This is December 2, 1943, and the time is 7:25pm. On the south eastern coast of Italy, the city of Bari is a bee hive of activity. Bari is a city of 200,000 people. It has some landmarks that date back to the middle ages, such as the Castello Svevo, a medieval fortress from  Norman times. Also, the Basilica San Nicola, which allegedly contains the bones of St. Nicholas (Santa Claus). One of the most famous landmarks is the "Bambino Stadium" which was built by the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. It was a reward for the citizens for having the most babies in a specified period of time! But now Bari is playing an important role for the Allies.

It is a major supply sea port with thousands of tons of munitions, food and equipment being unloaded around the clock. Tonight is no exception, 30 Allied ships are crowded into the harbor waiting to be unloaded. Most of the ships are Liberty ships, including the SS John Harvey. The skipper, Capt. Erwin F. Knowles, has been waiting five days for his ship to be unloaded!

The SS John Harvey was one of  2,710 Liberty ships built during WWII.

The Liberty ships were built with a method never used before. They were prefabricated sections, built and assembled in several places then welded all together. In fact, it took 30,000 prefab parts to build a complete Liberty ship! The ship's length was 441ft. and it was 57ft. wide.

It's 5 cargo holds could swallow 10,500 tons of cargo. It was armed with a 3- inch gun on the bow and a 4 inch gun on the stern. Also, 8 20mm anti aircraft guns along the sides of the deck.

The genius behind the Liberty ship program was Henry J. Kaiser, a friend of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He had gained fame by ramrodding the building of the great Hoover Dam on the Colorado River in Arizona. Under normal times, a ship was built in around two or three months. However, the

President Roosevelt watches launch of 10 day Liberty Ship

Nazi U-Boats were sinking the merchant ships of England so fast that they could not be replaced quickly enough. So President Roosevelt asked Kaiser if he could possibly speed up the ship building. Henry J. Kaiser was a pugnacious, bespectacled 60 year old man, who openly bragged, "I will build you a Liberty ship in ten days"! Of course, no one believed him, but

he did just that!!

Confident that the "Luftwaffe" (German Air Force) had been swept from the skies, Air Vice Marshal Sir Arthur Comingham boasted that the Germans would never dare launch an attack on the port of Beri! That is why the docks were ablaze with lights, and the unloading went on all night long. Never the less, at precisely 7:30 pm, a large formation of 105 German Ju-88 bombers  swept down out of the clouds! With the harbor lit up like a Christmas tree,  the Liberty ships were "sitting ducks."

Seventeen ships were sunk and eight badly damaged. Without warning, the John Harvey suddenly disappeared in a huge explosion!! Pieces of the ship and cargo were hurled hundreds of feet into the air. Everyone on board was killed instantly and part of the city was also destroyed by the terrific force of the blast. Casualties from the raid began

pouring in until the hospitals were filled to overflowing.

Immediately many of the wounded began to complain that they were having trouble breathing, they were hacking and coughing very hard. Their eyes were swollen and skin lesions began to appear. Their condition worsened in spite of conventional treatment, and many began to die!

The doctors and nurses were puzzled, they were faced with a mysterious unknown ailment that they could not cure. The one man who did know the deadly secret was Capt. Elwin F. Knowles, the skipper of the Liberty ship John Harvey (and no trace of him has ever been found.)

No one else on the ship knew about the secret cargo, 2,000 M47A1 mustard gas bombs!!!  The poison mustard chemical is a blister gas that irritates the respiratory system, producing burns and raw ulcers on the skin and in the body. Victims exposed to very much of this gas suffer an agonizing death. There were 628 mustard gas deaths among Allied military and merchant marine personnel.

Because the port of Bari was under British jurisdiction, Prime Minister Winston Churchill had all medical records changed. The deaths by mustard gas read death by burns due to enemy action. (He stated it would have been too embarrassing to tell the truth.) No one knows for sure, but several thousand Italian civilians lives could have been saved ... except for one man's vanity! The moral of the story, in a war, some times the good guys can become the bad guys!!!