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Allied Air Attacks and Civilian Harm in Italy, 1940–1945 Bombing among Friends

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How did Allied bombing strategies in Italy evolve from targeting military facilities to actions that caused even greater civilian harm after Italy’s surrender in 1943?

Image courtesy of interviewee. December 10, 2024

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The speaker became interested in the topic of Allied air attacks on Italy during World War II after reading Iris Rigo's memoirs, which described civilian attacks even after Italy had withdrawn from the war. Rigo's writings reveal the strange reality faced by Italian civilians during Nazi occupation, prompting the speaker to explore the broader context of Allied bombing strategies against Italy.

The speaker outlines the timeline of Italy's involvement in the war, emphasizing Mussolini's opportunistic decision to join the conflict after Germany's successes. The British initially targeted industrial areas in Italy, aiming to demoralize the population through bombings that often resulted in civilian casualties, ironically impacting those most opposed to fascism. Prime Minister Churchill's strategy was to incite rebellion against Mussolini's regime, which raised ethical concerns about the justification of such actions under international law.

The discussion highlights the contributions of Sully Zuckerman, who influenced bombing strategies aimed at disrupting German supply lines while also leading to civilian harm due to the inaccuracy of the attacks. After Italy's armistice in September 1943, partisans began to fight against German forces, often with conflicting goals compared to the Allies, who were still supporting the Italian monarchy.

The conversation also touches on John Houston's documentary, "The Battle of San Pietro," which, despite being a recreation, shaped Italian perceptions of the war. The film symbolizes the ambivalence Italians felt towards their liberation by the Allies while suffering devastating losses from warfare. This video ongoing complexity in Italian attitudes toward conflict is further illustrated through their contemporary responses to modern conflicts, revealing a legacy of pacifism intertwined with the historical experiences of World War II.

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1. **Inspiration from Memoirs**: The author became interested in the topic after reading the memoirs of Iris Rigo, who lived in Italy during World War II and described the impact of aerial attacks on civilians, leading to a study of Allied air power's role against Italy.

2. **Italy's Unique Position in WWII**: Initially an ally of Germany, Italy's entry into the war came later, and despite its withdrawal and the occupation by German forces, Allied bombing strategies continued to target Italian civilians and infrastructure, causing significant loss of life.

3. **Ethics of Bombing and Civilian Impact**: The video discusses the moral implications of bombing strategies during WWII, highlighting the shift from individual military targeting to mass bombing of civilian populations, which went against established international law and aimed to demoralize the populace rather than achieve clear military objectives.

4. **Coordination with Partisans**: The Allies collaborated with Italian partisans—anti-fascist fighters who aimed to protect civilians—yet there was tension due to differing political ideologies and priorities concerning the treatment of civilians during bombing campaigns.

5. **Cultural Legacy and Memory**: The aftermath of the bombings and the portrayal of the war in films like “The Battle of San Pietro” created complex memories among Italians regarding their liberation, as they experienced both the devastation and the suffering caused by the Allied forces meant to be liberators, reflecting ongoing ambivalence in their historical and cultural memory.

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Here are some key quotes from the video:

1. **Interest in the Topic**:
- "I got interested in this topic when I was reading the memoirs of Iris Rigo... she described in her diary, civilians being attacked, from the air..."

2. **Convideo of War in Italy**:
- "Italy, at that point, had withdrawn from the war, was under German Nazi occupation. And so really the Italians shouldn't have been the enemy anymore."

3. **Strategic Bombing**:
- "The main targets were industrial facilities... but Winston Churchill... could also demoralize the population."

4. **Civilian Casualties**:
- "The irony is that the people they were killing were the people most opposed to the fascist regime."

5. **British Air Strategy**:
- "Winston Churchill... talked about... destroying the workers' homes deliberately."

6. **Ethics of Bombing**:
- "The ethics and the legal status of bombing are very closely connected because international law comes from the Christian just war tradition... the argument is that they should not be harmed disproportionately."

7. **Impact on Civilians**:
- "After the armistice in September 1943... many Italians had become partisan fighters."

8. **Partisans and Allies**:
- "There was that kind of coordination... the partisans were very attentive to harm to civilians and the allies less so."

9. **Ambivalence of War**:
- "Italians were supposed to be being liberated by the allies, but they were suffering tremendously."

10. **Symbol of Destruction**:
- "San Pietro itself was completely destroyed... represents that ambivalence that Italians still..."

These quotes encapsulate the main themes and arguments made in the video, such as the role of air power in civilian casualties, the ethical implications of bombing strategies, and the complex feelings of Italians regarding their experiences in World War II.

X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:90000

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I got interested in this topic

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when I was reading the memoirs of Iris Rigo,

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who was an Anglo-American, woman who was married

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to an Italian aristocrat

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and lived, in Italy during World War ii.

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And she described in her diary, civilians being attacked,

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from the air, a school teacher driving her pony cart,

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to work a civilian train that happened

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to have allied prisoners of war on it.

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And I began to think how strange that was,

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because Italy, at that point, had withdrawn

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from the war, was under German Nazi occupation.

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And so really the Italians shouldn't have been the

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enemy anymore.

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Uh, so that's what got me interested in, in the topic.

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So I ended up studying the role of

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allied air power attacks against Italy,

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from the beginning of Italy's involvement in the war,

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through to the end,

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because Italy was bombed just

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a few days longer than Germany.

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So basically, Italy was bombed throughout, the war.

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September, 1939, the war broke out in Europe

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with Nazi Germany's attack on Poland.

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Britain and France at that point realized

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that their policies of appeasement had failed,

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and they declared war on Germany.

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Italy's situation was unusual because, Benito Mussolini

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and his fascist regime were ideological allies

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of Hitler's Germany,

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but Mussolini didn't join the war right away.

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He waited until the Germans had driven the British off the

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continent at Dunkirk.

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Then he opportunistically invaded France, and,

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and declared war on Britain, hoping

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that Britain would be defeated by Germany

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and Italy could get its colonies, for example.

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So the first, air strategy for Britain

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was to attack Italy.

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It had already been attacking Germany,

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and Germany launched air raids against London

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in the, in the Blitz.

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So it already had a strategy actually, by April, 1940,

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before the Italians entered the war, Britain knew

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what kind of strategy it wanted to pursue against Italy.

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The main targets were industrial

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facilities in the, so-called Industrial Triangle, so Genoa,

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Milan, Turin.

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And these were factories producing military goods.

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So far so good. That's a legitimate military target.

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Uh, but Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister,

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had something else in mind.

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He thought by attacking those factories,

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which were in the

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Neighborhoods where the workers lived with their families,

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he could also demoralize the population.

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And he was really counting on the bombing,

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which was not very accurate in those days.

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And in fact, because of the loss of pilots

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and crews from anti-aircraft fire,

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the British began a policy of night bombing.

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So even less accuracy was possible.

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They would kill lots of civilians.

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And the irony is that the people they were killing

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were the people most opposed to the fascist regime.

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They were communist and anarchist,

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workers trade unionists who had been suppressed by

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Mussolini and were already opposed to fascism.

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But Churchill's idea was demoralize them, get them

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to rise up against the fascist regime,

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pull Italy out of the war.

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And he, his language was pretty blood thirsty, actually.

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I mean, he talked about, well, deh was the,

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was the policy destroying the workers,

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homes deliberately.

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But he talked about, you hotting up the fire,

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to the utmost, and Italy will be, burned

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and scarred,

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and the Italians will stew in their own juices

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until they leave the alliance with Hitler.

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So that was the air strategy such as it was, at the,

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at the outset until, Italy did pull out of try

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to pull out of the war.

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The ethics and the legal status of bombing are very closely,

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connected because international law comes from,

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the Christian just war tradition,

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which emphasizes separating military targets from

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civilian targets.

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There's an assumption that civilians will be harmed,

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but the argument is that they should not be harmed

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disproportionately to the military benefit that

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disappeared in World War ii.

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Uh, and especially the allies

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concentrated on mass bombing of civilians.

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We know the more famous, cases, the destruction

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of Berlin, the firebombing of, of Dresden Tokyo,

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the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Italy,

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and to a lesser extent, France are not, considered

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so much in those, those histories

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of strategic bombing.

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Uh, but it was a, a very similar phenomenon.

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Demoralized the civilian population

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to get the country to withdraw.

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British strategy was very much influenced by,

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the work of Sully Zuckerman.

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He was actually an anatomist, a primatologist.

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He worked, for the London Zoo

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and later the University of Oxford,

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and he was, was recruited by the molecular physicist,

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JD Bernal, who was working for the government at the time,

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to study the impact of bombing on, on human beings.

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And Bernal thought, well, he has all these chimpanzees,

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let's have them come over and we'll, we'll see what happens.

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They wanted to know, especially about the effect of,

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shock waves of civilians who were, protected in,

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in shelters and so forth.

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Uh, but very soon, Zuckerman began advising the British

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on the offensive bombing strategy, not just the effect of,

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of, of British people of the German bombing.

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And he was involved in, bombing Sicily when the Allies

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invaded in, in June, 1943

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and later, he planned the bombing of the rest of Italy.

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And what he had in mind was to try

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to affect the course of the war.

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Now, once the, the Italians had withdrawn in September, 1943

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with the Armes, it was mainly, the Germans fighting

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with some Italian allies,

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but much of the Italian army had disintegrated.

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Many Italians had become partisan fighters.

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So the idea was to affect the war against the Germans.

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And Zuckerman's idea that he got from the Sicilian campaign

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was that you could disrupt the supply of

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military goods to the front by destroying

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what he called railroad junctures and marshaling yards.

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So he thought, if we can disrupt the railways themselves,

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and especially the repair of locomotives

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and that kind of thing that will prevent,

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that will isolate the battlefield, in the language

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that they would use and,

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and help the allies beat the Germans.

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The problem with that is that first, again,

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we still have the inaccuracy of the bombing,

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but railroad junctures and marshaling yards are in cities.

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Uh, so doing that kind of bombing would

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entail a very high civilian toll.

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And it's something that, that,

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that Zuckerman really didn't, reflect on very much.

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Uh, his, his boss, who was Air Marshall Tedder,

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talked about, asked him, you know,

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how many tons will it take to destroy a town?

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And that was the, that was the thinking at the time,

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even though supposedly they were supposed

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to be producing a military effect.

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After the armistice in September, 1943,

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Mussolini's regime had been, deposed.

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Mussolini had been deposed by the Grand Council of Fascism.

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The person who took over was Marshall Bolio.

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Uh, the king was still, in power,

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and they really dithered about what to do.

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Uh, but Doo could have said,

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Italian soldiers turn your weapons against the

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Germans, but he didn't.

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First he said, the war is continuing.

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It would be dishonorable to leave our allies.

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And then he said, well, you can defend yourselves,

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but don't attack the Germans.

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But the Italian soldiers were really sick

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of fascism by then.

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So many of them, dissolved their units,

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and went, to fight against the, Germans.

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The most active movement was, in the Piedmont region

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of Northwestern Italy on the border, with France.

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And there was one figure, whom I studied,

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called Aldo Kranta.

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He was, an among, a member of the Albani.

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Uh, so he was very, familiar with the Alpine,

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passes, and he formed a brigade

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of partisans associated with the movement called

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Sia Liberta.

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They were an anti-fascist group formed in Paris in 1929.

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And it was the kind of the military wing

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of GLA, as they called it.

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And, QTA is implicated in this

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issue of air, air, power,

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or harm to civilians, in a number of ways.

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I, I got interested in the role of the partisans, actually,

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because of where I live, part-time, in Italy,

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which is here, in Piedmont, in the, in the countryside,

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and just, I live across, the dirt road from a,

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a monument to the partisans.

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And just a little ways up the road is the field

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where the allies would drop supplies.

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So the partisans, so that's the first way

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that air power comes into it,

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that the allies were collaborating to a certain degree

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with the partisans, to supply, to supply them.

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Uh, the other way is that the allies were

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attacking targets that the partisans also wanted

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to attack, because the partisans were fighting German units.

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And so they would want, for example, to cut off bridges so

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that they couldn't, approach

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or so that they would be surrounded

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and they would fight, and so forth.

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And so lots of times they had targets in common.

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The difference is that the partisans were very attentive

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to harm to civilians and the allies less so.

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So one thing that I discovered in my research,

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and I think I'm, I'm the first one to have made this point,

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is that the artisans would often destroy

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targets specifically to prevent the allies

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from bombing them, to preserve civilians.

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So there was that kind of coordination.

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There was also a lot of attention, tension because

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The partisans tended to be anti-fascist left-wing,

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some of them communist socialist, and the British

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and Americans were still supporting the

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King and Bolio, right?

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So there was that kind of tension, between them.

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So John Houston, famous director,

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joined the US Army during World War II as a captain.

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Many other Hollywood figures, did the same thing.

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Houston was already famous for, the Maltese Falcon

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and other, movies.

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He was, commissioned by the Army

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to make a film, essentially explaining

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to Americans why us troops were in Italy, especially

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after the Italians, were,

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were clearly on their back foot.

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The main enemy was Germany.

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Why was, why was the United States not fighting in Germany?

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Why was it in Italy? So he went, to Italy

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with a film crew

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and filmed a documentary, we think of it

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as a documentary called The Battle of San Pietro.

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And it was based on, well, it,

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it was interpreted as it was received as

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an actual documentary of the fighting as it was going on.

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Uh, James Agee, the music critic writing in the nation,

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described how, accurate it was

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because the film crew really knew what they were doing.

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They were involved in the war and so forth.

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Uh, we know now, from a number of different sources

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that Houston was not there at the battle

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that he actually recreated it afterwards.

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Uh, so that's the first point.

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Uh, he arrived in Italy shortly

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after the battle finished.

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Many of the soldiers had been killed,

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but he recruited soldiers to serve, as actors.

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And so the recreation of, of the battle has come to be

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interpreted by Italians as the reality.

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You'll see Italian documentaries

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where they'll use footage from Houston's film

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as if it's documentary footage.

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Uh, but the main thing that that happened with,

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with the Battle of San Pietro is that it became a kind

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of icon of, Italian

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memories and understanding of the war.

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And what they mainly remember is the ambivalence,

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which is at the heart of, of my book,

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because the Italians were supposed to be being liberated by

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the allies, but they were suffering tremendously.

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San Pieto itself, itself was completely, destroyed.

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It's a ruin now,

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and it's a kind of a symbol, the way.

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Um, what, what is the, what is the, remnant

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like Coventry Cathedral in, in Britain is left as a ruin.

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And then the modern, and then the modern cathedral is,

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is, is right there next to it.

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Uh, San Chiro has a modern town next to it,

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but the original village, was destroyed.

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So it represents that ambivalence that Italians still

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have about war.

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And we see it, for example, in their reaction

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to the Russian invasion, of Ukraine,

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that they understand that the Ukrainians have a just cause

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of their defense,

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but they still, don't, don't want

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to be supporting a war.

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Uh, there was a book with a subtitle, about Italian

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military operations after World War ii,

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just don't call it war.

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Uh, so their, their soldiers engaged in humanitarian

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activities, in Lebanon, for example, in, in the past.

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They just don't want to think of it as war.

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And so that streak of pacifism, I think,

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is very much connected to the legacy of, of Houston's,

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movie and the overall effect of,

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of World War II on the Italians.

Allied Air Attacks on Italy During WWII

00:00:00 - I got interested in this topic when I was reading the memoirs of Iris Rigo, who was an Anglo-American, woman who was married to an Italian aristocrat and lived, in Italy during World War ii. And she described in her diary, civilians being attacked, from the air, a school teacher driving her pony cart, to work a civilian train that happened to have allied prisoners of war on it.

00:00:33 - because Italy, at that point, had withdrawn from the war, was under German Nazi occupation. And so really the Italians shouldn't have been the enemy anymore. so that's what got me interested in, in the topic. So I ended up studying the role of allied air power attacks against Italy, from the beginning of Italy's involvement in the war,

00:01:04 - because Italy was bombed just a few days longer than Germany. So basically, Italy was bombed throughout, the war. September, 1939, the war broke out in Europe with Nazi Germany's attack on Poland. Britain and France at that point realized that their policies of appeasement had failed, and they declared war on Germany. Italy's situation was unusual because, Benito Mussolini

Strategic Bombing: The Allies' Complex Tactics Against Italy

00:01:40 - of Hitler's Germany, but Mussolini didn't join the war right away. He waited until the Germans had driven the British off the continent at Dunkirk. Then he opportunistically invaded France, and, and declared war on Britain, hoping that Britain would be defeated by Germany and Italy could get its colonies, for example. So the first, air strategy for Britain

00:02:13 - It had already been attacking Germany, and Germany launched air raids against London in the, in the Blitz. So it already had a strategy actually, by April, 1940, before the Italians entered the war, Britain knew what kind of strategy it wanted to pursue against Italy. The main targets were industrial facilities in the, so-called Industrial Triangle, so Genoa,

00:02:41 - And these were factories producing military goods. So far so good. That's a legitimate military target. but Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister, had something else in mind. He thought by attacking those factories, which were in the Neighborhoods where the workers lived with their families, he could also demoralize the population. And he was really counting on the bombing, which was not very accurate in those days.

Night Bombing: The Paradox of Civilian Targets in War

00:03:12 - and crews from anti-aircraft fire, the British began a policy of night bombing. So even less accuracy was possible. They would kill lots of civilians. And the irony is that the people they were killing were the people most opposed to the fascist regime. They were communist and anarchist, workers trade unionists who had been suppressed by Mussolini and were already opposed to fascism.

00:03:46 - to rise up against the fascist regime, pull Italy out of the war. And he, his language was pretty blood thirsty, actually. I mean, he talked about, well, deh was the, was the policy destroying the workers, homes deliberately. But he talked about, you hotting up the fire, to the utmost, and Italy will be, burned

00:04:15 - and the Italians will stew in their own juices until they leave the alliance with Hitler. So that was the air strategy such as it was, at the, at the outset until, Italy did pull out of try to pull out of the war. The ethics and the legal status of bombing are very closely, connected because international law comes from, the Christian just war tradition, which emphasizes separating military targets from

Civilian Casualties and Strategic Bombing in WWII

00:04:48 - There's an assumption that civilians will be harmed, but the argument is that they should not be harmed disproportionately to the military benefit that disappeared in World War ii. and especially the allies concentrated on mass bombing of civilians. We know the more famous, cases, the destruction of Berlin, the firebombing of, of Dresden Tokyo,

00:05:22 - and to a lesser extent, France are not, considered so much in those, those histories of strategic bombing. but it was a, a very similar phenomenon. Demoralized the civilian population to get the country to withdraw. British strategy was very much influenced by, the work of Sully Zuckerman.

00:05:52 - He worked, for the London Zoo and later the University of Oxford, and he was, was recruited by the molecular physicist, JD Bernal, who was working for the government at the time, to study the impact of bombing on, on human beings. And Bernal thought, well, he has all these chimpanzees, let's have them come over and we'll, we'll see what happens. They wanted to know, especially about the effect of, shock waves of civilians who were, protected in,

Zuckerman's Strategic Bombing Plan in Italy

00:06:23 - but very soon, Zuckerman began advising the British on the offensive bombing strategy, not just the effect of, of, of British people of the German bombing. And he was involved in, bombing Sicily when the Allies invaded in, in June, 1943 and later, he planned the bombing of the rest of Italy. And what he had in mind was to try

00:06:54 - Now, once the, the Italians had withdrawn in September, 1943 with the Armes, it was mainly, the Germans fighting with some Italian allies, but much of the Italian army had disintegrated. Many Italians had become partisan fighters. So the idea was to affect the war against the Germans. And Zuckerman's idea that he got from the Sicilian campaign was that you could disrupt the supply of

00:07:28 - what he called railroad junctures and marshaling yards. So he thought, if we can disrupt the railways themselves, and especially the repair of locomotives and that kind of thing that will prevent, that will isolate the battlefield, in the language that they would use and, and help the allies beat the Germans. The problem with that is that first, again, we still have the inaccuracy of the bombing,

Ethical Dilemmas of Bombing in WWII

00:08:03 - so doing that kind of bombing would entail a very high civilian toll. And it's something that, that, that Zuckerman really didn't, reflect on very much. his, his boss, who was Air Marshall Tedder, talked about, asked him, you know, how many tons will it take to destroy a town?

00:08:32 - even though supposedly they were supposed to be producing a military effect. After the armistice in September, 1943, Mussolini's regime had been, deposed. Mussolini had been deposed by the Grand Council of Fascism. The person who took over was Marshall Bolio. the king was still, in power, and they really dithered about what to do.

00:09:02 - Italian soldiers turn your weapons against the Germans, but he didn't. First he said, the war is continuing. It would be dishonorable to leave our allies. And then he said, well, you can defend yourselves, but don't attack the Germans. But the Italian soldiers were really sick of fascism by then. So many of them, dissolved their units, and went, to fight against the, Germans.

Partisan Resistance and Allied Collaboration in WWII Italy

00:09:35 - of Northwestern Italy on the border, with France. And there was one figure, whom I studied, called Aldo Kranta. He was, an among, a member of the Albani. so he was very, familiar with the Alpine, passes, and he formed a brigade of partisans associated with the movement called

00:10:03 - They were an anti-fascist group formed in Paris in 1929. And it was the kind of the military wing of GLA, as they called it. And, QTA is implicated in this issue of air, air, power, or harm to civilians, in a number of ways. I, I got interested in the role of the partisans, actually, because of where I live, part-time, in Italy, which is here, in Piedmont, in the, in the countryside,

00:10:37 - a monument to the partisans. And just a little ways up the road is the field where the allies would drop supplies. So the partisans, so that's the first way that air power comes into it, that the allies were collaborating to a certain degree with the partisans, to supply, to supply them. the other way is that the allies were attacking targets that the partisans also wanted

Partisan Strategies and Civilian Concerns in WWII Italy

00:11:09 - And so they would want, for example, to cut off bridges so that they couldn't, approach or so that they would be surrounded and they would fight, and so forth. And so lots of times they had targets in common. The difference is that the partisans were very attentive to harm to civilians and the allies less so. So one thing that I discovered in my research, and I think I'm, I'm the first one to have made this point,

00:11:40 - targets specifically to prevent the allies from bombing them, to preserve civilians. So there was that kind of coordination. There was also a lot of attention, tension because The partisans tended to be anti-fascist left-wing, some of them communist socialist, and the British and Americans were still supporting the King and Bolio, right? So there was that kind of tension, between them.

00:12:13 - joined the US Army during World War II as a captain. Many other Hollywood figures, did the same thing. Houston was already famous for, the Maltese Falcon and other, movies. He was, commissioned by the Army to make a film, essentially explaining to Americans why us troops were in Italy, especially after the Italians, were,

The Battle of San Pietro: Documentary or Fiction?

00:12:43 - The main enemy was Germany. Why was, why was the United States not fighting in Germany? Why was it in Italy? So he went, to Italy with a film crew and filmed a documentary, we think of it as a documentary called The Battle of San Pietro. And it was based on, well, it, it was interpreted as it was received as an actual documentary of the fighting as it was going on.

00:13:18 - described how, accurate it was because the film crew really knew what they were doing. They were involved in the war and so forth. we know now, from a number of different sources that Houston was not there at the battle that he actually recreated it afterwards. so that's the first point. he arrived in Italy shortly

00:13:46 - Many of the soldiers had been killed, but he recruited soldiers to serve, as actors. And so the recreation of, of the battle has come to be interpreted by Italians as the reality. You'll see Italian documentaries where they'll use footage from Houston's film as if it's documentary footage. but the main thing that that happened with,

Ambivalence of Liberation: Italian Memories of War

00:14:18 - of icon of, Italian memories and understanding of the war. And what they mainly remember is the ambivalence, which is at the heart of, of my book, because the Italians were supposed to be being liberated by the allies, but they were suffering tremendously. San Pieto itself, itself was completely, destroyed.

00:14:48 - and it's a kind of a symbol, the way. what, what is the, what is the, remnant like Coventry Cathedral in, in Britain is left as a ruin. And then the modern, and then the modern cathedral is, is, is right there next to it. San Chiro has a modern town next to it, but the original village, was destroyed. So it represents that ambivalence that Italians still

00:15:19 - And we see it, for example, in their reaction to the Russian invasion, of Ukraine, that they understand that the Ukrainians have a just cause of their defense, but they still, don't, don't want to be supporting a war. there was a book with a subtitle, about Italian military operations after World War ii, just don't call it war. so their, their soldiers engaged in humanitarian activities, in Lebanon, for example, in, in the past.

Legacy of Pacifism: Italian Reflections on WWII

00:16:05 - And so that streak of pacifism, I think, is very much connected to the legacy of, of Houston's, movie and the overall effect of, of World War II on the Italians.

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