| Raid on Bari |
| by Stanley Scislowski
Perth Regt, 5th CDN ARMD DIV, 1943-1945 |
|
|
| Part III - An Eyewitness Account |
| As I said earlier, little did we know that German bombers were only minutes away from arriving over the harbour. We had just reached the city outskirts when a blinding flash and a stunning explosion off the roadside threw us into a heap on the floor. "What in the hell was that?!", someone blurted out. Then came another explosion, and another, by which time we realized they weren’t bombs. It was the one and only anti-aircraft battery in the city opening fire on the intruders. Seconds later we heard the planes, and there was no mistaking whose they were. The unsynchronized beat of the engines was a dead give-away. They were enemy planes. The lead echelon dropped a string of chandelier flares that lit up the city behind us in a ghostly, flickering light, the flares seeming to hang in the sky, taking forever to float to the ground. Streams of tracers converged on them as gunners aboard the ships and on the ground tried desperately to shoot them out of the sky. And then came the deep ‘whump’ of bombs. I'm sure that every guy in the convoy breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that if it had taken us another 15 minutes to round up the drunks we’d have been caught smack in the middle of the raid. "Wow! That was a close one!", you could almost hear the collective whisper. |
| Although driving in the dark with but narrow slits in the headlight covers was no easy job, our drivers, nonetheless, poured on the coals, as much as safety would allow, to get away from the city and out into the pitch-black security of the open countryside beyond. They certainly didn’t have to be reminded of the possibility that an errant bomb could blow us all to 'kingdom come'. The farther we got away from the city, the safer we would feel. Two miles outside the city limits the lead truck in the convoy collided at an intersection with an English DR who sustained a badly broken leg. The convoy pulled over, and without much ado the injured man was placed on a stretcher and put aboard the tail-end truck in the convoy, which happened to be the one I was a passenger on. Sammy Ridge, our Company Commander then instructed the driver to take the injured man back into the city to the nearest hospital, which happened to be on the waterfront right where all the ships had been hit. |
| A Narrow Escape |
| Since we passengers didn't feel it was necessary for all of us to go back, we expected to be parcelled out to the other trucks for the balance of the ride to camp. Dismay hit us a good wallop when Sammy told us to stay right where we were - that we were going back too. This brought on moans of anguish and loud protests. But, as usual in the army, they fell on deaf ears. Logic and common sense is not a common virtue in the services. We were going back, and that's all there was to it, no matter what our feelings were. And so it was with glum expression on our faces and muttered oaths we sat on our cold, steel benches with the injured DR on the stretcher at our feet as the driver turned the vehicle around and headed back into the city and the holocaust. Inwardly, to a man, we cursed the Englishman roundly for putting us in this predicament, and of course, we cursed Sammy, our company commander, for not using his head or his heart. |
| Our Service Corps driver did a masterful job of threading his way through the city, now lit up from the glow of burning ships in the harbour. Although we couldn’t have been travelling more than ten miles an hour, we made reasonably good time until we reached the waterfront, where we ran into a screaming and wailing mob of hysterical humanity streaming away from the flame-lit harbour area. It was heart-wrenching to hear the panicked cries and squeals of children calling for their mothers, and their mothers equally panicked, crying out as piteously for their children, separated from each other in the stampede of fear-stricken humanity. We’d seen such scenes in newsreels and were ‘moved’, but here we were seeing and hearing it ‘live’ and it was all around us. It affected me deeply. It was our introduction to the greater tragedy of war, seeing how the innocent had to suffer the indignities, the pain and the horror that war inflicts on them. |
| By the time the last group of frantic Bari citizens had swirled by, we emerged from the built-up area and were moving slowly along the wide seafront boulevard from where we could see the extent of the damage wrought on the ships in the harbour. Everywhere, out on the water and to our right along the jetties, ships were on fire. Some had only small patches of fire on deck. Others were almost totally engulfed in leaping flames. It was a spectacle that couldn’t fail to sear itself into the memory. |
| The Big Blast and It's Repercussions |
| On some ships closer inshore we saw the heavy damage the bombs had done to the superstructures, with masts and stacks hanging over the side, Carley floats splintered on their tilted supports, while other vessels showed gaping holes in their hulls caused by exploding cargoes, the plates peeled back like the skin on a banana. Farther along the waterfront we passed by a ship lying close to shore burning fiercely from stem to stern, its side plates cherry-red from the blast-furnace heat of the burning cargo deep inside its hold. We felt the heat on our cheeks as the driver accelerated to get by. He was taking no chances, in fear it might blow up at any second. If it had, it’s not likely we’d have been around to know what happened. |
| We dropped the injured DR off at 98th British General Hospital over-looking the harbour where we watched a steady stream of casualties making their way up the hospital driveway. Most suffered burns or minor injuries and walked in unaided. Some staggered in supporting each other, their clothes in tatters, dirty and oil-smeared, blood stains on their faces, their hair matted with a mix of blood and oil. On the faces of each was the wild, frightened look of someone at the outermost edge of sanity. Not far behind them came stretcher-bearers carrying those suffering graver injuries, some crying out in deep pain, the occasional one screaming in the unbearable agony of his terrible burns. Others lay numbly or impassively on their stretcher. |
| Here we were, observing a scene that might have been taken out of a page of Dante’s Inferno; The heart-rending cries of the grievously hurt, the bedraggled and besmeared walking wounded, some looking more dead than alive, the burning ships out in the harbour, the flames and the stifling smoke, the acrid stink of burning oil and wood, the cacophony of voices, English, Italian, Indian, and God knows what else. Voices of authority, angry voices, soft voices of reassurance, all this we heard, observed, and smelled - a nightmare that was only too real. Now we knew what it must have been like for the people of London, of Coventry, of Liverpool, of Southampton, and of all the little towns and villages throughout the lower half of the sea-girt island when the Luftwaffe jettisoned nightly their loads of high-explosive and incendiaries on them at the time of the Blitz. |
| We looked on with intense interest framed in pity and helplessness all that was going on around us, yet anxious to get away from the stricken harbour area. We’d seen enough to last us a lifetime. As we sat, looking out from the rear of our tarpaulin-covered truck we were unaware that we were not much more than minutes away from the frightful second act of the disaster. |
| Our passage both out of the area and the city was unobstructed, as the crowd of fleeing citizens had long since scattered and disappeared into the inner city where some measure of safety awaited them. Now we could relax to some degree, knowing we were on the move, although not near fast enough for our liking. If it'd have been possible for us to urge the driver on to greater speed we’d have done so. Any move, however slow, was better than no move at all. I had a distinct feeling something terrible was about to happen as I looked out across the harbour and saw all those ships burning. One of them, I felt, was going to blow up, and very soon. |
| Ten minutes later we reached the approximate spot on the outskirts where we’d been turned around and were sent back with the injured DR, when suddenly the iridescent, flickering sky over the city flared up with the intense brightness of a prolonged lightning flash. "Holy Jeez! something just blew!", I exclaimed. Hardly had the words left my lips when came a mighty roar sounding like a hundred thunderstorms rolled into one. "My God! The world’s coming to an end!", the thought flicked through my mind as I hit the floor along with everyone else. It was about as useless a move as any of us could have ever made. How could we have been any safer on the floor of the truck than sitting? No sooner had we hit the deck when the pressure wave came, a hurricane compacted into two terrifying seconds. The rush of air was so powerful it felt like someone trying to pull the tunic off my back. We settled back on our seats and as we looked out towards the city we knew that one of the burning ships had indeed blown sky-high. "By the l'arrrrd t'underin’ jayzuz, man, that was some bang!", came the typical response from Gerry Curran, one of the Maritimers in our group. |
| Aftermath |
| What we didn’t know was that a ship, the S.S. John Harvey, carrying over 100 tons of mustard gas bombs, had disintegrated in a titanic blast. If we had remained in the area 15 minutes longer, perhaps rolling along the seafront boulevard when the ship blew up, we might very well have been amongst those who died that night or who were expiring over the next two weeks from the effects of mustard gas poisoning. And so ended an enjoyable afternoon and an evening of pathos, death, flame and destruction such as would stay in the memories of all who were there that night. And it would especially be etched in the memory of those of us who had to go back into the city, without a doubt. |
| Whether the Allies were justified in not revealing to the medical authorities that mustard gas was the cause of so many of the deaths and injuries at Bari, remains a matter of opinion. But on behalf of Churchill and his advisors it might be said that their silence could very well have saved countless millions from an agonizing and hideous death had the war escalated in the manner the men at the top were trying to prevent. |
|
|
|
|
| Return to Stan's Page |
| Return to History |
| Home |
|
|
|
|