[1][2] Naples was a major strategic objective in the Mediterranean and Middle East theatre of World War II and the Italian campaign.

The following bombardments concentrated on the port and ships, also near the Zona Industriale, which included the neighborhoods of San Giovanni a Teduccio, Bagnoli, Pozzuoli.

Naples, as a whole, was not yet fortified against attack: the city had few air raid shelters and the only anti-air weapons it had were the ship cannons in the port.

The British continued bombing on 10 July, destroying a refinery, and 9 and 11 November that targeted the central rail station, the port, and factories.

[6] With United States Army Air Forces Consolidated B-24 Liberators joining in on 4 December 1942, the bombing also began to take place during the day.

They struck three cruisers, the Muzio Attendolo, Eugenio di Savoia, and the Raimondo Montecuccoli, but also many houses, churches, hospitals, and offices, including the Palazzo delle Poste and the area of the Porta Nolana.

The city's air raid shelters, carved into the Naples underground geothermal zone, also began to fill.

In April, the neighborhoods of Corso Giuseppe Garibaldi [it], via Depretis, Piazza Amedeo, Parco Margherita, via Morghen, and Via Medina [it] were all struck by bombs.

The largest raid was on 4 August 1943, by 400 American Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress aircraft of the Northwest African Strategic Air Force (NASAF) which targeted the Axis submarine base at Naples.