Nightmare in Bari: The World War II Liberty Ship Poison Gas Disaster and Coverup

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.