On December 2, 1943 about fifty ships lay waiting at Bari, Italy for their cargoes to be unloaded. The harbor was so crowded that moored ships almost touched each other. Suddenly, the German Luftwaffe thundered down out of a clear evening sky and laid waste to the busy port. In the span of twenty minutes, the raid became the worst bombing of Allied shipping since Pearl Harbor two years earlier. In fact, this attack became known as Little Pearl Harbor. Seventeen Allied ship were destroyed. But the attack and destruction were only preludes of the horror to come. A U.S. Liberty ship laden with a topsecret cargo of mustard gas bombs received a direct hit and exploded, killing the entired crew and spreading its deadly toxic cargo across the water and through the air of Bari. The loss of life was appalling. More than one thousand Allied servicemen and more than one thousand civilians were killed. Yet, to this day, few know of the disaster at Bari. This book describes what happened, how it happened and examines the Allied coverup afterward and the fact that World War II mustard gas is seeping up through the world's oceans today.
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About the Author
Gerald Reminick is a college librarian on Long Island, New York and author of Patriots and Heroes, True Stories of the U.S. Merchant Marine in World War II, now in its third printing.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
As Bad as it Gets,
By
This review is from: Nightmare in Bari: The World War II Liberty Ship Poison Gas Disaster and Coverup (Paperback)
"Nightmare in Bari" is virtually a textbook example of how not to write history. Ill-written, badly researched, confusingly organized, the book is a disservice to historians, readers, and, not the least, the victims. Reminick couldn't be bothered to check either German or Italian records, so we're denied crucial information on the raid--we don't even get an estimate as to how many civilian casualties there were, only a vague "thousands", a pretty serious failing, in my opinion. Reminick is really interested in the WW II Merchant Marine, so we get page after interminable page on what ships were present, what they were carrying, where they were bound, etc., the equivalent of telling the 9/11 story from the point of view of a fire engine manufacturer. In contrast, it's never made clear what kind of aircraft the German pilots were flying, much less who they were or what they thought about things. There's also a number of chapters and appendixes on postwar poison gas dumping which, while interesting (and well-deserving of a volume of their own), have little to do with the topic and were obviously added to pad a 170-page book to the 200+ mark. You will finish "Nightmare in Bari" more confused about the event than when you went in. Little worse can be said about any book.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Reminick reveals the sacrifices made by the Merchant Marine,
By Bill Jopes, U.S.M.M.A. '45 (Tucson, AZ United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Nightmare in Bari: The World War II Liberty Ship Poison Gas Disaster and Coverup (Paperback)
I have had some knowledge of the disaster at Bari for several years but this book reveals an unbelievable truth, the ultimate description of war. It is a story of incompetence, neglect, mistakes and the tragedy of friendly fire. The very definition of war is horror and this story covers it all. The friendly fire from shore guns into the allied ships and docks is not the only friendly fire casualties, the fact that we killed and wounded so many people with our own product of chemical warfare also qualifies as friendly fire. The Germans didn't gas the people. By covering up the true cause of the injuries many other people died because of improper care. Those are the accidents of war because that's what war is. Those who became irate over the friendly fire deaths of Desert Storm simply don't understand war. More than just the description of the nightmare of December 3, 1943 and the following days of suffering and death, the story divulges just how near the war brought us to the Doomsday countdown to midnight. So many times during the war we were on the threshold of mass chemical disaster, both from the Axis and Allied sides. The unbelievable amount of tonnage manufactured by both sides, if unleashed, would have killed and maimed millions of fighting men and civilians. We are not certain yet that the mass disposal of the gasses was successful enough to prevent future deaths after sixty or more years. I thought Reminick's evaluation was well taken about comparing chemical warfare to other questionable war products for killing people. Where is the line of inhuman warfare? It is all inhuman. A rifle shot between the eyes or a bayonet in the gut kills a soldier just as dead as an atomic bomb. It was clear to me that the only thing that kept the W.W. II commanders from using gas was the fear of retaliation. They would have had gas attacks square in the middle of their cities in a matter of hours and they new it. That saved us in W.W. II. Everything is relative and now nearly 60 years later the Doomsday clock is ticking again and it reads nine minutes to midnight. Now, it is nuclear weapons instead of gas. But the same rules hold true. The fear of retaliation has to be in place to stop the initial attack. The players now are different. Third world countries now have the ability to wipe out our eastern seaboard from New York City to Baltimore in one sweep. Only fear of complete annihilation of their homeland will stop them from an attack. I wish every congressman could read this book because it really is an editorial for modern day defense at any cost. This story is a shocking revelation of the greatest cover up of the war as well as one of the greatest disasters, but hidden in the book is the warning that we must always hold the biggest threat. Bill Jopes, Author of "A Voyage to Abadan".
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
For you history seekers,
By A Customer
This review is from: Nightmare in Bari: The World War II Liberty Ship Poison Gas Disaster and Coverup (Paperback)
Everybody knows about Normandy, Iwo Jima, Pearl Harbor, etc.. but it seems know one knows about the North Atlantic & Mediterranean, where more rounds of ammunition were fired, more bombs dropped, and more ships sunk than any other theater of operations. Read this book if you want to become more knowledgeable of World War 2. I know, I was thereNote: my age is 77
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