World Battlefronts: Bombs on the Vatican

In the late evening sky over Vatican City a low-flying plane hummed and hovered ominously. Below, within the weathered walls of the tiny neutral state, men listened anxiously. At 8:10 o’clock the sound of the intruding plane was blotted out by the sound of bursting explosive. Four bombs had fallen, the first to hit the capital of Catholicism. There were no human casualties. St. Peter’s had not been hit, but many of its windows had been shattered. According to a Vatican City broadcast, the famed Studio del Musaico (mosaic workshops) stood unroofed, the Governor’s Palace and the old buildings along the Piazza di Santa Marta showed ugly scars.

Cried the Berlin radio: an Allied “outrage”; without doubt the bombs were of “British origin.”

Said the Allied high command: “A thorough investigation of missions carried out during the night . . . indicates that crews adhered to their definite instructions and did not bomb Vatican City.” The world was reminded that as long ago as April 1941, London had warned the world that the Nazis and Fascists might use captured British bombs and captured British planes to raid the papal seat.