Talk:Bombing of Rome in World War II

Rome, not an open city?

The article now implies that Rome was not an open city, saying " Pope Pius XII unsuccessfully attempted to get Rome declared an open city ...". Eventually Rome was declared an open city, - see also: Rome, Open City. Ekem 19:25, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

clarified with ref. Ekem 17:13, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Bombing of the Vatican merged

There are substantial gains in context and reduced repetition from covering these in the same article. In the unlikely event that this article becomes extremely long, this may be considered as a potential sub-article. As it is, there is more than enough context at Vatican City during World War II and all of the (rather terse) information that we have about the Vatican City bombings is at a level of detail that would be appropriate even in an article about the Rome bombings as a whole. Savidan 23:06, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Who Dropped the 5 Bombs in the Vatican

This article stated that it was the British in an accidental bombing, but another article said that it was the Italians who did it with the belief that the Vatican Radio was sending messages to the Allies. Which is it? 96.57.184.26 (talk) 02:40, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Source of May Bombing information?

In most sources (in English) on the WWII bombing of Rome, the July 19 bombing of San Lorenzo is listed as the first bombing of Rome. What is the source of the information about a bombing in May? Soggiornoselvaggio (talk) 19:42, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

I have a similar question. If there was a bombing in May then the one in July was not the first. Which is it? Rmrwiki (talk) 03:07, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Controversial

The article affirms that "The first bombardment occurred on July 19, 1943 and was carried out by 500 .." later the same article affirms that "On July 19, 1943, Rome was bombed again, more heavily, by 521 Allied planes..."

What is the date of the very first bombing? And where was the striking airforce based, in Britain, Africa or Sicily? By Lawrence from Milano Italy — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.228.136.198 (talk) 07:59, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

I too am wondering this. I have no idea what happened on May 16. Selahlynch (talk) 21:51, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

Civilian casualties figure

In the quick facts box of the article there is a 40000 civilian casualties number that is not sourced and not referenced anywhere else in the article. It seems like it would be essential that this number be sourced, especially since it looks quite disproportionate in comparison with the apparent scale of the bombing campaign itself. Does anyone have any idea about where this number came from, a source, or a possible replacement? Choucas Bleu (talk) 15:06, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

The Italian Wiki gives a source for a much lower number of casualities (719). Sadly, I have no access, nor do I speak Italian, so I can't verify that. "Allied Air Attacks and Civilian Harm in Italy, 1940–1945." Bombing among Friends, London (2023) by Matthew Evangelista gives "as many as two or three thousand dead". The amount of the casualities amongst the attackers also seems extremely off to me.Iluzalsipal (talk) 19:27, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

I think for now this figure should absolutely be removed Aliy Dawut (talk) 04:42, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree with both of you, this figure is unsourced and highly disproportionate for the scale of the campaign, I have no idea why this is still sitting in the infobox, it does not belong there. Aliy Dawut (talk) 04:42, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Merge proposal of Bombing of the Vatican

  Y Merge completed Klbrain (talk) 16:18, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Split?

I came here to propose this page be split out to its own page, but I notice, above, that it was merged relatively recently. So I am proposing that they be un-merged.
The rationale for the merge given was that the pages are “intertwined” and “interconnected”, while the BoV page is “quite bloated” and having it as a section here “makes more sense”.
I suggest that the two are conflated, rather than intertwined; When Pius appealed that Rome be spared due to its cultural importance, FDR replied that they would make sure the Vatican wasn’t hit, which isn’t the same thing at all; And while Hap Arnold saw the Vatican as a hot potato due to the number of Catholics in the US armed forces, the Brits wanted Rome bombed in retaliation for the Blitz, which isn’t the same thing either. If anything, they need to be separated to avoid the confusion.
Rome was the capital city of a belligerent, and later a transport hub for Axis forces in the south, and therefore a legitimate target; The Vatican was a neutral state and therefore to be avoided. As in fact it was; in over a dozen major raids on Rome, the Allies managed to avoid hitting the Vatican, while the two incidents recorded, in intricate detail, (and would hardly merit mentioning if they had happened anywhere else) were quite probably not done by the Allies at all. So devoting half the article to them actually doesn’t make sense; it is giving them undue weight here, and a better arrangement is what we had before: a summary paragraph and a link to a sub-article elsewhere. And if the BoV page needed trimming, moving it here wasn’t going to solve the problem; it needed to be addressed there.
So how did this proposal match up to the usual reasons for a merge? As far as I can see, the reasons for the bombings were entirely different, as were the results, which makes them discrete subjects with their own notability (BoR as part of WWII’s air war, BoV because it was the Vatican): A comparison of the two pages at the time (here, and here) shows hardly any duplication, or overlap: Both articles were about 14Kb, so not too short to exist independently: Both were copiously referenced, so they don’t lack notability: And as the reasons for the bombings were different, the context (which was different in both articles) doesn’t merit being in the same article either.
What is the rationale for keeping them together? Xyl 54 (talk) 16:13, 26 May 2026 (UTC)
(notify Klbrain, Choucas Bleu, Smdjcl, Aliy Dawut, Savidan. Xyl 54 (talk) 16:20, 26 May 2026 (UTC))

Oppose 'unmerge', given the large number of edits that have taken place over the last 22 months or so. I also oppose a split, given that with a prose length of 1815 words its a long way from the any split argued on the basis of length (see WP:TOOLONG). On the arguments related to the distinct nature of the content, FDR thought that they were sufficiently related that they could be discussed together, and his logic still holds. The Vatican (as an enclave of Rome) would not have been bombed if it were not that Rome was bombed, so the histories are intrinsically intertwined and therefore readers are best served by discussing them together. Fragmenting related content can only harm readers. Klbrain (talk) 08:59, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

@Klbrain: Thank you for replying: To take your second point first, the split rationale isn’t that this page is too long, it’s that it has a section with a length that is out of proportion to the rest of the article. I’m saying the grounds are its content, and a need to re-organize it. The relevance of the Vatican being an enclave of Rome was a factor in the decision to bomb (or not to bomb) the city (which is hardly mentioned here; I’ve been drafting a Background section to address that) and is relevant to this page whether it was hit or not; the two incidents in themselves hardly merit more than mention (and more than adequately covered by the first paragraph of the BoV section); As for the rest, an extended examination of who might have been responsible, is what should be somewhere else.

On the subject of merging/unmerging, the large number of edits you mentioned (22, between 8 aug 2024 to 23 oct 2026) comprise one major edit to 5 Nov section, 2 cite requests (Tardini) and about a dozen minor edits (spaces, an added word); nothing that couldn’t be fixed in a single (properly attributed) edit. And being intertwined isn’t a reason to merge two pages; the bombing of Switzerland is intertwined with the bombing of Germany, but no-one ( I hope) would think they should be merged together. Merging articles isn’t an end in itself, it is supposed to be the remedy for a specific set of conditions, and if an application doesn’t meet those circumstances it should be knocked back as insufficient. I’ve already questioned which of those criteria were involved here, because I can’t see them.

Anyway, there’s been no response the from the other contributors to the merge discussion, so I’ve put a request for a third opinion on the MILHIST page; I trust you are OK with that. Regards, Xyl 54 (talk) 12:19, 5 June 2026 (UTC)

No problem at all with requesting further views. Klbrain (talk) 05:26, 6 June 2026 (UTC)