[1][2] Livorno, the main port of Tuscany, was considered by the Allies to be of strategic importance owing to its harbour facilities (the harbour of Livorno was one of the main ports of the Italian Tyrrhenian coast north of Rome), its marshalling yards, its shipyard (which built destroyers and corvettes for the Italian Navy), its oil refinery and other factories engaged in war production, such as the Motofides torpedo factory.

[3][4][5] The first air raid on Livorno took place at 2:30 on 16 June 1940, six days after Italy's entrance into the war, when some French Amiot 143 medium bombers dropped a few bombs in the Venezia Nuova district, causing light damage.

[6] Another minor raid by the Armée de l'Air took place two days before the Armistice of Villa Incisa, at 4:45 on 22 June, when a few naval aircraft hit and badly damaged a hotel and a beach resort.

[6][7][4][8][5] After the surrender of France, Livorno enjoyed a period of relative calm until 9 February 1941, when eighteen Fairey Swordfish aircraft of the Fleet Air Arm, flown from the carrier HMS Ark Royal during Operation Grog, bombed the ANIC oil refinery.

The situation changed with the Allied conquest of French North Africa and the end of the Tunisian campaign; USAAF bombers, taking off from airfields in Tunisia, were now able to hit Livorno as well.

[4] The first raid on Livorno by the USAAF took place on 28 May 1943, when a hundred Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers of the 12th Air Force took off from bases in North Africa and attacked the harbour, the oil refinery and the marshalling yard.

The heaviest raids of 1944 were the ones that took place on 19 May and 7 June, hitting again the city centre and destroying the "Black Zone"; there were no casualties thanks to its evacuation a few months before.

[22] On 19 July 1944, Livorno was liberated by the U.S. Fifth Army and by Italian partisans; they found, in the words of historian James Holland, "a ghost town, lying in ruins, pulverised by Allied bombing".

[23] Before leaving the city, German engineers blew up the surviving port facilities, the beach resorts, the Lighthouse and several bridges and buildings, adding further destruction to the one caused by the air raids.

[29][27] Heavy damage was suffered by the city's industries; most of the Livorno industrial area was destroyed by the air raids, with all major factories – SPICA, Richard Ginori, Motofides, Cementeria Italiana (cement factory), Società Metallurgica Italiana (steel works), Manifatture Riunite (cotton mill), ANIC (oil refinery) – being destroyed or badly damaged, leaving thousands of workers unemployed.