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Virtual Filmstrip of Italian Defenses Against Bombing and Gas, 1944

JF Ptak Science Books LLC  Post 779  Blog Bookstore

In my collection of WWII propaganda and civil defense pamphlets I found this extraordinary Italian publication, Se un’Accressione viene dal Cielo…che Cosa fa l’Operaio (1944, which translates loosely as “When the Aggression/Bombing Comes from the Sky, What Happens to the Workers?”).  As we can see from the cover illustration, the (Italian) workers are being guided/marched from their factory by their Nazi overseer, dressed for a gas attack, just as the attacking planes were coming overhead.  Inside we find a briefly-worded, explicit guide for the factory worker, and target of Allied attack, about what to do when the bombs started to fall.
+ italian bombing cvr

The 104 illustrations, taken one after the other, form a sort of filmstrip, and could well function as a guide for those who couldn’t read.  I also find them unsettling for their composition, color , size (very small, each section being about 1/2 inch x 1 1/4 inches), proportion…just about everything about them sits badly with me.  

Here’s an example, taken from the middle or so of the presentation:

+ italian bombing 6 detail 

Here’s the full selection of the images (all of which are clickable for a fuller view):

+ italian bombing 1 + italian bombing 2 

The rest of the presentation follows in “extended reading”:

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