The Disaster at Bari: A Secret Revealed
A surprise attack by the Luftwaffe on the Italian port city of Bari revealed an Allied secret that almost changed the course of the war in Europe and remained top secret until 1959.
The Attack
On the evening of December 2, 1943, just after 7 PM, a formation of 105 German JU-88 twin-engine bombers were making last-minute adjustments in preparation for their surprise attack.
The attack was to be on the Italian harbor of Bari now full of Allied vessels that had been scouted earlier in the day. As they neared their final vector, much to their delight, the harbor was completely illuminated with spotlights shining on the unloading cargo ships. While some of the planes split off to drop duppel (chaff) and flares, others lined up targeting the ships along the breakwater and dock area. Over 30 Allied ships were sitting dockside without benefit of significant naval or land-based antiaircraft support. In other words, they were sitting ducks!
Bari, Italy
Bari is an ancient seaside town on the Adriatic Sea settled first by the Greeks and later the Romans which then grew to be a major seaport of strategic significance. Sitting in the center square is the Basilica di San Nicola, a major site of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages, housing the remains of St. Nicholas.
The seaport was taken peacefully by British troops on September 11, 1943 in alignment with the terms of the Italian Armistice of Cassibile. As a result, both the harbor and the old town escaped damage. It became a major offloading point for cargo to support the 500,000 Allied troops including the British 8th Army as they battled German troops in the region of Monte Casino about 150 miles north. An agreement between Roosevelt and Churchill, made this region of southern Italy the responsibility of the British.
After taking over the port peacefully and being subjected to an occasional overflight by German reconnaissance planes, it was generally accepted by the Allied commanders that Bari was secure and the Luftwaffe was spread too thin to effort an attack on the area.
On December 1, 1943, General Jimmy Doolittle took over command of the American 15th Bomber group setting up his headquarters in the harbor area. This allowed him to be in close proximity to the men and material that were flooding in to support efforts to get the US airbase at Foggia established.
The Day
On this fateful day of December 2nd, the British Air Marshall, Sir Arthur Coningham, happened to hold a news conference making the declaration, “I would regard it as a personal affront and insult if the Luftwaffe should attempt any significant action in this area”.
The installation at Bari was felt to be so secure that all harbor spotlights were turned on at dusk to facilitate the unloading of ships with desperately needed aviation fuel, tanks, jeeps, ambulances, portable bridges and artillery ammunition. According to one captain, the ships were so densely packed that they often bumped into one another while waiting at anchor.
Loaded with barrels of 100-octane aviation fuel and jeeps, alongside multiple munitions vessels, the ships created a density of targets not lost on the Luftwaffe scout plane that circled overhead at mid-day. The British gunners, below, had become so accustomed to the high-level flights that on this impending day either ignored them or fired one or two rounds as warning shots.
Oberleutnant Werner Hahn, the Luftwaffe officer who piloted the scout mission reported his results and a quick plan was drawn up. Assignments were made for the group to head to Bari at wave top height; vector in from the west rather than the northern approach to avoid the Allied radar installations and further aid in the element of surprise.
At approximately 7:21 PM, the first bombs fell short of the harbor in the old town area. The bombers slowly corrected their aim and proceeded to walk bombs progressively towards the harborfront and the many ships in a deliberate manner. The effects were devastating. Over 1,000 people and 28 ships were lost in the lightning raid lasting just 20 minutes.
The Harbor
As soon as the first bombs fell there was general pandemonium in the harbor area as dockworkers, naval personnel and civilians all ran for cover. Among the over 30 ships docked were five US Liberty ships including the SS John Harvey.
The John Harvey
The John Harvey was a US Liberty ship built in Wilmington, North Carolina and originally commissioned in December 1942. It had safely made the voyage from Baltimore, Maryland through a gauntlet of German U-boats. Stopping in Oran, Algeria on its way to Italy, it loaded 100 tons of additional cargo labeled on the manifest as HS.
The crew grew suspicious when a seven-man detail was tasked with managing this special cargo. In addition, an unusual inspection by the 7th chemical ordinance company in Sicily was performed before departing to Bari. Despite the crews’ apprehension, it is not clear whether the captain was fully made aware of the nature of his new cargo: 100 tons of M47A1 mustard gas artillery shells and bombs.
The Aftermath
Two munitions ships immediately exploded with towering sheets of flame shooting over 1,000 feet high. Windows were broken from the blast over seven miles away. The ships loaded with 100 octane aviation fuel caught fire and exploded pouring their contents into the harbor turning it into a cauldron of burning fuel, oil and flotsam.
The main oil line to fuel ships in the harbor soon ruptured. Flames and thousands of gallons of additional oil poured into the water. Some of the survivors recall the water being about a foot thick with oil, burning gasoline and debris.
As ammunition continued to explode, efforts began to rescue those on the burning vessels. Sailors who survived the initial attack abandoned ship and jumped into the water to escape being burned.
Unbeknownst to the sailors, rescuers and harbor personnel, the cargo on the John Harvey caught fire. A huge plume of mustard gas descended on the harbor mixing into the water and coating sailors with a caustic film. Because the gas was widely dispersed and the air was filled with vapors of burning oil, gasoline and cordite, the military personnel never identified the faint garlic smell indicative of mustard gas. The gas drifted into the waterfront and the old town area before the wind direction changed sending the bulk of the gas out towards the sea. Hundreds of Italian civilians were exposed and began suffering symptoms.
The local military and civilian hospitals were soon overrun with patients suffering from breathing difficulties and complaining of burns on their bodies. Sailors who arrived at the hospital not suffering from traumatic injuries were simply wrapped in blankets to keep them warm after their time in the water.
Six hours after their exposure, many of the sailors started developing large blisters on their bodies along with breathing difficulties. Initially, the medical staff attributed the blistering to burns acquired while in the water. Surprisingly, the injured had had no initial signs of burns, only later developed large fluid filled blisters that covered large segments of their bodies.
Many of the injured complained of burning eyes that became swollen shut after 24 hours. After the raid, a vessel exiting the harbor and heading to Taranto had their entire crew stricken with swollen eyes. They were so seriously affected they had to summon assistance from the harbor military to guide the ship into port.
In Bari, previously healthy sailors started dying unexpectedly from respiratory symptoms. By day two, the number of fatalities began to climb precipitously and the medical staff were struggling to find answers. A few mentioned the possibility of gas exposure. The Allies immediately considered the possibility that German planes had dropped some chemical agent in the harbor. The senior staff suggested they get a consult with a chemical exposure expert to nail down the agent and source of the exposure. A call was placed to headquarters in Algeria.
Lt. Col Stewart Alexander MD
Lt. Col Steward Alexander, a USMC commissioned cardiologist and second-generation physician, answered the call. Alexander graduated top of his class at Dartmouth before finishing medical school and clinical training at Columbia University in New York.
Along with his traditional medical training, Dr. Alexander had extensive experience working at the Edgewood Arsenal where the US kept its store of poison gas and chemical agents. He participated in experiments with toxic agents to discover effective treatments even receiving a patent for his gas mask design that was protective for soldiers that wore glasses as he did. Dr. Alexander became the director of the Chemical Warfare Service Medical division and was assigned to accompany US troops as they faced off with the Axis in the African/Italian campaign.
When Dr. Alexander arrived in Bari, he immediately went to the wards to personally inspect and interview those with injuries possibly related to poison exposure. After reviewing charts and patients, he constructed a diagram of ship locations, and sailors with serious injuries related to toxic agent exposure. He differentiated the burns on the sailors who were immersed in the water as opposed to those in lifeboats. He also noted a faint familiar garlic smell reminiscent of mustard gas in the hospital wards.
After summarizing his thoughts, he formed a strong impression that mustard gas had been the chemical agent. It was, also, apparent from reports that it didn’t emanate from the bombers but rather from a cargo ship in the harbor. He immediately confronted senior leadership from the British Army to ask if any mustard gas was present. He was told unequivocally, no, not possible.
Alexander had top-secret clearance and, as the in-field commander of the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS), knew the Allies were secretly stockpiling chemical agents in the Mediterranean theater. This was in anticipation of retaliatory use, if the Axis used chemical weapons first. Although he doubted that it had been shipped to a port like Bari and left unprotected, Alexander persisted in his investigation.
After seeing 45 men die by day five, he again had the harbor water tested. Divers were sent to search debris at the bottom of the harbor for clues. It was then that the breakthrough discovery was made: a diver had retrieved a fragment of an M47A1 mustard shell clearly indicating the origin of the gas had been a US Liberty ship.
Still the British authorities resisted acknowledging the source of the contamination.
The failure of the authorities to clearly identify the contamination delayed effective treatment. This cost the lives of many sailors and countless Italian civilians who died horrible deaths due to their exposure to mustard gas.
By day nine, Alexander had had enough. He filed his report reversing the cases diagnosed as dermatitis of unknown origin to a new determination: mustard gas exposure.
The Cover Up
Alexander sent his report to the US President, Franklin Roosevelt, and the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill as well as the Allied Commander, Dwight Eisenhower. Roosevelt and Eisenhower accepted the results, however, Churchill insisted and Eisenhower agreed to have all records suppressed and the report rated secret. No news of the gas exposure was ever officially acknowledged or reported. In fact, the British went so far as to reclassify Alexander’s diagnoses as “burns from enemy action”. No British or American sailors were informed of their diagnosis or received compensation for their wounds until an official inquiry was opened in 1967.
The reasons the Allies wanted to suppress the news were complicated. Churchill and Eisenhower were preparing for the D-Day invasion in England scheduled for the next six months. If news were to leak the Allies had chemical weapons in the European theater, what was to stop the Germans from using their chemical weapons in Normandy? Because of Churchill’s fear of this possibility, he was most adamant in suppressing the incident at Bari.
Long-term consequences
Alexander left the service in 1945. His prior work in 1940 at the Edgewood Arsenal with mustard agent effects on white blood cell production formed some of the foundational elements of chemotherapy. This would later give rise to the first chemotherapeutic agents to treat leukemia. Alexander’s former director at Edgewood would take his research further with funding by Sloan and Kettering of General Motors. They would establish the world renowned Sloan Kettering Cancer Institute in New York in August of 1945. The science of chemotherapy to treat cancer was born out of a disastrous incident 6,000 miles away in Bari, Italy.
Chemical weapons were not used in Europe by either the Allies or Germans against each other in the theater of war. Germany stockpiled 22,000 tons of nerve gas and mustard for potential use during the war and used poison gas in concentration camps to kill millions. When questioned at the Nuremberg trials, Herman Goering, the head of the Luftwaffe, made it clear that Germany didn’t restrain its use of chemical weapons against the invasion force for humanitarian reasons. He told interviewers it was because the Germans hadn’t developed a gas mask that a horse would tolerate. He stated that if Germany had used chemical weapons in Normandy the Allies would respond in kind. Due to a shortage of fuel resulting from the Allied bombing campaign, the German army was reliant on horses as the primary mode of transportation to move men, material and munitions and would have been entirely paralyzed by loss of their horse transport.
Final thoughts
After the war, it was discovered the Germans had suspected the Allies of storing chemical weapons in Italy. In fact they hired an Italian frogman in Bari to retrieve a mustard shell casing as evidence in case the Allies claimed their attack in Bari had been responsible for the gas release. The Germans knew all along.
