ACADEMIA Letters 1943. Bombs on Pompeii GIANLUCA VITAGLIANO That of the summer of 1943 was a dark page in the history of Pompeii and archeology in general. In his treatise on architecture, almost six centuries ago, Leon Battista Alberti wrote that “beauty quietens the destructive anger of the enemy, ensuring that the work of art is respected”. Yet, the war actions did not stop in front of the cultural value of this ancient city, buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79 and rediscovered starting from 1748. Pompeii, one of the major stops on the Grand Tour of artists and intellectuals, succumbs to war decisions during the Second World War. The need to open a passage in the territory occupied by the Nazis for the advance of the allied troops, which from Salerno are heading towards Naples, exposes the archaeological site to the fire of aerial bombings for a month. But then, aerial bombings always have an ambiguous character, the evaluation of which depends on the perspective from which they are observed. From below, the witnesses focus on the tragic dimension of the rain of bombs, the victims and the damage; from above, in their reports, the bomber crews describe the results of the raids on a two-dimensional background, the territory, as a result of military decisions taken elsewhere. From below, those who live those moments try to attribute a meaning to the facts, committing the rapid phases to memory and looking for plausible reasons for events otherwise difficult to understand. For those who observe them from above, however, the bombings survive only in the aerial photos and in the documentation drawn up by analysts, whose “objectivity” very often conflicts with the real outcomes of the missions and the damage caused. The Superintendent of Antiquities Amedeo Maiuri, in his writings, leaves us a vibrant testimony of his state of mind and that of his officials in those moments, powerless compared to what is happening to the archaeological heritage. In vain did the Superintendent request that the German command move the quarters away from the areas close to the excavations; in vain did Benedetto Croce, one of the most prominent Italian philosophers of the twentieth Academia Letters, April 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: GIANLUCA VITAGLIANO, gianluca.vitagliano@beniculturali.it Citation: Vitagliano, G. (2021). 1943. Bombs on Pompeii. Academia Letters, Article 349. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL349. 1 century, appeal to the foreign press to take a stand on the risk of damage to the ancient city. Pompeii was damaged by a rain of bombs that were dropped on the area on several occasions. This work, through an archive research, briefly clarifies what happens between August and September 1943 at Pompeii. The data that emerge are significant [Angelone-Vitagliano 2020]: in an area of four square kilometres, which also includes the archaeological site, at least 5200 bombs weighing over 830 tons are dropped during numerous raids. About 1700 of them are 500 pounds and as many are Academia Letters, April 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: GIANLUCA VITAGLIANO, gianluca.vitagliano@beniculturali.it Citation: Vitagliano, G. (2021). 1943. Bombs on Pompeii. Academia Letters, Article 349. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL349. 2 100 pounds; but there is also record of twenty-two 4,000-pound blockbusters, known for their ability to raze entire blocks. At least 680 tons of bombs hit the area in just three days, from 13 to 15 September. By comparison, suffice it to say that the weight of the bombs dropped on February 15, 1944 on the Abbey of Montecassino is just over 470 tons! At least 200 bombs explode inside the walls of the ancient city. Examining the archive documents, it was possible to identify the objectives of each raid and the resulting damage, reconstructing the chronology of the bombings and the role played by the various allied air forces (British, Canadian and US, in particular). Here is a summary table of the raids with the various data: This finally clarifies that the allied aviation mostly had as main objective of the raids the infrastructure just West of Pompeii, not the archaeological site itself. Another important aspect emerges from this analysis: though the amount of destruction of the archaeological heritage remains relevant, it appears to be collateral damage if compared to war needs, aimed at deconstructing the infrastructure network in the territory occupied by the Nazis. In short, the Allies did not deliberately choose to bomb Pompeii, even if they were aware of its proximity Academia Letters, April 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: GIANLUCA VITAGLIANO, gianluca.vitagliano@beniculturali.it Citation: Vitagliano, G. (2021). 1943. Bombs on Pompeii. Academia Letters, Article 349. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL349. 3 to their targets and the risks this involved. The thesis that ancient Pompeii was a target for the presence of German troops quartered near the Villa of the Mysteries does not seem sustainable. Superintendent Maiuri, in his Taccuino [Maiuri 1956], writes that on September 14 he sent a guide “to the villa of the Mysteries to try to induce the command of that position to move from the avenue and the vicinity of the Villa, so as not to justify a bombing that would be the destruction of the most precious painting in Pompeii”. However, although seven craters from explosions between 14 and 20 September located in the grounds south-west of the villa are detectable, they do not seem sufficient to support the thesis that the allied air force deliberately chose to bomb the archaeological site. In this sense, ancient Pompeii remains a material victim of the collateral effects of the raids, due to its proximity to important road and railway junctions east of Torre Annunziata, a port town south of Naples. The mission reports of the bomber crews, in fact, in some cases expressly refer to the archaeological site to identify objectives close to it: “Target for tonight was cross roads just west of the ancient ruins of Pompeii”; “Highway & R / R overpasses immediately S / W of ruins of Pompei received an excellent coverage of hits”; “Target… and Pompeii ruins cloud (sic!) Be easily seen”. But the collateral damages of the raids are also the result of the Allies’ lack of preparation and lack of knowledge of the places: in fact, during the bombing, the pilots and crews are not always up to par with the missions entrusted to them. The US 97th Bombardment Group, for example, participates in the devastating raid of 14 September 1943, which involves considerable damage to the archaeological site; it is the same group that takes part in the equally devastating bombings of Caserta, Capua, Benevento and Isernia, testifying to the inexperience of the crews in hitting targets. And again: the previous night (13 September), of the twelve aircrafts of the 487th Bomb Squadron entrusted with the mission of hitting the road intersection just west of the Pompeii ruins, nine reach the target, two miss it by unloading bombs on another intersection located south of the target, while one goes off course mistaking the island of Ischia for Capri, in the gulf of Naples! These data represent a significant step towards the reconstruction of what happened in Pompeii in the summer of 1943, certainly the darkest moment in the history of the archeological site [Pollard 2020, Garcìa y Garcìa 2006]. This was made possible thanks to archival research, but it also takes the form of an immaterial outcome of what the Great Pompeii Project has produced since around 2014 [OsannaPicone 2018]. The possibility of dealing with ancient artefacts in their material consistency— as part of the safety and enhancement activities that this Project has put in place—has repAcademia Letters, April 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: GIANLUCA VITAGLIANO, gianluca.vitagliano@beniculturali.it Citation: Vitagliano, G. (2021). 1943. Bombs on Pompeii. Academia Letters, Article 349. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL349. 4 resented an opportunity for knowledge and professional growth, which once again testifies to the centrality that the cultural heritage holds in Italy. References Angelone-Vitagliano 2020 G. Angelone, G. Vitagliano, Just West of Pompeii. Il sito archeologico e i bombardamenti dell’estate 1943, Lecce 2020 Garcìa y Garcìa 2006 L. Garcìa y Garcìa, Danni di guerra a Pompei. Una dolorosa vicenda quasi dimenticata, Roma 2006. Maiuri 1956 A. Maiuri, Taccuino Napoletano, Napoli 1956. Osanna-Picone 2018 Aa. Vv., Restaurando Pompei. Riflessioni a margine del Grande Progetto, a cura di M. Osanna, R. Picone, Roma 2018. Pollard 2020 N. Pollard, Bombing Pompeii World Heritage and Military Necessity, Ann Arbor 2020 Academia Letters, April 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: GIANLUCA VITAGLIANO, gianluca.vitagliano@beniculturali.it Citation: Vitagliano, G. (2021). 1943. Bombs on Pompeii. Academia Letters, Article 349. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL349. 5