The 15th Air Force of the U.S.A.A.F.

After being transferred to the south of our peninsula, the Mediterranean Allied Air Force (M.A.A.F.) was re-organized internally; for this purpose, on November 1st, 1943, the commander of the U.S.A.A.F. constituted the 15th Air Force commanded by the General Nathan F. Twining, with the aim of carrying out strategic bombardments on southern Europe, including obviously the city of Milan; alongside the 15th was the 12th Air Force, specialized in tactical bombing.

Each Bomb Group in turn was divided into four Squadrons, each consisting of 15 aircraft.

In the 15th Air Force were also present the 305th Bomb Group (still in the organizational phase), the 885th Squadron (for special missions), the 154th Reconnaissance Squadron and the 15th Combat Mapping; The 306th Fighter Wing, which could count on seven P47 or P51 fighters, provided the airfares to all these formations. The 15th Air Force used two types of four-engine bombers: the Boeing B-17 "Flying Fortress" and the Consolidated B-24 "Liberator".

Compared to the British Halifax, Stirling and Lancaster, (the only aircraft until then to have carried out missions on Milan), the US bombers were flying at a higher altitude, around 9,000 / 10,000 meters, carrying less bombs (1,800 kg for a autonomy of 3,700 Km.), and used a crew of 10/12 aviators compared to 6/7 of the British.

Describing the operational logic of these aircraft is essential to understand what happened on Gorla. For a long time the British had only night-time missions, believing that they were so safe from the land-based anti-aircraft and from possible Germanic flight fights; in this way they could fly at a lower altitude, with a greater load of bombs and using fewer men: it was not necessary to have on board machine-guns and in case of abatement the human losses would have been lower.

Attacking a target with darkness, however, forced to give up precision bombardments, choosing the way called "area bombing"; therefore a generalized attack on the whole inhabited center, destroying all the buildings present in the area without worrying if in addition to the military targets the civilian population was also involved. Although this led to being accused of carrying out terrorist bombings, Marshal Arthur Harris claimed the need not to be too tender with the enemy, since even the Germans had already carried out similar bombings on British cities. In memory of this, the bombardments of Berlin, Ruhr, Hamburg and above all of Dresden remain in history, in which tens of thousands of civilians lost their lives.

Being on the side of Germany, responsible for the bombing of Great Britain, Italy paid heavily that alliance: in addition to all other Italian cities, even Milan received its share, with the four episodes of August 1943, which were to bring the government Badoglio to surrender (as happened on September 8, 1943).

The Americans, however, preferred the daytime attack (also convinced of the validity of the pointing system "Norden"); however, this entailed greater risks for the crew, with the consequent need to fly higher to avoid the air raid fire, thus bringing less bombs and with a superior crew that also provided the machine guns necessary for the self defense of the aircraft.

Compared to the 8th Air Force operating from Great Britain to carry out missions throughout northern Europe, the 15th Air Force was smaller in size, since it was believed to be operating in a secondary area, although among its objectives were the Ploiesti oil fields in Romania, which became the tomb of hundreds of US aviators.

We have already seen that within the 49th Bomb Wing was present the 451st Bomb Group (the one concerning Gorla): this formation, arose on April 22, 1943 at Davis Monthan Field in Tucson (Arizona) was composed of squadron 724th, 725th, 726th and 727th. After a long training period carried out in several US bases, in December 1943 the 62 four-four-engine Consolidated B-24 Liberator planes that composed the flight line were transferred to Natal (in Brazil) and then from here to Telergma (in Algeria) . On January 2, 1944, the entire Bomb Group made the last stage of the transfer that was to end at the Gioia del Colle airport; the bad weather conditions however (the field was impractical due to the mud due to the rains) forced the displacement of the final destination at the airport of Castelluccio, near Foggia.

Three were the commanders who took turns at the helm of the 451st: Colonel Robert E.L. Eaton (from April 1943 to September 1944), Colonel James B. Knapp (from September 1944 to January 1945) and Colonel Leroy Stefen (from January 1945 at the end of hostilities).

Colonel James B. Knapp, commander of 451st from September 1944 to January 1945.

On his orders the mission of October 20, 1944 was carried out on the school of Gorla.

The pilots of the aircraft instead were boys aged around 18/20 years, who did not know in the least the territory and the population that had to attack, trained only from the technical point of view on the sequence of operations to be carried out to complete the mission assigned to them. Almost automatons. They only knew that they were going to Europe to fight Nazi fascism and to reach this end every action was justified ...

After a brief period of settling, the first attack of the 451st was against a radar station in Albania; the last raid is dated April 26, 1945 over the Sachsenberg railway station in Austria; during the period of stay in our country (January 2, 1944 - April 30, 1945) the number of missions carried out reached a considerable number of 245; about a mission of destruction over a city in central southern Europe every 48 hours ... for a total of over 13,000 tons of bombs.

A small notebook where one of the aviators kept note of the missions carried out on the enemy territory: date, location and target hit ... not to forget

This map of central and southern Europe shows the range of action of the 451st group that had its headquarters in the airport of Castelluccio in Foggia.

If during this period the 451th also had to suffer a high number of losses both material (about 60 aircraft) and human (there were hundreds of dead and missing), on the other side of the scale could put the fact that was the only one to receive three quotes from the president of the United States in addition to 12 "battle stars" for the twelve campaigns conducted; probably one of these commendations also involved the mission on Gorla ...

In this panorama, however, an episode is missing, perhaps deliberately forgotten by the aviators of the 451th, which concerns the killing of 200 children from an elementary school, the worst massacre of children carried out in our Country by the allies. But we'll talk about this on the next page.