Top Secret: Bari 2nd December 1943

“Voll besetz“, “completely full“: it is the morning of 2 December 1943 when Werner Hahn, the pilot of a German reconnaissance plane, sends a message to his base saying that the port of Bari is full of ships. That is exactly what the Luftwaffe General Staff in Italy have been waiting to hear. In the afternoon, 105 German JU 88 bombers take off with the aim of bombing the port of Bari; at 19:30 they take the Allied defences completely by surprise. It is a massacre: by the end of the operation, 17 ships have