Allied Bombing Raids, Corfu

I've been reading an interesting and well-researched book in Greek, "Kerkyra, September 1943" (1996,1999) by George Athanasainas, which was awarded the prize of the Academy of Athens.

Many people do not realise that, apart from the appallingly destructive German incendiary bombings of Corfu in September 1943, there were also Allied bombing raids such as those in June 1944 (said to be a diversion from the Normandy landings), during which the Panagia Mandrakina church was destroyed, and earlier American bombings such as the P-38 attack on the transport ship Mario Rosselli (anchored in the harbour near Vido) on 10 October 1943, which may have claimed over a thousand victims (killed either by the explosions or by drowning), Italian prisoners of war who had been loaded on the ship by the Germans for transportation to Patras and onwards to concentration camps.

Some Corfiots were hit or injured by "friendly fire" during various Allied raids, my father-in-law amongst them (when visiting Lefkimmi).

Another important book is Sven Lindqvist's "A History of Bombing", 2001. He points out that the Italians dropped the first bomb from an aeroplane. It "exploded in an oasis outside Tripoli on November 1, 1911".

The photograph above of a bomb dropping- not on Corfu, but on Verona, Italy, on 28 January 1944, was taken by a US Air Force airman. Rapporto del bombardamento su Verona del 28/01/1944:"Gli obbiettivi del bombardamento sono segnati con delle croci, i cerchietti segnano i punti dove sono cadute le bombe."

How much lasting bitterness is caused by events of this nature...

I discussed it at length with my old friend Dr. Flavio Andreis in Verona, when he invited me to give a lecture on the Blues as Artform at the Italy-USA Cultural Association, in the beautiful Biblioteca Capitolare di Verona, in April 2008.

A virtual tour of Panagia Mandrakina