In my long experience at the IBCC Digital Archive, I have frequently observed a noticeable difference in the way users tend to approach primary sources on the bombing war in Europe.
People who relate to specific Bomber Command personnel frequently start from a name and then explore all possible leads to places that they were stationed at, aircraft flown or serviced, notable operations etc. Contrariwise, people from places that were at the receiving end of the bombing war normally begin with an event: their primary concern is to establish who was involved, who gave the order, and the military justification of an action that frequently caused the death of an innocent relation, wanton destruction, or any combination thereof.
The latter is normally frustrated. No answer is more unsatisfying than hearing that a knot of people, a car, a bus, a cart, a local train, a tramway just happened to be in sight, therefore becoming a mere target of opportunity. The revelation is normally met with disappointment and discomfort: nothing is harder than the combination of lack of clear agency (death comes from an unknown and sometimes unseen perpetrator) and lack of discernible purpose, especially when it appears to be utterly senseless, and therefore completely unthinkable.
Sebastiano Parisi sets about to redress this anomaly in his recent book Gangsters dell’aria: Storie di piloti da caccia americani su Milano e Torino 1944-1945 (Air Gangsters: Stories or American Fighter Pilots on Milan and Turin 1944-1945). Tellingly, the book is part of an aptly named series Chi mi ha bombardato? (Who bombed me?)
The foci of the research are four incidents: the Piazzale Loreto bombing in Milano, the strafing of a tram at Orbassano, the attacks on a train at Bollate and on a bus at Badile, with a cumulative death toll of more than 250 civilians. Parisi describes the context in which these events took place and brings to life the human side of the event by skilfully combing a range of primary sources from the Allied side. He provides background information not only on the units that carried out these operations but also pieces together the biographies of the pilots. This is what sets the book apart from the mainstream of military history: what emerges is a tapestry of experiences captured as formal portraits, relaxed snapshots, photos of wives and fiancées, documents about life milestones, pets, homes and suchlike. While sketching profiles of men belonging to what is informally known as ‘the greatest generation’, the author takes great care in avoiding any kind of moral judgement: supplemented with minimal interpretation, sources are allowed to speak for themselves. This choice is intensively compelling. Personnel are not brutes inhabiting a different ethical universe, but totally ordinary human beings sucked into the brutal logic of a relentless total war.
The most interesting passages in the book are those in which the author tries to address a question that survivors asked themselves many times over: did they really know they were deliberately targeting civilians? If the answer is yes, they committed a war crime and must be punished accordingly – if the answer is no, they are at least culpably of neglect of even wilful ignorance. The documents shed light to a complex universe at the intersection of disciplinary power, personal ambition, the persuasion of fighting a just war, as well as the rules governing the use of violence in an armed conflict.
The book reads well, is well-researched and it will equally appeal to the Second World War buff and the local history enthusiast. Available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gangsters-dellaria-americani-1944-1945-bombardato/dp/B0DSV5732X
Alessandro Pesaro
University of Lincoln
Two additional remarks may be appropriate.
Firstly, attacking a questionable target of opportunity is not the exclusive preserve of allied fighter pilots. Flight Lieutenant Gordon Cruickshank flew with Bomber Command and took part in the infamous 24th October 1942 Milan daylight bombing:
“Over the Alps we came down to low level again making for Milan – it was a lovely clear sky, everyone was excited, I can picture us now arriving at Milan – people running, as we went down the main street with bomb doors open – and hundreds 4lb incendiaries dropped among the buildings!! With bomb doors closed we flew clear of Milan, where seeing a train we went in and I give it a burst or two with my Brownings, a gun post opened up on us – but soon stopped when I played four guns on them !! making our way towards the Alps – gaining height as we went – and was crossing them as the sun was setting, and the moon rising, a most beautiful sight of colours over the snow covered tops” https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/17702
The contemporary reader may find this passage quite distasteful, especially the palpable excitement in dropping incendiaries on people running in the street and the air of smug superiority while attacking a train, which can be considered a military target only in the broadest possible sense.
Secondly, the notion of air gangster was not confined to Italian sources but made its way into Britain, to the point that the same aircrew became aware of it.
Harry Irons reminisces about the same bombing:
“And after that raid, believe it or not the Eyetie [racial slur for Italian] didn’t want to know anything more about the war, and there was huge – we had a big publicity the next day in the Daily Express, had a huge photo of Number 9 Squadron, coming back off the raid, and they reproduced it in Italy with, English Gangsters they called us, and there we are.” https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/show/7906
This passage is interesting for two reasons. The event is framed through the lenses of consequentialism: a choice is right if the consequences are right. Since ending public support for the war effort is by definition right, the Milan bombing is automatically justified. Furthermore, the ending remark “there we are” is revealing: its primary meaning is British English is the completion of something or achieving a goal but contains the additional meaning that a situation cannot be changed and must be accepted. In this context, it can be speculated that being labelled a gangster by the country that entered a war of aggression is a somewhat unfair remark.