Commemorative Plaque May 13th 1943

In 1943, with Italy still at war alongside Nazi Germany, Sardinia and Cagliari became an important strategic target for the Allied air force.

Due to the very serious material and especially human losses endured, on 12 May 1950 the President of the Republic Luigi Einaudi awarded the city with the gold medal for military value.

Even today, by watching the few films of that time, the scenario of death and devastation caused by the bombing of familiar and dear places appears unreal.

On May 13, two raids, one in the afternoon and one at night, caused immense devastation in the almost deserted town.

Neither civilian homes nor places of worship were spared.

In the central Giuseppe Manno Street, the seventeenth-century church of Saints George and Catherine, named after the members of the Archconfraternity of the Genoese, patrons of their hometown, was completely destroyed by the bombs.

The epigraph placed in memory of that sacred place reads:

HERE RISED THE DEDICATED CHURCH TO SS. MM. GIORGIO AND CATERINA WHICH THE NATIONALS GENOESE BUILT IN THE XVI CENTURY AND WAS DESTROYED BY CRUENT AERIAL BOMBING ON 13-5-1943