The old port town of Bari, on Italy’s Adriatic coast, was bustling. It was December 2, 1943. The British had taken Puglia’s capital in September, and though the front now lay just 150 miles to the north, the medieval city, with its massive cliffs cradling the sea, had escaped the fighting almost unscathed.
Only a few miles outside of town, lines of women and children begged for black-market food, but here shop windows were full of fruit, cakes and bread. Young couples strolled arm in arm. Even ice cream vendors were doing a brisk trade.
Bari was a Mediterranean service hub, supplying the 500,000 Allied troops engaged in driving the Germans out of Italy. Grand waterfront buildings were recently designated the headquarters of the United States Fifteenth Air Force. The liberating Tommies had already chased the Nazis from the skies over Italy, and the British, who controlled the port, were so confident they had won the air war that Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham announced that Bari was all but immune from attack. “I would regard it as a personal affront and insult if the Luftwaffe should attempt any significant action in this area,” he said that day at a press conference.
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