The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe 1940-1945

by Richard Overy

From the outset it was assumed that Italian morale under Fascism was likely to be a more brittle target than German society under Hitler. Bombing could hence be justified by the expectation of rapid and significant political consequences rather than slow economic attrition. The first raids on northern Italy carried out by Bomber Command from British bases in June and August 1940—three in all involving only seventeen aircraft—were reported to have had “a ‘stunning’ effect on Italian morale.”8 Intelligence fed to the RAF leadership suggested that Italy was “the heel of Achilles” in the Axis war effort, short of resources and with a population unhappy about having to fight Mussolini’s war.9 Since Italy was difficult to reach from British bases or from bases in Egypt with existing aircraft, heavy bombing was not yet an option. But since Italy was regarded as politically fragile, a leaflet war was mounted to try to persuade the population to give up the fight; a total of 4,780,500 leaflets were dropped between 1940 and 1942.