January 30th, 1945: Allied fighter-bombers on Milan, 162 civilian casualties
In this short story we would like to remember two sad episodes of that day, when 162 Italian civilians lost their lives.
The first attack was carried out by four P-47s of the 27th Fighter Group against several opportunity targets in the Northern Milan area.The main target was a train of the Ferrovie Nord on the route Laveno-Milan that was attacked at 08.20 a.m. near Bollate, at Vignetta.
The P-47s machine-gunned the stopped train and dropped 8 x 500 lb RDX bombs against hundreds of passengers that had abandoned the rail cars. 89 civilians died. The bombs also hit several houses near the railway, causing additional deaths and wounded.
Four additional Allied fighter-bombers machine-gunned a bus in movement on the Milan-Pavia road.
The bus was strafed while passing near Badile, nowadays in the municipality of Zibido San Giacomo. There were 150 people on board. The attack was conducted in a so violent way that led to the complete destruction of the vehicle, causing the death of 73 people and the wounding of 70 more.
A large amount was caused by the strafing missions of the Allied fighter-bombers, hitting, in many cases, civilian vehicles, cyclists, farmers and trains, usually divided between passengers and cargo cars.
No differences between military or civilian targets had to be made, because of the impossibility to clearly identify them.
Additional proposals to decrease the collateral victims were made, for example by dropping leaflets reporting the roads and railways not reccomended to civilians. This idea was declined, because it would lead to a complete control of the communication routes by the Germans.
