Video: 'Precision bombing of Railroad yards in Rome, Italy by over 500 Allied bombers dur...HD Stock Footage'

(Monday, July 19, 1943, 11:13 a.m. Central European Summer Time; during the Bombing of Rome in World War II, part of the Winter Line and the battle for Rome) — Allied airplanes bombed the ancient city of Rome for the first time today when 690 United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) aircraft flew over Rome and dropped 9,125 bombs on the city.

Though the raid targeted the freight yard and steel factory in the San Lorenzo district of Rome, Allied bombs also struck the district’s apartment blocks, damaging the Papal Basilica and killing an estimated 1,600 and 3,200 people.

Video: 'World War II war correspondent Quentin Reynolds interviews first crew back from bombing Rome (1943)'

In the afternoon, the second target was the “Scalo del Littorio” on the northern side of Rome. The third target was the Ciampino Airport, on the southeast side of Rome.

Pius XII, who had previously requested Roosevelt not to bomb Rome due to “its value to the whole of humanity”, paid a visit to the affected regions of the district; photographs of his visit later became a symbol of anti-war sentiments in Italy.

The attack, and the prospect of the conquest and destruction of Italy, would hasten the fall of Premier Benito Mussolini, who was meeting today with Germany’s Adolf Hitler at the northern Italian town of Feltre to discuss Italy’s withdrawal from further fighting, but Mussolini reportedly failed to bring the subject up.

The two leaders agreed to mount a fighting withdrawal in Italy while the Gustav Line was formed across the 72 miles from the mouth of the Garigliano to the River Sangro south of Ortona.