LEGHORN’S BLITZ

Grey River Argus, 31 May 1943, Page 5

LEGHORN’S BLITZ

INFERNO OF FLAMES Fortresses Fire Oil Works OVER 400 CASUALTIES. [Aust. & N.Z. Cable Assn.] (Rec. 6.30) LONDON, May 29. One hundred unescorted Flying Fortresses, without loss, raided the city: of Leghorn, north of Rome. The city contains one of Italy’s largest and most important oil refineries. me National Broadcasting Company’s Algiers correspondent says: The Fortresses turned the refinery into an inferno of flames and smoke. Two large explosions occurred. After this photographs wqre taken, showing six large fires, with smoke one thousand feet high. The smoke became so thick that further observation of the refinery area became impossible. Direct hits' scored on two ships in Leghorn Harbour, while' the railway yards and also oil storage' tanks were covered with bomb bursts. A member of the crew of one Fortress said: “The place was really messed up.” An Italian communique stated: “Raiders bombed Leghorn and Foggia, and also the area of 'Lucera, and localities in Sicily and Sardinia. The raiders considerably damaged public buildings, and rendered people houseless. There were fifty-nine' killed and 349 injured in Leghorn. Six were killed, and nine were injured in Lucera.

The British United Press says: In attacking Leghorn, the Allied African air forces struck farther north than ever before. Leghorn is only ninety miles south of Genoa, the most southerly Italian city attacked, by the Bomber Command from Britain. There is no major objective in the ninety mile gap, so that an Allied air net has been spread practically over the .whole of Italy except for ports like Trieste and Fiume. ' The attack on Leghorn meant a trip of nearly twelve hundred miles for the Fortresses, the longest thusfar made in this area. Leghorn is a vital point in the (Italian railway communications down the west coast, in addition to being one of the leading seaports of Northern Italy, and the only regular port for Corsica.