ABSTRACT
Chapter Three explains how the deployment of Allied air forces produced such large numbers of civilian victims. There was no single strategy for the use of air power in Italy. Missions ranged from bombing industrial population centers, urban railroad junctions, and ports in the early British attacks, to close air support of troops and attempts to disrupt enemy supply routes before and during the main ground offensives, to destruction of railroad bridges along the Austrian border in the last days. The emphasis on attacking railroad junctions and marshaling yards owes much to Solly Zuckerman, a leading adviser on bombing to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. He features prominently in the discussion, along with the critics of his preferred strategy—one that caused extensive harm to civilians in urban areas, but less than would have been caused by the indiscriminate area attacks such as those inflicted on Germany and Japan. The chapter reviews postwar debates about the relative military ineffectiveness of Zuckerman’s approach. At best, the strategy of bombing rail junctions and marshaling yards provided temporary benefits. At worst, it wasted resources that could have been used more effectively in direct support of the ground forces.
