Guardistallo massacre

The Guardistallo massacre was a Nazi German act of reprisal that took place close to Guardistallo, in Tuscany. On 29 June 1944, 57 people were killed and buried in a mass grave. One of the victims died from wounds suffered in the same occasion a few days afterward.[1]

The cause of the massacre was suspected at the time to be a belief by German forces that Italian partisans had been hiding an American pilot who had been shot down in the area. A photoreconnaissance pilot from the 3rd Photorecon Group, 12th Air Force had, in fact, been downed by antiaircraft fire in the proceeding days and hidden by a resistance cell. He was successfully returned to Allied forces and survived the war.[2][3]

References

1. Bosworth (January 30, 2007). Mussolini's Italy: Life Under the Fascist Dictatorship, 1915-1945. Penguin Group. p. 499. ISBN 978-0143038566. Retrieved 15 May 2015.
2. Toomey, David. "Tall Tales & Vapor Trails - Recollections of a P-38 Pilot, by Lt. David Toomey, 12th AF, presentation given November 2010". YouTube. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
3. Toomey, David. "Can This P-38 Be Saved?, Smithsonian Magazine, November 2009". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 16 May 2022.