'POISONOUS INFERNO'

As a survivor of the Bari Italy tragedy on 2 December 1943, I have recently had my book 'POISONOUS INFERNO' published. During and after a German air raid, described afterwards by the RAF as 'one of the finest executed air operations by the Luftwaffe in that theatre of war to date', seventeen Allied merchant ships were blown up and sunk and liquid mustard gas released into the harbour water causing 2000 casualties. The whole episode was shrouded in secrecy and censored for thirty years and little is known about it even today. On that night, an Allied convoy of twenty-one ships, carrying highly-inflammable fuel and ammunition was bombed by the Luftwaffe as its volatile cargo was being unloaded.

It was a devastating attack and the ships trapped in the overcrowded harbour soon became an exploding mass of burning oil and white hot metal. For many crew, survival from this mayhem was to leap into the harbour waters and pray for rescue. But the rescued and the rescuers did not know that they were immersed in a deadly cocktail of oil and liquid mustard gas. This is the story of that fatal night and its terrible lingering aftermath told by a man who was there.

If you, your shipmates, members and friends are interested, copies of the book can be obtained from all good bookshops, alternatively (discount price) from main book websites which includes brief synopsis.

Captain Robert McQueen RN Ret. CBE Gen Sec RNA reviewed the book....

Once started this book is impossible to put down'.

I am a member of the RBL and Poppy Appeal, Organiser for Scarborough, a member of the RNA, George Cross Island Ass. and an Honorary Citizen of Valletta.

George Southern BEM (Mil)

About the Author:

George Southern served in the Royal Navy from 1942 to 1946 aboard ships escorting convoys in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. At the time of the Bari tragedy he was a gunlayer on the destroyer HMS Zetland, one of the ill-fated convoy's escort vessels. It was not until a reunion in 1996 that he learned of the mustard gas and that seventeen ships had been lost on that dreadful night. This is the only book to have been published by a survivor, written for the families of the men who did not survive, the many who have passed away since and those few men still alive today.