Bombing of Milan in World War II

The first raids were precision bombings carried out by small numbers of planes, mainly with industrial objectives, which caused little damage and few casualties.

On the night of 13/14 August, three bombers dropped bombs and propaganda leaflets; the target was again the Caproni plant which however was not hit, while several buildings along a few streets were, with 15 killed and 44 wounded.

[1][2] On the night of 15/16 August another raid ensued, but the reaction of the anti-aircraft batteries shot down one Vickers Wellington bomber, and induced the others to drop their load over the towns of Merate and Mariano Comense.

[1][2] One final bombing (by three planes) was carried out on 18/19 December 1940, targeting the Pirelli plant but instead causing slight damage to a few houses and killing eight people, wounding 16.

[2] Another raid with 71 planes was planned for the following night, but poor weather dispersed the formation and only 39 bombers reached Milan (six were lost, and many others randomly dropped their bombs on several towns and villages of Lombardy), causing little more damage.

[1][2] Several factories were damaged, including Alfa Romeo, Caproni, Isotta Fraschini and Breda; the Milano Centrale railway station and the Farini marshalling yard were also hit.

[1][2] The headquarters of the Corriere della Sera were hit again and partly destroyed; among the public and historical buildings that suffered heavy damage were the Sforza Castle, the Natural History Museum, the Villa Belgiojoso Bonaparte and Palazzo Sormani.

[1][2] The bombing caused massive fires in many parts of Milan; the fires drew air from the surrounding countryside, creating winds that reached a speed of 50 km/h, an event that usually heralded a firestorm, which however did not materialize (owing to the humid climate, in addition to the previously mentioned urbanistic traits typical of Italian cities, and the fact that the raid was heavy but not very concentrated).

[1][2] Several factories (Breda, Pirelli, Innocenti, Isotta Fraschini) and the Farini marshalling yard were badly hit; the Sforza Castle and the Royal Palace were further damaged, and Teatro Dal Verme was partly destroyed, as was the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore.

[1][2] On the following night, 186 Lancasters (13 more bombers did not reach the target; 7 were lost, mainly to Luftwaffe fighters on the way back) carried out a final raid, during which they dropped an additional 601 tons of bombs.

[2] The four August raids had caused over 1,000 dead and hit half of the buildings in the city, destroying or heavily damaging 15% of them and leaving over 250,000 people homeless.

The first bombing of 1944 took place in the night between 28 and 29 March, when 78 Vickers Wellington of the RAF MAAF bombers attacked the Milano Lambrate railway station.

[1][2] On the morning of 29 March, a further 139 bombers of the USAAF Fifteenth Air Force attacked the same target, destroying 500 more wagons, five locomotives and over 5 km of rails; 59 people were killed.

[1][2] On the night of 13 May eight MAAF bombers, sent to attack the Lambrate marshalling yard, missed their target and dropped their bombs over Gorgonzola and Cernusco sul Naviglio.

The only two survivors were students, Noemi Cappellini and Antonio Skomina, both 7 years old at the time, who both refused the orders of the nuns to remain in the air raid shelter.

[1] Although a reliable and complete count has never been made, it has been estimated that at least 2,200 people were killed in the bombings of Milan; the second heaviest death toll in Northern Italy (Bologna suffered 2,481 casualties).

[1] The heavy destruction of the areas surrounding the city centre and the unregulated building that ensued in the reconstruction years left this part of Milan heavily disfigured.

[2] Due to the area bombing focusing on the city centre, the cultural heritage was hit the hardest; three quarters of the historical buildings suffered various extents of damage, including the Cathedral, the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio, Santa Maria delle Grazie, the Sforza Castle, the Royal Palace, La Scala and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II.