AIR RAID ON VATICAN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 December 1943, Page 3

AIR RAID ON VATICAN

DENOUNCED BY THE POPE. LONDON, December 28. in a message to the College of Cardinals, says that the air raid, on the Vatican City in November has evoked the unanimous indignation of the entire world. “The raid was deliberately planned and dishonourably and unsuccessfully screened behind the anonymity of a pilot. It was against territory sacred to Christians, the centre of the world, moreover, for its masterpieces of culture and art, and guaranteed by solemn treaty. “The raid is a symptom hard to explain away, of the depth of spiritual disorientation and moral decadence of conscience to which some erring minds have sunk.”

The Vatican City newspaper “Osservatore Romano” reports that at 8.30 p.m. on November 5 a single plane flew over the city and dropped four bombs. Allied planes had previously dropped leaflets warning the Italians that the Germans might bomb the Vatican and blame the Allies, and saying: “We leave it to your intelligence to decide whether we are likely to waste our efforts on targets whose destruction is useless for our purpose/’ The Allied headquarters at once reported that a thorough check had shown that all Allied night bombers were grounded on the night of the raid, and it was later officially denied that any Allied plane had bombed the Vatican City. A German report stated, two days after the November raid, that fragments of the bombs had been examined by 'experts, including a Vatican official, and “proved that they were British small calibre bombs.”