The Bridge at Allerona

In this book the survivors of one of the worst cases of friendly fire in World War 2 tell their story. On 28 January 1944 twenty-seven B-26 bombers from 441, 442, 443 and 444 squadrons, 320 Bomb Group, United States Army Air Force, bombed a bridge over the river Paglia at Allerona to the north of Orvieto, Italy. At the time a Prisoner of War train carrying Allied servicemen from PG Camp 54 Fara in Sabina to Germany was crossing the bridge. The exact composition of the train, and the number of persons aboard, is still open to conjecture: the majority of the card-indices and transfer documents were destroyed with the train. The British authorities learned about what happened through the interception of German communications, and on 14 February British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, in passing on the information to President Roosvelt via a special ULTRA message, was insistent that the bombing should remain top secret as a leak would point directly to British control of the German code.