291140 raid
The Day Italians Bombed Lowestoft
For more than 70 years a wartime raid which wrecked part of a cannery plant in Lowestoft and killed three people was thought to have been the work of the German Luftwaffe. However, the bombs which hit the CWS (Co-op) cannery factory in Waveney Drive, Lowestoft on 29 November 1940, were in fact of Italian origin.
It was only in the 90s that I made the connection with the Italian Air Force, the Regia Aeronautica, through comparing the records of the Corpo Aero Italiano - the group assigned to attack Britain from bases in Nazi-occupied Belgium in 1940 - and records of bombing raids in Britain from UK archives.
This is another one of those obscure but possibly unique events in Lowestoft's wartime history. Ten Italian Fiat BR.20 bombers took off from Melsbroeck in Belgium on 29 November 1940 intending to carry out night attacks on Great Yarmouth, Ipswich and Lowestoft. There were no bombs in Yarmouth or Ipswich that night, but at 6.39 pm, while air-raid measure "purple" was still in place and before any alert had been sounded, an aircraft flying at 5,000 feet dropped six bombs on and near the Co-op Society's No.1 Canning Factory in Waveney Drive. Two of the bombs landed on a concrete floor but the most serious damage and casualties came from a bomb which hit an upright girder in the roof, sending a deadly hail of shrapnel into the plant below which left three people fatally injured and seriously injured several more. There was extensive damage to buildings, machinery and preserved food stored there. Eight houses in Waveney Drive were also slightly damaged. One bomb from the same aircraft cratered a field at Mutford, causing minor damage.
ARP and Police records make reference to the blast properties of the bombs dropped that night, which were an unusual 100 kg size - a size never used by the Luftwaffe. Several photographs of the damage are in Lowestoft photographer the late Ford Jenkins' book "Port War"
Local legend has it that the casualties could have been much worse had more people been present working overtime, but there was none that day and only 14 members of staff were on site when the bombs fell.
My correspondence with Italian historian Luca Guglielmetti, the author of a book on the Corpo Aero Italiano, proved invaluable when his information confirmed Lowestoft was bombed by one of the aircraft from unit 13 Stormo's 3 Squadriglia.
The names of the staff who died are recorded on the CWS memorial board.
The raid however, ended badly for the Italians. One of the Fiat BR.20 bombers involved crashed into farm buildings while coming in to land at its Belgian base and all six crew were killed. Having examined all the evidence it does seem highly likely that the victims of the raid at the CWS in Lowestoft that night were the only casualties of Mussolini's Air Force in Suffolk, and possibly even in the UK.
By a cruel irony, Italian prisoners of war were employed by the company packing trays in 1943
The details of all the local civilian air raid casualties are contained in archives at Lowestoft Record Office, now earmarked for removal to "The Hold" in Ipswich. Suffolk County Council are still going ahead with the plan to remove our unique local archives, despite the public and a host of heritage groups, authors, historians and campaigners sending them a very clear message that they do not want them moved. CREDIT:Lowestoft Aviation Society
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Wright, Greengrass and Nunn were the 3 fatally injured at CWS. Their names are on the CWS RoH at LWMM which is a great shame as nobody is ever going to see them now.
This was an extremely rare event and possibly unique in the UK as an Italian aircraft was responsible. I am not aware of any other casualties caused by Italian bombs in the UK. CREDIT:Bob Collis
