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

by Richard Overy

The effect on German efforts to extract additional war production in northern Italy has been estimated at a loss of 30 percent in productive performance due to absenteeism and regular alarms. The overall loss of capacity for Italian industry has been estimated at 10 percent, since most industry was not an object of bombing; the loss for war-related industries was much higher, one-half for naval production, 21 percent for the metallurgical industries, 12 percent for machine engineering.139 By contrast, the textile sector lost 0.5 percent, the electrical industry 4 percent, and the chemical industry 6 percent of capacity. Damage to housing, though heavy in particular cities, has been estimated at only 6 percent of total housing stock. The chief target was the Italian transport system, where two-fifths of the rail network was destroyed along with half the rolling stock and an estimated 90 percent of all Italian trucks. The five years of war reduced Italian national income by 1945 to one-half the level of 1938.140 This mainly affected not the German occupiers but a large part of the Italian civil population, which endured widespread losses of housing and possessions, unemployment, and food shortages until well after the end of the conflict.