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Disaster at Bari
1973
- GenresMilitary History
Paperback
First published June 1, 1971
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 16, 2019
I didn’t know that the US had stockpiled mustard gas for WWII until reading this book and I learned a lot more than that. For example I had read just a little bit about Bari before but didn’t realize how important it was to supplying the Allied forces across all of southern Italy. I feel like maybe the author could have overstated the importance of Bari being shutdown for weeks as far as its impact on Overlord but some opinion in a book like this is to be expected.
March 24, 2022
I picked up this book because my wife's ancestors were immigrants from Bari. I've met some family that still live there.
This is an incident of which I had some knowledge and was hoping to get a more detailed account. Unfortunately, this book only goes so deep. There is a fairly good account of what happened on the day of the German raid, but the events leading up to the event and it's actual impact on the war are dealt with in rather short fashion. I was fairly disappointed. I was especially hoping to find a detailed account of the decision to send mustard gas to the European theatre but that portion of the book was rather thin. The "White House" made the decision according to Infield. Does that mean Roosevelt? Simpson? Maybe it's unknown?
At the time of publication this story was probably new news to most people, but today one can find articles on the internet that go into more detail. An example is this article on the Smithsonian website. Time has not been kind to this book.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/histor...
This is an incident of which I had some knowledge and was hoping to get a more detailed account. Unfortunately, this book only goes so deep. There is a fairly good account of what happened on the day of the German raid, but the events leading up to the event and it's actual impact on the war are dealt with in rather short fashion. I was fairly disappointed. I was especially hoping to find a detailed account of the decision to send mustard gas to the European theatre but that portion of the book was rather thin. The "White House" made the decision according to Infield. Does that mean Roosevelt? Simpson? Maybe it's unknown?
At the time of publication this story was probably new news to most people, but today one can find articles on the internet that go into more detail. An example is this article on the Smithsonian website. Time has not been kind to this book.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/histor...
November 12, 2025
A decent account of a sad point in history.
December 17, 2016
Interesting as far as the content, but the writing was awful.
This guy was in the military, and while he tells the story capably, he's prone to suddenly ending sentences with an unexpected exclamation point! You should never do this in nonfiction. It just looks ridiculous.
Also, although he tells us at the very beginning of the book that the mustard gas bombs carried by the John Harvey were TOP SECRET, he keeps reiterating this point throughout the book, saying things like (I'm not quoting exactly, just expressing the general idea):
The sailors were thrown into the water, which was full of fuel oil. But neither they nor anyone else was aware of the mustard.
Two lines later, although the townspeople escaped from the older part of the city, they managed to make their way to the waterline, where they waited for help. But they didn't know about the mustard.
The hospital staff, treating the military casualties and the townspeople, followed the usual medical protocols for shock. But they didn't know about the mustard.
You get the idea. I think there's a newer book about the tragedy out. I'm sure it must be better written. This is all there was in 1971.
This guy was in the military, and while he tells the story capably, he's prone to suddenly ending sentences with an unexpected exclamation point! You should never do this in nonfiction. It just looks ridiculous.
Also, although he tells us at the very beginning of the book that the mustard gas bombs carried by the John Harvey were TOP SECRET, he keeps reiterating this point throughout the book, saying things like (I'm not quoting exactly, just expressing the general idea):
The sailors were thrown into the water, which was full of fuel oil. But neither they nor anyone else was aware of the mustard.
Two lines later, although the townspeople escaped from the older part of the city, they managed to make their way to the waterline, where they waited for help. But they didn't know about the mustard.
The hospital staff, treating the military casualties and the townspeople, followed the usual medical protocols for shock. But they didn't know about the mustard.
You get the idea. I think there's a newer book about the tragedy out. I'm sure it must be better written. This is all there was in 1971.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews