—who commanded Luftflotte 2—had suggested Bari as an alternative.[5] Richthofen believed that crippling the port might slow the advance of the British Eighth Army and told Kesselring that the only aircraft available were his Junkers Ju 88A-4 bombers. Richthofen thought that a raid by 150 Ju 88s might be possible but only 105 bombers were available, some from KG 54.[6] Most of the aeroplanes were to fly from Italian airfields but Richthofen wanted to use a few from Yugoslavia in the hope that the Allies might be fooled into thinking that the mission originated from there and misdirect any retaliatory strikes. The Ju 88 pilots were ordered to fly east to the Adriatic Sea, then swing south and west, since it was thought that the Allied forces would expect any attack to come from the north.

Allied ships burn during the raid.

The attack opened at 19:25, when two or three German aircraft circled the harbour at 10,000 ft (3,000 m) dropping Düppel (foil strips) to confuse Allied radar. They also dropped flares, which were not needed due to the harbour being well illuminated.[4] The German bomber force surprised the defenders and was able to bomb the harbour with great accuracy. Hits on two ammunition ships caused explosions which shattered windows 7 mi (11 km) away.[4] A bulk petrol pipeline on a quay was severed and the gushing fuel ignited.[7] A sheet of burning fuel spread over much of the harbor, engulfing undamaged ships.[4]

Twenty-eight merchant ships laden with more than 34,000 short tons (31,000 t) of cargo were sunk or destroyed; three ships carrying a further 7,500 short tons (6,800 t) were later salvaged.[2] Twelve more ships were damaged.[8] The port was closed for three weeks and was only restored to full operation in February 1944.[7] All Bari-based submarines were undamaged, their tough exteriors able to withstand the German attack.

Ships damaged in the raid

Name	Flag	Type	GRT or Displacement	Status[8]	Notes
Ardito			3,732 GRT[8]	Sunk
Argo		Coaster	526 GRT[8]	Damaged
Aube		Cargo ship	1,055 GRT[8]	Sunk
Barletta		Auxiliary cruiser	1,975 GRT[8][9][10]	Sunk	Forty-four crew killed. Four men from the militarized crew killed in action and four men were wounded. The military crew had twenty-two men killed in action, fourteen missing in action and forty wounded. Raised in 1948–1949 and repaired.[9]
HMS Bicester		Hunt-class destroyer	1,050 GRT[8]	Damaged
Bollsta		Cargo ship	1,832 GRT[8][11]	Sunk	Raised in 1948, repaired and returned to service as Stefano M.[8]
Brittany Coast		Cargo ship	1,389 GRT[8]	Damaged
Cassala		Cargo ship	1,797 GRT[8]	Total loss
Corfu		Cargo ship	1,409 GRT[8]	Total loss
Crista		Cargo ship	1,389 GRT[8]	Damaged
Dagö		Cargo ship	1,996 GRT[8]	Damaged
Devon Coast		Coaster	646 GRT[8][12]	Sunk
Fort Athabaska		Fort ship	7,132 GRT[13]	Sunk
Fort Lajoie		Fort ship	7,134 GRT[8][14]	Sunk
Frosinone		Cargo ship	5,202 GRT[8][15]	Sunk
Genespesca II		Cargo ship	1,628 GRT[8]	Sunk
Goggiam		Cargo ship	1,934 GRT[8]	Total loss
Grace Abbott		Liberty ship	7,191 GRT[8]	Damaged
Inaffondabile		Schooner	Unknown[16]	Sunk
John Bascom		Liberty ship	7,176 GRT[8]	Sunk	Four crewmen, ten armed guards killed.[17] Wreck scrapped in 1948.[18]
John Harvey		Liberty ship	7,177 GRT[8]	Sunk	Cargo of mustard gas bombs. Thirty-six crewmen, ten soldiers, twenty armed guards killed.[17] Wreck scrapped in 1948.[18]
John L. Motley		Liberty ship	7,176 GRT[8]	Sunk	Cargo of ammunition. Thirty-six crewmen, Twenty-four armed guards killed.[17]
John M. Schofield		Liberty ship	7,181 GRT[8]	Damaged
Joseph Wheeler		Liberty ship	7,176 GRT[8]	Sunk	Twenty-six crewmen, fifteen armed guards killed.[17] Wreck scrapped in 1948.[19]
Lars Kruse		Cargo ship	1,807 GRT[8]	Sunk	Nineteen crew killed.[20]
Lom		Cargo ship	1,268 GRT[8]	Sunk	Four crew killed.[21]
Luciano Orlando		Cargo ship	Unknown[8]	Sunk
Lwów		Cargo ship	1,409 GRT[8][22]	Sunk
Lyman Abbott		Liberty ship	7,176 GRT[8]	Damaged
MB 10		Armed motor boat	13 tons displacement[8]	Sunk
Norlom		Cargo ship	6,326 GRT[8]	Sunk	Six crew killed. Refloated November 1946, scrapped 1947.
Odysseus		Cargo ship	1,057 GRT[8]	Damaged
Porto Pisano		Coaster	226 GRT[8]	Sunk
Puck		Cargo ship	1,065 GRT[8][23]	Sunk
Samuel J. Tilden		Liberty ship	7,176 GRT[8]	Sunk	Ten crewmen, fourteen U.S. soldiers, three British soldiers killed.[17] Wreck scrapped in 1948.[24]
Testbank		Cargo ship	5,083 GRT[8]	Sunk	Seventy crew killed.[25]
Vest		Cargo ship	5,074 GRT[8]	Damaged
HMS Vienna		Depot ship	4,227 GRT[8]	Damaged
Volodda		Cargo ship	4,673 GRT[8]	Sunk
HMS Zetland		Hunt-class destroyer	1,050 GRT[8]	Damaged

One of the destroyed vessels—the U.S. Liberty ship John Harvey—had been carrying a secret cargo of 2000 M47A1 mustard gas bombs, each holding 60–70 lb (27–32 kg) of the agent. According to Royal Navy historian Stephen Roskill, the cargo had been sent to Europe for potential retaliatory use if Germany carried out its alleged threat to use chemical warfare in Italy.[7] The destruction of John Harvey caused liquid sulfur mustard from the bombs to spill into waters already contaminated by oil from the other damaged vessels. The many sailors who had abandoned their ships into the water became covered with the oily mixture, which provided an ideal solvent for the sulfur mustard. Some mustard evaporated and mingled with the clouds of smoke and flame.[4] The wounded were pulled from the water and sent to medical facilities whose personnel were unaware of the mustard gas. Medical staff focused on personnel with blast or fire injuries and little attention was given to those merely covered with oil.[26] Many injuries caused by prolonged exposure to low concentrations of mustard might have been reduced by bathing or a change of clothes.[27]

Within a day, the first symptoms of mustard poisoning had appeared in 628 patients and medical staff, including blindness and chemical burns. That puzzling development was further complicated by the arrival of hundreds of Italian civilians also seeking treatment, who had been poisoned by a cloud of sulfur mustard vapor that had blown over the city when some of John Harvey's cargo exploded. As the medical crisis worsened, little information was available about what was causing the symptoms, because the U.S. military command wanted to keep the presence of chemical munitions secret from the Germans.[28] Nearly all crewmen of John Harvey had been killed, and were unavailable to explain the cause of the "garlic-like" odor noted by rescue personnel.[26]

Informed about the mysterious symptoms, Deputy Surgeon General Fred Blesse sent for Lieutenant Colonel Stewart Francis Alexander, an expert in chemical warfare. Carefully tallying the locations of the victims at the time of the attack, Alexander traced the epicenter to John Harvey, and confirmed mustard gas as the responsible agent when he located a fragment of the casing of a U.S. M47A1 bomb.[3]

By the end of the month, 83 of the 628 hospitalized military victims had died. The number of civilian casualties, thought to have been even greater, could not be accurately gauged since most had left the city to seek shelter with relatives.[3]

An additional cause of contamination with mustard is suggested by George Southern, the only survivor of the raid to have written about it. The huge explosion of John Harvey, possibly simultaneously with another ammunition ship, sent large amounts of oily water mixed with mustard into the air, which fell down like rain on men who were on deck at the time. That affected the crews of the Hunt-class destroyers HMS Zetland and HMS Bicester. Both ships were damaged by the force of the blast and had taken casualties. After moving the destroyers away from burning ships and towing the tanker La Drome away from the fires, the ships received orders to sail for Taranto. They threaded their way past burning wrecks, with the flotilla leader, Bicester having to follow Zetland, because her navigation equipment was damaged. Some survivors were picked up from the water in the harbour entrance by Bicester. When dawn broke, it became clear that the magnetic and gyro compasses had acquired large errors, requiring a considerable course correction. Symptoms of mustard gas poisoning then began to appear. By the time they reached Taranto, none of Bicester's officers could see well enough to navigate the ship into harbour, so assistance had to be sought from the shore.[29]

An inquiry exonerated Sir Arthur Coningham of negligence in defending the port but found that the absence of previous air attacks had led to complacency.[7]

• List of accidents and incidents involving transport or storage of ammunition
• SS Charles Henderson

• Atkinson, Rick (2007). The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943–1944. New York: Henry Holt. ISBN 978-0-8050-6289-2.
• Infield, Glenn B. (1976). Disaster at Bari. Toronto: Bantam. ISBN 978-0-450-02659-1.
• Langford, R. Everett (2004). Introduction to Weapons of Mass Destruction. John Wiley/Interscience. ISBN 978-0-471-46560-7.
• Mason, Geoffrey B. (2004). Service Histories of Royal Navy Warships in World War II.
• Morison, Samuel Eliot (1975) [1954]. Volume 9: Sicily-Salerno-Anzio January 1943 – June 1944. History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. Boston: Little, Brown. ISBN 0-316-58316-2. OCLC 313489807.
• Orange, Vincent (1992) [1st pub. London: Methuen 1990]. Coningham: a biography of Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham. Washington, D.C.: Center for Air Force History. ISBN 0-413-14580-8.
• Pechura, Constance M.; Rall, David P. (1993). Veterans at Risk: The Health Effects of Mustard Gas and Lewisite. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press. Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on the Survey of the Health Effects of Mustard Gas Lewisite. doi:10.17226/2058. ISBN 0-309-04832-X. PMID 25144024.
• Reminick, Gerald (2001). Nightmare in Bari: The World War II Liberty Ship Poison Gas Disaster and Coverup. Palo Alto: Glencannon Press. ISBN 1-889901-21-0.
• Saunders, D.M. (September 1967). "The Bari Incident". United States Naval Institute Proceedings. Annapolis: United States Naval Institute.
• Southern, George (2002). Poisonous inferno: World War II tragedy at Bari Harbour. Shrewsbury, England: Airlife Publishing. ISBN 1-84037-389-X.
• "Naval Armed Guard Service: Tragedy at Bari, Italy on 2 December 1943". U.S. Department of the Navy – Naval Historical Center. 8 August 2006. Archived from the original on 12 January 2008. Retrieved 7 January 2008.

• Birchfield, B.; Ellis, Harry V., III & Pflug, Robert H. (1989). "Question 2/88". Warship International. XXVI (2): 202–203. ISSN 0043-0374.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

• Trailer documentary Top Secret Bari 2 December 1943 on YouTube