Richard Worrall

Although I've been aware since, oh, the 1970s, that there was an aerial bombing campaign waged against Italy, I was not at all informed about the details of these operations. That makes this particular Osprey booklet, with its extensive use of primary documentation highly useful, as the author takes you from the tentative missions of 1940 against obvious military targets, to the more "morale" directed missions of 1943. Apart from that what really stands out is how politicized these missions were, in that Churchill kept a close hand on the pace of the missions and targeting priorities, whether "Bomber" Harris liked it or not; Harris would have just as soon not preferred to direct resources against Italy, until he realized that it could be a very useful test cast in demonstrating the efficacy of strategic bombing.… (meer)