Foggia was attacked on nine occasions. Thousands of homes in residential districts, the airport, the
railway station, and numerous squares and streets were totally devastated. A chronicle of the bombing of Foggia was written by
Luca Cicolella in a book called
"...e la morte venne dal cielo" ("...and death came from the sky"), published in 1973 and 1983, which also contained the
Report made by the Monsignor
Fortunato Maria Farina and sent to
Pope Pius XII. [22 July 1943] The station clock says 9.43. The sky suddenly darkens. Forty Flying Fortresses and more than fifty fighter planes descend upon Foggia. When the bell of the Town Hall tolls to give the alarm, the massacre has already begun. The first bombs fall on the station, smashing the buildings with extraordinary violence and closing the entrances to the underpasses from which heart-rending cries of pain can be heard. A train has arrived from Bari a few minutes before. Many travellers have been caught by surprise as they entered the underpasses. Others believe that they can shelter from the fury of the bombardment in the same underpasses. Instead they go to a certain death... For a short period Foggia became a ghost town in which looters sought valuables worn by the casualties and burgled abandoned buildings. ... There are some who decide to exploit the tragedy. In the night the flying fortresses do not return. Instead the thieves arrive. They are "jackals" who pounce upon the dead, rummaging in their pockets and taking money, rings and gold chains. They enter the half-ruined houses, filling boxes with linen, and running off with furniture and jewellery. Every night they return to plunder the city. No one intervenes. People are afraid that they are armed. Although an
Armistice between Italy and Allied armed forces was declared on September 8, Allied forces continued bombing until September 15, ostensibly to prevent German troop movements, as the town had been occupied by German troops in the aftermath of the Armistice. ==Chronology of events==