Eighty years have passed since the worst bombing of the Turin/Aeritalia airport. From December 1942 to 1944, the FIAT Aeronautica d'Italia factory in Turin and its airport were subjected to numerous bombing raids by Allied forces, particularly daytime raids by the United States Army Air Force. Among these was the particularly brutal raid on April 25, 1944, carried out by one hundred and fifty USAAF Consolidated B-24 Liberators. The primary objective was to permanently demolish the entire aircraft factory and render its airport unusable. The bombing lasted 10 minutes and caused 37 deaths and 42 wounded. There would have been many more had it not been for the vast air raid shelters built beneath the factory at the start of the conflict. Many of these underground shelters still exist beneath the current Leonardo Velivoli factory on Corso Francia. A number of streamlined, armored sentry boxes were installed in the airport's taxiways for crews and ground support personnel. The last witness to this tragic moment in history is one of these individual shelters, abandoned on the outer perimeter of the current Aeritalia airport site. Unfortunately, passing runners and cyclists use it as a garbage can, among other things. It should not be a difficult task to move it and preserve it, appropriately and safely, in the garden of the Aero Club Torino as a precious relic of the city airport's most tragic period.
In the picture: In the picture: It is hoped that the armored sentry box will find a worthy home at the Turin Aero Club. (Aeromedia)
(Aeromedia, April 2024)
