1943 — Dec 2, Germans bomb Bari, Italy port; US freighter John Harvey/mustard gas cargo, hit->83

–>83 Blanchard. At least 83 deaths, 90% US merchant marines, from several ships.
— 83 Conant. “How a WWII Disaster and Cover-up Led to a Cancer Treatment Breakthrough.”*
–>83 Cox (Director, Naval Hist.…Comd.). “H-035-2: Mediterranean Theater Catch-up.” Sep 2019.*
— 80 American Merchant Marine at War. Chronological List of U.S. Ships Sunk or Damaged…

*Conant and Amer. Merchant Marine at War numbers note: Conant writes that “Of the more than 617 casualties who suffered from gas exposure at Bari [from mustard gas released from the freighter John Harvey], 83 died. This refers to all mustard gas deaths, not just those from complement aboard the John Harvey. While the AMMW notes there were 80 deaths from the John Harvey, the causes of death are not noted. Some may well have died directly from the bombing, or drowned.

*Cox Note: Director Cox writes that “at least 83 died [“from symptoms of chemical poisoning”] by the end of the month. Of these known gas casualties, 90 percent were U.S. merchant seamen.”

Narrative Information

American Merchant Marine at War. Chronological List of U.S. Ships Sunk or Damaged…
“Date Ship Type Cause Result Location Deaths
“12/02/43 John Harvey Liberty Bombed Sunk Med. Crew 42; AG 28; Army 10.”

[As additional information we show fatalities the AAMW notes for seven other US freighters.]
“Date Ship Type Cause Result Location Deaths
“12/02/43 John Bascom Liberty Bombed Sunk Med. Crew 4; AG 10.”
“12/02/43 John L. Motley Liberty Bombed Sunk Med. Crew 39; AG 24.”
“12/02/43 John M. Schofield Liberty Bombed Damaged Med. Crew 2, AG 1; Passenger 1.”
“12/02/43 Joseph Wheeler Liberty Bombed Sunk Med. Crew 26; AG 16.”
“12/02/43 Louis Hennepin Liberty Bombed Unknown Med. None (AG wounded)”
“12/02/43 Lyman Abbott Liberty Bombed Damaged Med. Crew 2; AG 1; Army 1.”
“12/02/43 Samuel J. Tilden Liberty Bombed Sunk Med. Crew 10; US mil. 14; UK mil. 3.”

American Merchant Marine at War. U.S. Merchant Marine in World War II:

“….Bari – the Second Pearl Harbor
“One of the most costly disasters of the war occurred in the Italian port of Bari, Dec. 2, 1943, during the invasion of Italy. A German air attack sank 17 Allied merchant ships with a loss of more than 1,000 lives. One of the five American ships destroyed that day was the SS John Harvey which carried a secret cargo of 100 tons of mustard gas bombs. When these exploded, hundreds of mariners, navy sailors and civilians were affected. Many died from the effects of the mustard gas.

Conant. “How a WWII Disaster and Cover-up Led to a Cancer Treatment Breakthrough.”
“The German attack at Bari, dubbed ‘little Pearl Harbor,’ unknowingly hit an Allied ship full of poisonous mustard gas bombs.

“On the night of December 2, 1943, the Germans bombed a key Allied port in Bari, Italy, sinking 17 ships and killing more than 1,000 American and British servicemen and hundreds of civilians. Caught in the surprise World War II air raid was the John Harvey, an American Liberty ship carrying a secret cargo of 2,000 mustard bombs to be used in retaliation if Hitler resorted to gas warfare.

“The Luftwaffe’s lucky strike, which released a poisonous cloud of sulfur mustard vapor over the harbor—and liquid mustard into the water—prompted an Allied cover-up of the chemical weapons disaster. But it also led to an army doctor’s serendipitous discovery of a new treatment for cancer.

“In the devastating aftermath of the attack, which the press dubbed a ‘little Pearl Harbor,’ U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill moved to conceal the truth about the shipment of poison gas, for fear Germany might use it as an excuse to launch an all-out chemical war. As a result of the military secrecy, medical personnel weren’t alerted to the danger of contamination from the liquid mustard that spread insidiously over the harbor, mixing with the tons of fuel oil from the damaged ships.

“In the crush of casualties that first night, hundreds of survivors, who had jumped or been blown overboard and swam to safety, were mistakenly believed to be suffering from only shock and immersion. They were given morphine, wrapped in warm blankets and left to sit in their oil-soaked uniforms for as long as 12, and even 24 hours, while the seriously wounded were attended to first. It was tantamount to marinating in mustard gas. But all remained ignorant of the peril.

“By dawn, the patients had developed red, inflamed skin and blisters on their bodies ‘the size of balloons.’ Within 24 hours, the wards were full of men with eyes swollen shut. The doctors suspected some form of chemical irritant, but the patients did not present typical symptoms or respond to standard treatments. The staff’s unease only deepened when notification came from headquarters that the hundreds of burn patients with unusual symptomology would be classified “Dermatitis N.Y.D.“—not yet diagnosed.

“Then without warning, patients in relatively good condition began dying. These sudden, mysterious deaths left the doctors baffled and at a loss as to how to proceed. Rumors spread that the Germans had used an unknown poison gas. With the daily death toll rising, British officials in Bari placed a ‘red light’ call alerting Allied Force Headquarters (AFHQ) in Algiers to the medical crisis. Lieutenant Colonel Stewart Francis Alexander, a young chemical warfare specialist attached to Eisenhower’s staff, was dispatched immediately to the scene of the disaster.

“Despite the British port authorities’ denials, Alexander quickly diagnosed mustard gas exposure. Convinced that preoccupation with military security had compounded the tragedy, he doggedly pursued his own investigation to identify the source of the chemical agent and determine how it had poisoned so many men.

“After carefully studying the medical charts, he plotted the destroyed cargo ships’ positions relative to the gas victims and succeeded in pinpointing the John Harvey as the epicenter of the chemical explosion. When divers pulled up fragments of fractured gas shells, the casings were identified as being from 100-pound American mustard bombs.

“On December 11, 1943, Alexander informed headquarters of his initial findings. Not only was the gas from the Allies’ own supply, but the victims labeled “Dermatitis N.Y.D.” had suffered prolonged exposure as a result of being immersed in a toxic solution of mustard and oil floating on the surface of the harbor.

“The response Alexander received was shocking. While Eisenhower accepted his diagnosis, Churchill refused to acknowledge the presence of mustard gas in Bari. With the war in Europe entering a critical phase, the Allies agreed to impose a policy of strict censorship on the chemical disaster: All mention of mustard gas was stricken from the official record, and Alexander’s diagnosis deleted from the medical charts.

“Alexander’s ‘Final Report of the Bari Mustard Casualties’ was immediately classified, but not before his startling discovery of the toxic effects on white blood cells caught the attention of his boss in the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS), Colonel Cornelius P. ‘Dusty’ Rhoads. In civilian life, Rhoads served as head of New York’s Memorial Hospital for the Treatment of Cancer and Allied Diseases.

“Of the more than 617 casualties who suffered from gas exposure at Bari, 83 died, all demonstrating mustard’s suppressive effect on cell division—suggesting it might be used to inhibit the fast-multiplying malignant white cells that can invade and destroy healthy tissue. Alexander had extracted invaluable data from the morgue full of case studies, pointing to a chemical that could possibly be used as weapon in the fight against certain types of cancer.

“Based on Alexander’s landmark Bari report, and a top-secret Yale University clinical trial that demonstrated that nitrogen mustard (a more stable cousin of sulfur mustard) could shrink tumors, Rhoads was convinced the harmful substance—in tiny, carefully calibrated doses—could be used to heal. In 1945, he persuaded the General Motors tycoons Alfred P. Sloane and Charles F. Kettering to fund the Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research (SKI), to create a state-of-the-art laboratory, staffed by wartime scientists, to synthesize new mustard derivatives and develop the first medicine for cancer—known today as chemotherapy.

“In 1949, Mustargen (mechlorethamine) became the first experimental chemotherapeutic drug approved by the FDA and was used successfully to treat non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. This triumph galvanized the search for other chemical agents that specifically targeted malignant cells but spared normal ones, leading the American Cancer Society to credit the Bari disaster with initiating “the age of cancer chemotherapy.”

Conant. The Great Secret: The Classified World War II Disaster… 2020:
“Prologue – “Little Pearl Harbor”

“The port was teeming with activity [on Dec 2]. Some thirty Allied ships – British, Dutch, Norwegian, and Polish – were crammed into the harbor, taking up every available spot within the breakwater. Four days earlier, the American Liberty ship John Harvey had pulled in with a convoy of nine other merchantmen. The vessels were tightly packed against the seawall and all along the pier, moored so closely they were virtually hull to hull. The dockyards were working around the clock to unload the supplies for the next big push – the advance on Rome. Allied strategy hinged on making steady progress up the rugged mountainous Italian peninsula, culminating in a proposed amphibious attack at Anzio, about thirty-two miles south of the capital. The success of the advance depended on the long supply line sustaining the march northward. Because of the urgency to keep the incoming stream of war material moving to where it was needed most, the usual blackout orders were suspended, and the lights blazed in Bari Harbor all night….

“As dusk fell…Lang and Rodger [war reporters] were morosely contemplating what little choice they had in their wartime assignments when the air-raid siren sounded. It was 7:35 p.m. The lights quickly went out… There was a blinding flash, followed by a terrific bang, and then here and there an artillery barrage, which they realized was the ancient port’s one and only antiaircraft battery opening fire on the intruders….

“Suddenly an earsplitting explosion hurled them to the ground, shattering the hotel’s front windows…Then came the sound of another explosion, and another. A large formation of German Junkers Ju-88s flew in low over the town, dropping the first few bombs short of the harbor among the narrow, winding streets and white stucco buildings in the old part of the city….

“As the incendiaries began to rain down on the harbor, they turned night into day, lighting up the sky like a brilliant fireworks display. German bombs were screaming into the harbor. Gunners aboard the anchored ships scrambled into position and tried desperately to shoot down the enemy – too late. Opposition was virtually nonexistent. The attacking airplanes pulled away and into the night, unchallenged by patrolling Allied fighters. Although the raid lasted less than twenty minutes, the results were devastating….

“By 8 p.m., Lang and Rodger were crunching along debris-strewn streets as they ran toward the docks….Just as the men reached the port fence, where they hoped to have an unobstructed view of the stricken harbor, there was a tremendous roar from an explosion that blotted out everything for several seconds. The blast wave knocked Lang to the ground. He could feel a flash of hear like that of a volcanic eruption on his face. Looking up, he saw a huge rolling mass of flames rising a thousand feet high. Three hundred yards away, the tanker disintegrated before their eyes and disappeared in a pall of smoke….

“Hearing the clatter of hobnail boots on asphalt, Lang saw the British soldiers on the quay abandon their rescue efforts and begin running from the water’s edge. Tied up close inshore, right in front of them, was another tanker. It looked like it was about to blow….They dashed to the comparative shelter of a nearby building and climbed out onto the rooftop….

“A bomb [had] ruptured the bulk-fuel pipeline on the petroleum quay, sending thousands of gallons gushing into the harbor, where it ignited into a gigantic sheet of flame, engulfing the entire north side of the port. Like a prairie fire, the tongues of flame spread rapidly across the surface of the water, leaping from ship to ship, so even vessels that had survived the bombing with only slight damage were soon consumed….

“They had witnessed one of the worst naval catastrophes of the war, but there was no way to get their big scoop into print. A gag order was in effect. New of the night raid on Bari was being held up by the military censors….In the end, the Washington Post broke the story on December 16, describing the severe blow to Allied shipping as the costliest ‘sneak attack’ since Pearly Harbor, with an estimated thousand casualties. More than thirty-one thousand tons of valuable cargo was completely destroyed. It would be weeks before the port could be cleared and resume normal operations, seriously disrupting the Allied advance. Adding insult to injury, the first account of the air raid had actually come from the Germans themselves. A Berlin propaganda broadcast on December 5 gloated over the mission’s spectacular success, claiming the congested harbor was so poorly protected their bombers were able to pick off the Allied ships like sitting ducks. More than 105 Ju-88s had taken part in the surprise attack, and all but two returned safely to base.

“At his weekly press conference in Washington, DC, on December 16, a visibly irate Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson confirmed the Washington Post story and reluctantly revealed that the toll was of considerably greater magnitude than first reported. The Nazis had sunk a total of seventeen Allied ships, including two ammunition ships and five American merchantmen, with additional vessels hit or partially damaged. Loss of life among Naval Armed Guard personnel and American seamen was heavy….

“Lang’s eyewitness account of the deadly Luftwaffe strike finally ran in the December 27 issue of Time. Rodger’s dramatic images were never published….

“The day after filing their story, Lang and Rodger rejoined the Fifty Army as they pressed the combat line northward to Monte Cassino. They never dreamed it would be almost thirty years before the world would learn the truth about what took place on that fatal night. Or that while they had stood there helplessly watching the ships burn and hundreds of sailors brave the oily waters, another tragedy was in the making. One that was rendered far worse by wartime secrecy, and the determined efforts of both the American and British governments to cover up the incident so as not to endanger the preparations for the most important operation of the war, Overlord, the Allied invasion of Berman-occupied France planned for the spring….”

Cox (Director, Naval Hist.…Command). “H-035-2: Mediterranean Theater Catch-up.” Sep 2019:
“….
“Forgotten Valor: Ensign ‘Kay’ Vesole, USNR, and the ‘Great Bari Air Raid,’ 2 December 1943

“With the port of Naples largely out of commission, the port of Bari (on the Adriatic coast of Italy) became even more critical to supply the Allied forces bogged down in heavy fighting against determined German resistance in the mountains between Naples and Rome, especially near the famed monastery of Monte Cassino. Bari had initially fallen to the British 1st Airborne Division with no opposition on 11 September 1943, and had been rapidly transformed into a major cargo and personnel off-loading facility, servicing ships of numerous nationalities, including U.S. Liberty ships. For several weeks, there was only ineffective German air resistance to Allied efforts to clear Naples and conduct logistics operations at Bari. As a result (and also due to Air Force ‘doctrine’), almost all Allied fighters operating in the Italian theater were committed to escort offensive bomber operations or to offensive fighter sweeps.

“So weak had German air opposition been that on 2 December 1943 (although Naples harbor had been hit four times in the previous month), the British commander responsible for the air defense of Bari, Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham, held a press conference during which he stated ‘I would consider it a personal insult if the enemy should send so much as one plane over the city.’ That afternoon, a German Me-210 twin-engine fighter-bomber flew a reconnaissance mission over Bari. That evening, 105 German twin-engine Junkers Ju-88 bombers of Luftflotte 2, under the command of Generalfeldmarschall Wolfram von Richthofen (cousin of the ‘Red Baron’ of World War I) attacked Bari with devastating result.

“Most of the German aircraft launched from airfields in northern Italy, but flew a circuitous route over the Adriatic and over German-occupied Yugoslavia, where they were joined by additional German bombers, and then attacked Bari from the east. At 1925 local, two or three of the bombers commenced dropping chaff and flares, which weren’t needed, as surprise was complete and the port was already fully illuminated to facilitate around-the-clock off-loading. The U.S. Liberty ship SS John Bascom was the first of over 30 ships in the harbor to open fire, but it would do little good. The Germans literally had a field day, crisscrossing the port, bombing at will, which resulted in several massive explosions of ships carrying ammunition and chain reactions, as well as severing the bulk petrol line on the quay, sending a massive sheet of flaming fuel across the harbor that engulfed undamaged ships. Different accounts give different numbers (depending on the size of the ships counted), but about 28 ships were lost (including three that didn’t sink, but were a total loss due to severe damage—although their cargoes were salvaged) and another 12 received varying degrees of damage. These ships included American, British, Polish, Norwegian, and Dutch-flagged vessels. Exact casualties are unknown, but some estimates are as high as 1,000 crewmen killed aboard the ships and military personnel on the docks and another 1,000 civilians killed in the city. Five U.S. Liberty ships were sunk, with the loss of about 75 U.S. Merchant seaman and 50 U.S. Navy Armed Guards.

“The U.S. Liberty ship SS John Harvey was hit by a bomb and exploded, killing all 36 crewmen, ten U.S. soldiers, and 20 U.S. Navy Armed Guards aboard. Worse, John Harvey was carrying a secret cargo of 2,000 M47A1 mustard gas bombs (to be used in retaliation in the event the Germans resorted to the use of chemical weapons). Liquid sulfur agent mixed with the fuel oil coating the surface of the harbor and a cloud of sulfur mustard was blown over the city of 250,000 civilians. The exact number of casualties due to the chemicals is not known (especially civilian casualties), and many were caused because no one was prepared for it; neither victims nor medical personal initially recognized or correctly diagnosed the symptoms. Some of the deaths could have been prevented by simple freshwater washdown of oil-coated sailors and disposal of contaminated clothing. That the equipment for a U.S. hospital was also destroyed in the bombing compounded the tragedy. At least 628 patients and medical personnel came down with symptoms of chemical poisoning and at least 83 died by end of month. Of these known gas casualties, 90 percent were U.S. merchant seaman. The event was initially kept secret because the United States did not want the Germans to know that chemical weapons had been brought into the theater, which might provoke German use. However, in February 1944, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a statement admitting what had happened, although records were not fully declassified until 1959. This was the only known poison gas incident in World War II….”

Sources

American Merchant Marine at War. Chronological List of Ships Sunk or Damaged during 1943. Accessed 6-2-2021 at: http://www.usmm.org/sunk43.html#anchor564125

American Merchant Marine at War. U.S. Merchant Marine in World War II. Accessed 6-3-2021 at: http://www.usmm.org/ww2.html

Conant, Jennet. “How a WWII Disaster – and Cover-up – Led to a Cancer Treatment Breakthrough.” History Stories, History.com, 8-12-2020. Accessed 6-3-2021 at: https://www.history.com/news/wwii-disaster-bari-mustard-gas

Conant, Jennet. The Great Secret: The Classified World War II Disaster That Launched The War On Cancer. W.W. Norton & Co., 2020. Google preview accessed 6-3-2021 at:
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Great_Secret_The_Classified_World_Wa/PiDWDwAAQBAJ?hl=&gbpv=1

Cox, Samuel J. (Director, Naval History and Heritage Command). “H-035-2: Mediterranean Theater Catch-up.” September 2019. Accessed 6-3-2021 at: https://www.history.navy.mil/about-us/leadership/director/directors-corner/h-grams/h-gram-035/h-035-2.html